Patreon and what's coming in 2018 (Patreon)

OK, this has nothing to do with 'in SECURITY', but I do think I should address it here so folks know what's going on.

On December 18 Patreon will change how they charge their service fee. Previously they took their fees off what the creators were earning.  But apparently those fees changed month to month (honestly, I haven't seen any significant change in what I received after fees since the beginning of the year).

However, the new system shifts the charged fees from creator to the pledger, meaning you soon have to pay a bit extra, to be exact 35 cents + 2.9% of your pledged amount per month on top of your pledge.

If I'm the only creator you support this is only a small amount. However, if you do support several creators you'll have to pay that fee for each and every creator you support. 

In the official Patreon blog they explain the new system and what their thoughts are behind it: https://blog.patreon.com/updating-patreons-fee-structure/

Here is an article about the concerns and critique about those changes: https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/07/patreons-new-service-fee-spurs-concern-that-creators-will-lose-patrons/

My personal opinion about this whole issue...I don't like it.  As much as I wish to take home more of the pledges, Patreon runs on a system of generosity, and asking people who voluntarily support you to also cover the fees for the platform you are using is not right. 

I was thinking of lowering all my tiers in order to not cause you guys extra costs. However, Patreon doesn't let me change the price of a tier once someone subscribed to it. Creating alternative tiers would be an option but I'm afraid that will cause a lot of confusion and hassle...

I dearly hope that Patreon will listen to the concerns of their users (so far I have not heard from a single one who was in favor of their new system) and reverse that decision. 

However, in case they won't, I will not hold it against you if you adjust or even delete your pledge due to the extra costs.

There are a couple other avenues to support me, such as the tipping system on Tapas (https://tapas.io/series/In-SECURITY), Ko-Fi (https://www.ko-fi.com/insecurity) and Redbubble for merch (https://www.redbubble.com/people/insecurity)

However Patreon is still an important cornerstone for me to fund this comic. I love the idea and I love to interact with my supporters. I honestly hope the change in how they charge their fees will not wreck this awesome system :(