Final Patreon Update — I AM SO HAPPY TO SHARE THIS!! (Patreon)

(sorry this is so long, tl;dr at the bottom)

If you hadn't heard about the new Patreon changes, they were rolling out a new system to accommodate people being charged as soon as they pledge, which benefits creators and helps prevent people taking advantage of the current system (getting content for free and then canceling their pledge before they get charged). 

But because people were getting charged right away, instead of on the first, they were naturally annoyed when they'd get charged again on the first. 

In order to avoid doing that, Patreon was trying to switch to an "anniversary" model where people who donated on, say, the 29th of the month wouldn't be charged again til the 29th of the next month. Which sounds great in theory, but irl meant they couldn't consolidate transaction fees anymore, which meant WAY more transaction fees.

Since some creators were already annoyed at how much transaction fees cut into what they were taking home, Patreon didn't want them to have to bear the extra transaction fees too. That would have hurt those creators. So they decided to ask patrons to pay them. 

Most creators I know were NOT happy about this, and almost EVERY creator AND patron I've talked to has been upset about the fact that there are now so many transaction fees that pledging small amounts to many different creators is no longer feasible. 

Long story short, Patreon thought this would be better financially for the creators, and all the quantitative data showed that after the dust settled in a month or two, it would be. But they didn't do enough qualitative research (actually talking to people) and so they didn't realize how it would affect us on a real level. 

They acknowledge that while financially this *was* putting creators first -- it really wasn't, because this is NOT the change creators want. If a change isn't good for our community, it isn't good for us, no matter what the numbers say. <3  

So Patreon is NOT going through with the changes. 

They DO need to solve the problem of being able to charge patrons as soon as they donate without then double charging them a few days later, but they're going back to the drawing board to figure out other ways to solve it -- and inviting creators to be part of the process. So next time we're all going to have a say in what changes are made, and WAY more notice. 

TL;DR Patreon was trying to solve a problem, didn't handle it well, listened to our feedback and decided to find another way. (yay!)