tegerio
patreon
Okay, they're not gonna do it.
🕑 Added 2017-12-14 04:44:07 +0000 UTC After a week of complete pandemonium and patrons jumping ship like .. something that leaves quickly in large panicking groups .. Patreon realized the new fee scheme was probably a Bad Idea. I've received an official email informing me that the plan is off.This after I just put all of the "real" prices in my tier descriptions and created a new reward that was going to cost exactly $22.99 with the new fees! Now that tier doesn't make any sense at all.
Patreon says they will be taking their time and listening to input while they decide what to do next, because the problems this fee scheme was supposed to solve still exist.
I know far too much about one of those problems: BOTS. My first few months were plagued with fake pledges every day, messing up my earnings amount with dollars I would never get, and throwing my goal celebrations all a-kilter. The problem has been solved for me because they finally switched me to pay-up-front.
Ah, but pay-up-front leads to another problem: If someone pledges in the middle of a month (let's say on the 15th for the sake of convenience) they are immediately charged the full amount but they only get a half-month's access, and are charged again fifteen days later (after which their billing will be aggregated on the 1st of every month.)
How bothered are you by the fact that your first pledge is full price but lasts for only part of a month? Should new pledges perhaps be prorated so you pay a fraction depending on how much of the month remains before the next normal billing cycle?
Comments
And February will be FREE!
Angry Nerd Bird
You should get charged every month, on the same date you first pledged on. With days that aren't always present (Such as pledging on the 31st) your next charge would instead kick in 30 days later, and then repeat on THAT date from then on.
The running total is what they were doing before, but the problem was that pirates could fake-pledge and get up to a month's free access, stealing all of an artist's content without paying anything. Pay-up-front stops this because it requires you to .. well .. pay up front. Bots are immediately rejected because they don't have money to spend.
Simone Spinozzi
Pay upfront access at half month or near month's end is offset by the fact that the patron has access to the past of the feed. And also is usually seen as a contribution. If pay upfront becomes the norm this could lead to a lot of patrons stopping sending their rewards as mid-month private messages and just put said rewards at their supposed pledge level as rewards.
Terri Mouse
Not sure I really have a reason to reply, as currently I'm still not an actual patron or anything, but... had I had the funds to be a patron right now, I wouldn't mind getting charged the full amount and not getting it pro-rated. I've been on the other side, after all; I used to take commissions (heck, I used to draw on a regular basis), so I know that money's definitely a thing of need... God, it's a thing of need.
benin81812
I'm glad they changed their minds. There are so many better ways they could have done this. How 'bout keeping a running total of pledges for the month then settling up on billing day. That seems to have been a popular way of doing business for, I don't know, several <u>centuries</u> now. I'm not bothered at all by paying the full pledge. The primary purpose of this place is to support artists, so I don't see it as buying something, but as reward - and you almost always get access to the full month's rewards in any case.
