> First, they un-aggregated charges, so that a $1 pledge costs $1.37, and ten $1 pledges costs $13.70
According to what I’ve heard, this was requested by credit card processors, because people would revoke the patreon charge, not understand why they’d be charged such a random amount every month.
Instead, they were supposed to charge every patron for every creator separately, and make it clear on the bill for which creator that is.
I fully expect that they will have to keep this unbundling.
Patreon, to my knowledge, has never said this. The move would be understandable if it were true, but they've instead offered different rationales (like "creators want to be paid out faster on new pledges"). If this were the reason for the new model, I can't think of a reason Patreon wouldn't publicly say so - it would've won a lot more sympathy.
> "creators want to be paid out faster on new pledges"
This is exactly the reason. The important follow-up question is: which creators?
Patreon supports two fundamentally different groups. One uses the platform for pure donations, where there are no exclusive perks to becoming a patron. This group doesn't care about faster payout because there's nothing riding on it.
The other group uses Patreon as a paywall platform. They care a lot about payout speed, to prevent people from joining quickly to gain access to the paywalled content, then canceling their payment before start of the next month.
The paywall group is where the money is, because Patreon's model doesn't provide the mutual assurance necessary to convince people to fund public (unrestricted, infinitely-reproducible) goods. And so, inevitably, the platform will cater to the paywall group.
Patreon should use a prepaid wallet for this group. It should continue aggregating for the first.
I'm happy to foot a 50c or so service fee per month. I'm not up for paying 35% service fees! That's outrageous and I'm confident someone else will start the right service and creators will simply move there.
I've seen no evidence or mentions of that particular rationale. They claimed they un-aggregated to support their "pay up front" model and start charging pledges on the anniversary of the pledge date.
They mention it below the original announcement, though they don't give any numbers.
> Not only that, but if you’re a creator on the monthly plan without the benefit of charge up front, you are constantly worried that your patrons are going to delete their pledges before they’ve paid.
That doesn't say it was requested by credit card processors. As I understand it, the concern there is that they don't want people to pledge, get access to patron-only content, and then revoke their pledge.
According to what I’ve heard, this was requested by credit card processors, because people would revoke the patreon charge, not understand why they’d be charged such a random amount every month.
Instead, they were supposed to charge every patron for every creator separately, and make it clear on the bill for which creator that is.
I fully expect that they will have to keep this unbundling.