This is ultimately the risk of being committed to a single payment platform for your income. No, I won’t leave Patreon, because that’s not an option for me that would include continuing my business. But I have every intention of being salty over this mess.
We all know about Patreon’s initial decision to change the fee structure. It lost me about $70ish/month in pledges (actually probably more since I usually grow a little each month). But that was okay, until now. I stood to gain over $100/month from the fee change, so while my patrons were sour, I’d come out on top overall. Would have rather this had not happened, but what was done was done. Moving forward, I stood to gain even more because patrons would come in knowing the terms of the agreement, rather than having a surprise dumped on them unexpectedly. We all stood to gain, long term.
And now that decision has been reversed. So not only have we lost a considerable amount of money in pledges (the full extent to which can never be pinned down, because we don’t know how long each pledge would have lasted), but now there is absolutely no silver lining, no compensation for the incredibly foolish attempt at rocking the boat.
So thanks for that. Much appreciated. Merry goddamn Christmas.
I feel like you. Now it’s changed once the damage is done. But I know that some of my patrons don’t keep up with all the posts and emails and were probably oblivious to what was happening and would have had another exodus once the new billing was sent out. So hopefully that doesn’t happen now.
Honestly, some patrons definitely would have been impacted way more than others, but I think everyone got upset out of the fear that they were the ones being shafted the most (because math is scary and having $0.35+2.9% thrown in your face doesn’t generally garner the most measured and logical reactions - they’re supporting artists, not applying for a fucking mortgage). There likely would have been an additional exodus once billing started, but I wonder if it would have been smaller in magnitude.
We lost like 30% of our patreons. We needed those dudes to keep us running. It will be a slow climb back. But I’m glad patreon didnt keep the changes. They at least listen to their community.
Thanks for sharing - and this is a real consequence. I’m sharing this internally to a broader Patreon audience.
Please know that we are emailing all patrons who changed pledges shortly, so would like to know how this impacts you once this goes out as well as how the next few days go for you.
I’ll keep you posted on how many come back. To be honest though, I’m not optimistic.
One of the beautiful things about Patreon is the fact that you get a lot of small pledges that are recurring continually. People tend to forget about them. In my case, it allows me to keep my barriers low (my setup involves me actually critiquing the work patrons do for my free drawing lessons) because of all the patrons who don’t actually ask anything of me - probably because they’ve forgotten.
So now that they’ve been spooked into remembering those pledges even exist, I don’t really expect that many of them will come back. Hopefully I’m wrong. Ultimately, at least I’m not in nearly as bad a boat as MemeInsider. I’ll recover just fine, but I’m concerned about those who might not.
The original announcement made Patreon look greedy and out-of-touch. The reversal makes Patreon look like it doesn’t know what it’s doing.
If we’d been allowed to ride out the storm, we would have stabilized. People would have forgotten that Patreon didn’t have ridiculous fees attached to dollar pledges at some point in its history and we could have all moved on. Now? I just don’t know.
While I can agree that eventually things would have subsided because that’s what happens (but who knows what the damage would be overall in terms of support lost, people actually not using the platform, etc, which, people are already coming back now that they’ve pulled the fees.) I absolutely do not agree that Patreon listening and pulling it should be something to scorn them over. It takes people with big hearts to take in that much flack and actually listen, because yeah, it is a hit to the pride and outlook on a company for blundering that kind of roll out. They really shouldn’t be chastised for listening to all the feedback that was being dolled out, especially with some people who very specifically pointed out the math for their situations and how it wouldn’t have them coming out on top. Let alone the fact that now that it’s been pulled, people are giving them flack over pulling it and looking ‘weak’. This will really only cause Patreon, in the future, to think twice before hearing their audience if they get nothing but flack in return for something a good majority of people were disagreeing with. If you scorn a child for sharing enough times, they will stop sharing. (Not saying Patreon staff are children, but people will only realistically deal with so much blow back before making choices solely for themselves.)
(I’m not saying don’t voice your oppinions, btw. Just my two cents.)
I’m reporting what my patrons are telling me. The company feels unstable and people feel weird about it.
Patreon can feel bad. They can reverse their announcement and they can apologize, but, as they’ve noted, they have a lot of work ahead to rebuild trust. Reminding them of that doesn’t seem out of place to me, considering the enormity of their mistake.
You’re happy with their response. That makes me happy for you! I am completely gutted by what they’ve done in the last ten days. I wish I felt like you do, but I don’t.
That is fair and i’m so sorry you feel that way. It is certainly not my first rodeo with things like this so i know what that feels like and it sucks.
As i edited my post to say, i’m not saying don’t voice your opinions or to NOT keep Patreon on their toes about their promises. (I know i will!) I am not 100% without salt on what’s happened. While i seemed to have been impacted less than others in the fallout, I did not agree with what they were doing, how they were doing it and their lack of communication, however yes, they have rocked the boat and people do feel it is unstable, but really, people would have also felt that way after the fee change as well. (I hear complaints all the time about how people feel about patreon and it’s always been unstable/questionable.) Both scenarios would have balanced out with time (and effort from Patreon’s part to uphold their end of the bargain.) People will always have a reaction to these things and sometimes even just Patreon not getting to a feature fast enough for some have caused people to leave. Working on a project like this, in any industry, is like riding in a boat with holes. New holes pop up all the time and you do your best to get the water out and leaks fixed but more will always crop up and you may loose some of your rations/passengers along the way for one reason or another. It is inevitable. But the aim is to make a good product that your user base wants, with the communication and attention they deserve. (And of course, making a profitable product so you can continue doing what you’re doing.) Not putting people into shock from what seemed like a brash last second decision without consulting those who the feature would be for.
Overall I feel better knowing that Patreon is a company willing to pony up when they screw up than just stubbornly sticking to every change like it’s the only way. (Their lack of communication about it didn’t help their situation either. Talking about it and baby-stepping people into a change and making sure they understand and can accept it is kind of important. It’s kind of the principle of the thing for a lot of people as well.)
I do not see how it is a bad thing for a company to reverse their policy when they have the majority of their creators and many patrons protesting it.
Yes, it will take time for Patreon to recover and probably a lot longer for some of us to return to our previous number of patrons, but if they’re willing to admit to making a mistake and work with us in the future we will be better off moving forward at this point.
Damage is damage. We’ll survive it and muddle on through no doubt. I’m hoping that Patreon has a listen to some of the eminently sensible options going forward. Or even implements the ability to choose how it works.
At first i thought you had recovered all and did a celebratory WOOHOO but then i re-read it and now i’m not positive my initial impression was correct. The wording is messing with me today. I must be more tired than I thought.
I hope you get back all your pledges soon! I know a good many who’ve gotten all or very nearly all of them back but some who haven’t. (I know a lot of patrons don’t check back super often and considering it’s the holidays for a good number of them, i don’t blame them for not keeping track. I expect the end of the month will be busier for people re-pledging. Best wishes!
(Not saying Patreon staff are children, but people will only realistically deal with so much blow back before making choices solely for themselves.)
