Patreon On Some Nonsense Again
WELP.
In addition to literally everything being on fire on every level, Patreon has chosen to not delay their marvelous billing changes and plow on ahead with them as of this month.
Many changes took effect at Patreon today, with more to come in November--pretty much all devastating to creators' income, especially those of us who rely on Patreon to...you know...not die.
It's this shit, only now it's just happening to everyone.
We knew these changes were coming, though we hoped they'd see the light (as they sometimes had before) and many of us have tried to ameliorate them as best we could, but despite the world economy looking the way it does, Patreon chose to press ahead with them.
I woke up to my income slashed by 28% despite no change in patrons. I'm not alone, many, many creators did--all while our economy burns.
I'm honestly not sure what to do, but there's a few things. Not a lot, but a few.
The main changes are: any subscriptions made through the iOS/Apple store now have the 30% fee applied, which comes out of our portion of the sub. It also seems iOS subscriptions are now subject to a 75 DAY hold, which is truly beyond any normal processing time.
This is why most folks lost around 30% overnight.
If you want to help out, obviously, becoming a patron if you weren't before (especially the over 600 of you who signed up during the last insane UI change which led folks to believe signing up for free got you access to all tiers and, probably confusingly, haven't gotten much of anything because that's literally not how Patreon itself told anyone it worked) would help shore up the gaping hole we're all grappling with.
But if you do this, for me or anyone, or change your tier, do it through a BROWSER, which circumvents all these issues. There are no extra fees when you use the browser to sign up or change your tier.
You could also email #Patreon, as we've all done, & complain. I'm not sure they're listening, though.
If you're already a patron and you signed up through the Apple store, unfortunately, cancelling & re-subscribing through a browser will only work at the end of a billing cycle, as they won't take a new sub before the current cycle is up.
But beyond that...it doesn't look like good. We are already terrified--artists are always considered expendable & economic chaos means no one has much wiggle room. To do this do the hundreds of thousands of artists who rely on #Patreon to live when it's about to cost $50 for a fucking carton of milk is utterly gutting.
Every one of the changes that took effect this month (and a few more that will take effect in November) takes money away from creators & gives it to Patreon & Apple. Hardly anyone can just eat an instant 30% drop in income--except companies like that, but they'll be fine. Of course they will! Number go up!
Will we? I don't know.
It feels gross to even put out there that there's not much of a way through except to somehow magically make a bunch of new patrons appear out of thin air. But that's basically where Patreon has left us. Boxer says I will work harder, but Boxer ended up glue. You know?
As a neurodiverse single parent of a neurodiverse kid deeply struggling to find a way to complete work while not neglecting my child & also living in fear of my own government's plans for us, I feel so helpless. Knocked down by all this at the time I can least afford it. I know others have it worse.
And that's the best I can explain it, & I'm sure I'm not the only one you've seen in the sea of troubles we all live in freaking out at having to swallow yet another portion of garbage so that line go up.
I can't begin to express my gratitude for all of you, the patrons who support my work and make living life and feeding my child remotely possible; it's none of our fault. Jesus Christ, you're all my fucking heroes every single month and not in a geologic age could I ever repay even one of you for what you've done for us.
Which is part of why this is all so galling. We trust this site to build our beautiful communities, and most of the time, it behaves and is beyond blessings--but every once in awhile, they seem to forget that they work for us, not the other way around.
Like a lot of things at the moment, there's just not a lot of recourse for us poor bastards on the ground.
I meekly conclude by saying that if you wanted to upgrade from a free or other membership, or go over and sign up for my Substack, even, it would be an enormous help. Just do it thorugh your browser.
I understand if you can't, believe me.
I wish it weren't this way, & I hope it won't be someday. Fuck everything.
I will post pretty things soon, I promise. In the meantime, if you want to discuss this or other topics, come join us on the Discord.
Comments (18)
And all because Patreon wanted to have a stupid app... PS: the Discord invite link isn't working.
I'm glad I joined via browser, then! I'm so sorry about all this.
I'm sorry to hear this. I can't give much but I just upgraded to the $1 a month level.
Hello 👋
Ugh, I'm sorry, Cat. But so many of us are here for you, and we're not going anywhere.
I upped my pledge by a little bit. I’m sorry Patreon is responding to the self-immolation of America by lighting a bunch of artists on fire so they can make s’mores with Apple. I had a whole long thing written out about shame and how fucked up it is that you have to feel weird about asking for money. But then I felt weird too, because if someone was sending me money and also lecturing me on how I should feel about that, I would immediately feel worse. Which kicked off a pretty self-indulgent shame spiral for me, and who even has the energy for that? My god. In conclusion: who the fuck knows, take my fucking $30 and feel however the fuck you want to feel about it. Hang in there.
Hello -- can you please tell me (and any others who happen to see this) whether at this time new monthly vs new annual subscriptions (from browser ofc!) would be more advantageous to you?
Generally monthly is better because steadier. But at this moment until I can figure out how to shore up the hole in the budget, annual helps a ton
There is so much terrible news these days, but I did have a good experience at one of the April 5 Day Of Action Hands Off protests today. It was heartening. I heard several people describe the experience as "heartening"! I attended a protest in a not huge, relatively affluent suburb which I had thought was more conservative than liberal. The protest was amazing. The whole area around City Hall was packed. People were also lining both sides of the street with signs, and crossing the crosswalk with their signs (legally, with the lights.) Many of the cars going by or stopped at the red light were honking in solidarity. Everyone in town seemed to be supporting the protest; I did not see even one person counterprotesting or even looking at us less than enthusiastically. Even a big tanker truck honked its big air horn for us! There were several people speaking in front of City Hall - a School Board member speaking about education, a doctor speaking about medical research, religious leaders speaking about love and taking care of each other, etc. There were people of all ages, all backgrounds, all genders, all shapes, sizes, and abilities, with lots of different signs about different issues, all in solidarity and support of each other. Afterwards, I ran into someone I know, and while we were sitting and talking, we met someone who had been to a protest in another affluent suburb earlier in the day, and she said that one was also packed and huge, diverse group. The friend I met has been to a lot of protests, and she had never seen one with this diverse a group, and this was in a town I thought was mostly Republicans!
The next big nationwide protest is October 18th!
I'm for sure mad at Patreon but I'm EXTRA MAD at Apple for this. They refused to make any compromise with Patreon AT ALL, other than the putative postponement. Being Apple, they didn't have to, and that's the part I'm maddest about. No, I don't think creators OR patrons should have to suck up the 30% hit - but I also know if I was in Patreon's shoes, they couldn't just absorb it either, which was the only other option. Had I been them, however, I would have tried to work out some kind of share-the-pain plan - it wasn't Patreon's idea or choice and they did fight it pretty hard, but it sure as shit wasn't ours either. I wish they'd done something like THEY absorb 10% of the Apple-through-mobile fees, and then give creators the option of absorbing 10% and asking those patrons (thankfully not all of them) to absorb the final 10%, or the creator could take the whole 20% hit. Patreon just being like, "welp, we tried, Apple told us to fuck off, too bad for you lot" is appalling, though of course not surprising, and being deeply angry at them is the only right answer. But let's not forget to save a solid bucket of vitriol for Apple, as the greedmonster that is actually the prime cause of this whole festering shit explosion.
Hello beautiful how are you feeling today dear?
Boooo! Boo to Patreon! I'm sorry you have to go through this.
Ditto to the other Lee. When I signed up today on Patreon to support you, I went with the monthly option instead of the annual one so that I can switch more easily later based on your updates. Also, even if Patreon is evil, I'm so swamped during the week that I was worried if I waited while I read & researched more, it'd be Monday, I'd be buried with work, and then I'd forget. I have a terrible memory... so fast action is better than none, at least with me. With social media, I'm strictly a Satur- & Sun- Day Tripper.
Hello beautiful how are you feeling today dear?
I *think* I signed up through a browser/Patreon--I don't do IOS/Apple store except for occasional iTunes purchases so ...
I really hoped they'd remember who they work for here ffs. I can't do substack (no money to the nazi bar) but I definitely signed up paying through a browser for you. Still, I now need to try and figure out who I do need to unsub and resub to 🤦 Or just do everyone I've had longer subs to, so I don't miss anyone. This sucks and is ridiculous.
You should be able to go into the subscription area on your Apple device and look there to see if any of your Patreon subs are through them. Probably faster than any other way of finding out.