on patreon changes & quick personal note (Patreon)

it's been brought to my attention that patreon is going to be going through some changes pledge-wise. most of you probably know already but i'll type something up here just to make sure there's no misunderstandings. 

if you haven't already, you might wanna read through this; https://blog.patreon.com/updating-patreons-fee-structure/

there's been mixed responses, as you'd expect. basically, tl;dr - patreon will be charging an upfront $0.35 and 2.9% fee from patrons but creators will get a higher cut. i have mixed feelings on this myself too - i mean, on one hand, it's better for creators in the long run. to put this into perspective, if you're pledging, let's say, $10 to me right now - once patreon takes their cut of that and paypal also take a cut to shift the money over to my bank, i'll only get $6-7. obviously patreon's current cut isn't fair. i mean, if you're pledging me money you expect me to actually get that amount of money, not 2/3 of it. at least this way you're upfront told what you'll be charged and the creators you want to support will be better off out of it.

my only concern is that, obviously, this'll scare some patrons away. i think this new system needs to be reconsidered for smaller pledges, like $0.35 additional payment is a lot on a $1 pledge.

but hey, i don't know. i think patreon has creators' best interests in mind. i really do, or at least i hope so. they realise there's currently a big problem and they're trying to fix it, and i can't really think up many better solutions. hopefully if patrons are scared away it won't be anything so massive that it really affects the medium.

but yeah, i thought i'd say something here so that nobody feels mislead or lied to. you're welcome to change your pledge to me or withdraw or whatever if this change really affects you, i won't take it personally. 

that's all i have to say on that matter. i'd also like to mention that patreon's slowly implementing a pay upfront system. it won't affect current patrons, but that means whenever you pledge to a new creator they'll take your first payment from you right away instead of waiting until the first of the next month. in my opinion, this is super needed. i've only been using patreon for six months or so and there's been three or four people who've pledged to me to get the rewards for that month and then have pulled out right before the money went through, which really isn't fair.

i'm done talking about patreon now, haha. i think.

quick finishing note, i just wanted to apologise for not posting so much so far in december. i planned to post every 3-5 days through the whole of this month to end this year with a bang, but the last few days have been really... uneventful for me. i caught a fever, got super sick and i was getting over it enough to record by yesterday afternoon but then my grandad (who's honestly like my dad, he's always always been there for me) literally collapsed and had a minor heart attack in front of me. he's going to be okay, but i was pretty shaken and basically had to sleep it off, so no recording last night. i'll try again tonight but no promises because i'm really tired and still slightly off. i'm sorry, but i didn't expect all of this to happen honestly. if i can record tonight i'll have a video up tomorrow and if not i'll have one up on sunday, promise!! hopefully after this i'll be able to get back into it. 

but yeah, thanks for reading all of this. i don't know how you guys feel on the whole patreon situation, but we'll have to see how it goes once it actually sets in.

~ shadow.