I'll pilot, thanks

Patreon has just notified me of a new "Autopilot" system to periodically offer discounts, incentives, and promotions - primarily to encourage free members to join at a paid tier and encourage paid members to stay instead of leaving. I've turned the feature OFF. This channel functions without consumer marketing tricks and I value that simplicity. I make stuff, you keep me alive. Simple.

I'll keep making the best stuff I can in the hopes it'll keep me alive. If someone doesn't want to support what I'm doing, I don't want a bot trying to retain them with discounts. I want to know where we stand and move from there.

Thanks for reading, not sure why I felt like posting this, but something about the Autopilot feature idea irks me. It's like recipe sites or blogs that, without fail, pop up to ask you to sign up for their newsletter. It's like trying to unsubscribe from a service and having to refuse three discount offers to try to retain your account. It's an added layer that we'll all come to expect, but I don't like it.

Autopilot was automatically set to ON, and I had to manually opt out, so I'm sure many, if not most, creators will keep the Autopilot service active. I'm sure it will have some impact on the pure numbers for some creators, but I wonder how it will feel to have a strong automated component as a long-term part of the relationship between creators and patrons. My instinct says it'll feel bad.