Patreon, a platform that allows "patrons" to give money to directly to artists and other content creators, is adding a processing fee to what patrons pledge, which could drive users away:
Patreon is defending a new payment structure that critics say hurts smaller artists. The change, which goes into effect on December 18th, adds a processing fee to each individual patron pledge, instead of taking the cut out of creators' total earnings. Because this fee includes a flat 35-cent charge on top of a percentage, it disproportionately affects people making small pledges, or pledging to multiple artists. Artists have complained that they're losing patrons after the announcement — but Patreon says it's an inevitable consequence of some other changes to the platform.
Patreon initially said that this fee made artists' earnings more predictable, because they'd only have to worry about a single 5 percent cut taken by Patreon. In an update, however, the company said that's not all that's going on. It's apparently linked to a minor-seeming change in when Patreon processes pledges.
Previously, Patreon charged for most pledges at the start of the month, but also let artists charge first-time backers as soon as they pledged. People seemed to be "double-charged" if they signed up toward the end of a month, so Patreon switched to charging them at the monthly anniversary of their initial pledge. Patreon says that means that more individual transactions are being processed, which jacks up credit card fees. (To make things even more complicated, some people pledge per-video or per-post, adding more rounds of payments.) So rather than dramatically cutting how much money creators get, it's passing that fee to backers.
[...] Some critics have characterized this as a deliberately exploitative or bad-faith move from Patreon; a widely cited thread by author Chris Buecheler suggests that the platform is under pressure from investors. But Patreon has also simply spent a long time struggling with its payment system. It introduced upfront payments — the source of the "double-charging" issue — because artists complained that patrons would sign up for perks and cancel before their first payment. Now, it's apparently trying to solve a problem with that system, and creating another issue in the process.
One of the common solutions for someone getting demonetized on YouTube? Start a Patreon.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by epitaxial on Saturday December 09 2017, @10:52PM (4 children)
Right now Patreon bills you once a month for all your pledges. Say you pledged $1 for someone who made 10 videos that month. Now Patreon tacks on a processing fee to EACH $1 pledge. So now you're paying that fee ten times. In my example its 37 cents for every $1. So besides your $10 pledges you're now going to back an additional $3.70 for a total of $13.70. Pure cash grab from Patreon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 10 2017, @12:27AM
Yes, I thought this was bizarre. I had thought Patreon had ended the per-work contributions for per-period, at least all of mine are monthly. I will be somewhat annoyed if they tack on fees to each transaction rather than doing it as a lump sum, though I suppose we are also covering the payout end too. Does anybody know how you actually get money out of Patreon? Do they just deposit it in a linked bank account or something?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 10 2017, @01:06AM (2 children)
Beggars can't be choosers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 10 2017, @08:23AM
They sure can! https://wiki.snowdrift.coop/market-research/other-crowdfunding [snowdrift.coop]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday December 11 2017, @12:51AM
https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Atheregister.co.uk+lily+cole [google.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]