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And a final (?) update on the Patreon situation (Patreon)

Published:
2017-12-13 18:50:05
Imported:
2026-06

Content

I don't know how many of you saw this newest update by Patreon already but in a nutshell: THEY LISTENED! The fee change is history.

What does this mean for me, OctoPrint and this campaign? Well, I for one will probably sleep better tonight than I did the whole past week, since I will have to worry a bit less about OctoPrint's future again. What I'll do for the campaign here - and that's important for the two hands full of you who already switched to the fee adjusted tiers - is remove those adjusted tiers again, which means you'll need to switch your pledge back over to the regular tiers to still be included in those. Sorry for the hassle, really! I figured it would be better to introduce those tiers ASAP instead of waiting for a life sign from Patreon, but now that that has come I'd rather not leave them in and confuse people (and let's face it - cost me fees that are no longer in the game now). If I could just grandfather those tiers, I would. But as far as I can see I don't have that option. I'll take another long hard look at the tier management though. Update: It turns out I could unpublish those tiers instead of just deleting them after all, which basically grandfathers them - wonderful! :)

What I'll leave up though is the liberapay account, and I'll also continue to look further into more options to support my work other than here or via PayPal - I've started on this now anyhow, might as well put it to good use ;)

I don't know yet what Patreon's next steps will be, what might happen next, but at least they seem to have gotten that THIS approach to changes was not the right one and that they should involve creators like me more in their decision making and brainstorming on how to solve issues. Let's hope that this will indeed happen and nothing like that stunt happens again.

Finally: Thank you so much for staying with me through this horrible mess! I'm so relieved, I can't put it into words, and the support from you was overwhelming - including from those of you who left but instead got in touch immediately via other ways. You all really rock!

Comments

Buddy Crotty

Thank you for the update(s)! I follow/support several creators here and you were the most pro-active in breaking down the situation, looking for alternative platforms, and updating your tiers to minimize the patron-side impact. I really appreciate you doing so much to make it easy to support you and OctoPrint.

Gary Tolley

Still nothing has changed for me. Happy to keep supporting you

Phil Maddox

please do continue to explore other options now Patreon has shown its true intent. Its only a matter of time before they get greedy again.

JAYTEE

Hey Gina, congrats on the outcome. I didn't alter any of my pledges so I'm glad Patreon have seen the error of their ways. Cheers, JAYTEE

Anonymous

Hey Gina, I just want you to know that my colleagues think I'm some kind of superhero in that I can make things. At the very center of those superpowers is OctoPrint! Thank you for everything you do!

Anonymous
>>8869473

Yup - What Phil said. I expect they will soon notify the creators that they will be getting less and less of the pedges. The man-in-the-middle must get thiers first. Still think I might just make a yearly donation via PayPal. Doesn't give you that nice monthly stream, but I suspect you get more of the pledge.

Anonymous

I'm a busy person. I didn't even notice this whole fee-asco (corny, I know) until I read this "final update". I read through Patreon's explanation of the fees, and I have to say, I think their heart was in the right place. (a) Not good that this disproportionately impacted $1-2 patrons; and (b) not great that they didn't coordinate this with creators... I'm a $10 contributor, and I would not have minded in the least paying the extra (if my math is right) 64 cents per month. I hope they can work this out in a way that stabilizes your income, possibly reduces your fees (I'd rather foot the fees myself - I'm contributing to your creativity!), and sort of make everyone happy. Patreon is trying to do the right thing, and the challenges are pretty understandable.

Anonymous
>>8869473

I'm not sure it's fair to say Patreon has "shown its true intent" or that they will "get greedy again". I think they were pretty clear in explaining why the existing fee structure is challenging for creators, and that they're trying to stabilize creator income and reduce creator confusion. As a patron, I think it's a noble effort for Patreon to do this. The small nit is that they (as they admitted) stepped inbetween creators and their patrons without coordinating it ahead of time. None of this seems reasonably to constitute greed or ill intention. I think we've sort of lost our way, bashing Patreon for trying to do a very important service for their creators.

Anonymous

Thank you for all that you do! I am proud to say that I have contributed something each month so that you can continue developing OctoPrint. It truly is an awesome creation! Thank you again!

Anonymous

they listened . . . . because you are a blizzard inside a storm inside a tornado and a BIG truck driving thru . . . . man . . . you are impressive

Phil Maddox
>>8869473

Fair enough Bryan, we are all entitled to an opinion and in many ways I can see your point of view. However, I follow a far more "if it isn't broken don't fix it" approach. Patreon obviously set up Patreon and in doing so attracted creators under certain conditions. We then, as supporters likewise agreed to certain conditions. To then attempt to alter the fee structure to the detriment of the supporters is unreasonable and unfair. It all has a very "bankesque" feel about it. Its fine if somebody looses out as long as it's not Patreon! Unlike a bank, i can easily live without Patreon.

foosel
>>8883272

I tried to be a loud voice here, but I think my voice still was a very small and silent one compared to the shitstorm they found themselves into with pretty much their whole platform revolting ;)

foosel
>>8869473

Let me just add to this that I will continue to explore other options not because I think they "showed their true face" but rather because it's the sane thing to do to not put all eggs in one basket. I'm with Bryan here - considering that they were planning to go away from a model of consolidating pledges at the start of the month and instead have payment cycles going basically all the time (and hence no way to batch process), it makes a lot of sense that they were looking at more fees and trying to find a solution for that (changing to that model I'd also have been up in arms on my own behalf). However, planning to go away from batch processing to solve the problem of pledge fraud was the wrong solution to begin with, exactly because that would blow up fees tremendously. So in a nutshell - I no longer think that this was necessarily a money grab, I think they indeed thought this was a good solution to a specific problem they were seeing, but they didn't think it through very well and forgot that probably the majority of patrons pledge small sums to many instead of huge sums to some and hence would be disproportionally affected by this. Anyway... I'm cautious, I'll continue looking into offering other options, but this move on their part of rolling this back instead of sitting it out is something that IMHO at least speaks to them being able to admit failure, which is somewhat uncommon these days. It still doesn't get me back around 50 patrons and ~150$ per month, but it also decreases the probability of me getting back from my christmas vacation and finding myself at an unsustainable level, unable to continue to work on this. Maybe as a bit of an "inside view", they've become more active on the creator forums and I hope that they'll stick to that and talk to us there more.

Phil Maddox
>>8869473

I think, like many, i fund my Patreon contributions thru Paypal which in turn is funded thru my credit card so there are also other fee considerations at least as far as i am concerned. Patreon has bitten the hand that feeds and their limp apology does nothing to restore any level of trust. All I want is to support the creators that provide good content on a regular basis.

Anonymous

I stopped my support on patron.. the proposed changes were not sensible at all.. I have a set amount I donate per month to multiple creators .. the one off payment per month is easy to manage. And for those who can only afforded to donate a little, a lot of little contributions adds up.. as for the fees passing them into the contributers is also a no-no no one expects the service to be free but it should be up to the creators to judge whether the fees make the platform worth using. Anyway I'm glad it's sorted and hopefully they will consult they're users before any changes are made in future.

Eli Perrone

As promised, I've re-submitted my pledge. I never planned on removing support, but it was the one way that I could send a message to Patreon. Apparently, the outcry was loud enough that they saw the errors of their ways. Anyhow, thanks again for OctoPrint, and for all you've done. PS: Goon

Ricky Theil

I've also restarted. Glad they figured it out. Though I'm going to doubt they've learned their lesson. This is just another one of those things where the people at the top make all the decisions without asking those who it has the greatest effect on. What's worse is that the CEO continued to defend it after it all started falling apart. What an idiot.

Malu Minse

They made the right decision thank goodness.