Next up; + Important Billing Update! (Patreon)

Hey friends! I’m very excited about my upcoming project, in which I’m going to explore the multiverse! More specifically; I’m going to examine the rising popularity of stories that feature some concept of the multiverse, and what they reveal on that deeper, thematic level about the state of modern existence. I came up with a rather unconventional, pretty wacky structure for this video, and I think it’s going to be a lot of fun, and hopefully also; quite insightful!

Also, there’s something else that I’ve been thinking about for a long time and, unless there’s any objections (please let me know below or send me a private message), I want to change the billing structure from per video to per month. I think this is easier both for all of you, as well as for myself.

To start with what this implies for your donation: a monthly pledge versus a per video one means that you’ll always know exactly when and how much you’re donating. To be fair; given that I only upload one video per month anyways, I don’t think this part makes that much of a difference in practice. A more interesting option that becomes available with a per month structure is the option to donate for a whole year, which comes with a nice discount!

As for the more personal reasons for making this change. For one; it would take a lot of stress away from my holidays, because every time I’m planning a vacation I have the added stress of not having a full month to make a video, and therefore; the stress of missing out on a month’s income, which in turn has me either rushing one out or overworking myself in the weeks before, and that isn’t exactly ideal for anyone. Right now for example, I have a big trip coming up in August; a member of my extended family is getting married in Singapore and so I am going to be in Asia for most of the month. It’s going to be quite expensive I fear, and so the idea of losing out on a significant chunk of my income isn’t making me sleep any easier.

Secondly, and more generally, I want to move to an effort based incentive instead of an outcome based one. Or in others words; I want to be able to let go of the idea that no video means no money, and instead work based on the idea that a bad / low effort video means no money. As of now, making one video per month is perfectly reasonable, but there have been times in the past where I had to split a video into multiple parts solely for the sake of getting something out at the end of the month. Also, I have some ideas for bigger projects that are perpetually shelved because I know they would take me longer than a month to produce, and I’m just not at the point financially where I can sacrifice a month’s income to make that happen. And so, with a per month structure, I also open the door to such projects (these will be exceptions though, not the rule).

I can imagine people might be worried here that this also opens the door to me being lazier and me not working as hard to get videos done, but that’s where the power of your donation lies; if you think I’m losing my consistency too much or that the quality of my videos starts to decrease, please always feel free to lower or delete your pledge, trust me, I’ll notice! Also, I still have other incentives to keep up my current schedule (sponsors; YouTube adsense; general sense of consistency), and so in practice I don’t think much will change for the most part, but it will me some extra leeway in exceptional situations.

I hope this explains everything well enough, if you have any questions or worries, please let me know! Thanks!