Tag Archives: fees

Pretty Good Week

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It’s been an interesting week so far–and in a good way.

Roy Moore lost his Senate race in Alabama. Granted, it was much closer than I’d have preferred, but as our illustrious president said, “A win is a win.”

Of course, that’s something Mr. Moore apparently doesn’t understand. He’s convinced that God will make sure the absentee ballots still being counted will give him the victory. Does anyone think he’ll reconsider his belief that God is on his side if he doesn’t win?

For that matter, does anyone think his refusal to concede and the likely forthcoming demand for a recount is anything other than a cynical ploy to keep the election results from being certified until after Congress passes the tax ripoff? Keep in mind that yesterday he identified “an enormous national debt” as one of the greatest problems facing America today–right up there with stopping prayer in school, abortion, and transgender rights. And we all know that going deeper into debt is the only way to get out of debt, right?

Ahem. We’ll see how it all plays out, but right now everyone except Mr. Moore thinks the citizens of Alabama have given America exactly the Christmas present they need.

Moving on.

Patreon has canceled the launch of their new fee structure. The announcement and apology is an interesting read. On one hand, it’s rare to see a company say bluntly, “We messed up.” In an era of weasel-worded apologies*, it’s nice to see one that doesn’t mince words.

* Or, worse yet, monetized apologies such as Equifax’s.

On the other hand, it also notes that “We still have to fix the problems that those changes addressed.” (As a reminder, that’s primarily the problem of handling partial-month pledges when a patron first backs a creator.) So the door remains open for a substantially similar approach. ACA repeal, anyone?

I don’t think Patreon could survive another bungled rollout in the near future, and I’m quite sure they think the same. My gut says that if they move quickly, they’ll come up with a different approach; the longer the re-evaluation lasts, the more the final product will look like the one that just fell flat.

To be fair, they’ve been tracking canceled pledges and have built a simple “restore my pledges” tool and are notifying patrons by email. That’s a smart move, in that it immediately helps creators who were harmed by the departures, and it also brings back some of the cash flow Patreon needs to stay in business.

Moving on again.

We saw Coco Tuesday night. I’m not going to do a full review here, mostly because I’m having trouble being sufficiently objective. The big themes–memory, family, and death–have a lot of resonance for me these days, and I suspect that’s tipping my reaction to be somewhat more positive than it would have been.

But that said, I still think it’s an excellent film. Not flawless, no. It drags a bit in the middle with too much running in circles and too many false leads. There are a couple of overly-convenient plot devices (why is there a camera backstage, for example?). But the opening monologue is beautifully done, the first half of the film does a splendid job of establishing the world and the ground rules without bogging down in explanations, and the ending is spot on.

Bonus points, by the way, for not including a lengthy made-for-the-amusement-park-ride chase scene.

One interesting point: the Spanish version of the film includes its own versions of the songs. Judging by the samples on Amazon, they’re not just redubbed versions of the English songs, but separate performances. I’m tempted to go see the movie in Spanish, just to see how it works for a non-Spanish speaker.

Moving on one more time.

So, all in all, a good week so far. But.

As I was writing the above, the FCC just voted on the repeal of their net neutrality rules. And, as everyone expected, the vote was 3-2 for repeal.

We now turn to the courts and to Congress. I don’t expect the Republicans in Congress to be any more enthusiastic about rejecting Ajit Pai than they were about rejecting Roy Moore. After all, the evidence shows that obstructing a criminal investigation is now standard Republican practice.

But with polls showing that less than 20% of Republicans approve of the repeal–and even fewer Democrats and Independents–voting against whatever legislation comes to the floor in the next few weeks may be a tough nut to swallow.

Especially in light of the events in Alabama Tuesday night.

Patreonizing

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Well, hell. Patreon is currently in the midst of shooting itself in the foot.

Brief background for those of you who need it: Patreon is a crowdfunding site optimized for creators. Unlike Kickstarter, which focuses on specific projects, Patreon focuses on the creators themselves. Backers commit to funding individuals on an ongoing basis (either a set amount per month or a set amount per work of art*). In exchange, they receive benefits defined by the creator: early access to comics, patron-only poems, commissioned art, online meet-and-greets, etc., etc., etc., limited only by the creators’ imagination and the supporters’ pockets.

* “Art” being loosely defined here. It could be a drawing, a song, a mechanical object, or anything else the creator produces.

Patreon itself takes a 5% cut of the donations, and up until now, the creators have absorbed the cost of the contribution–the credit card processing fees, money transfer fees, and so forth. To grossly oversimplify, creators received about 75 cents of every dollar donated. More if they had a few large contributions, less if they had a lot of small ones, but somewhere around 75%, if the comments I’ve been seeing are representative. And, of course, the amount the artist receives varies from month to month, as the proportion of small to large contributions changes.

Effective December 18–unless Patreon changes its mind–supporters are going to be charged a fee for each contribution to offset the credit card and other processing charges. Patreon is promoting this as wonderful for the creators, who will now receive 95 of every dollar.

Well, yeah, except that a large portion of the contributions are currently at the $1 level. Those will now cost the supporters $1.38. Supporting somebody at the $5 level? That’ll now be $5.50.

Mind you, Patreon hasn’t officially notified supporters of this change yet, despite the fact that it’ll take effect in a little more than a week.

But they have notified creators and many of them are unhappy.

Seanan McGuire explains why in a Twitter thread.

In brief, she expects many smaller contributions to disappear, leaving her with a small number of larger ones. That’ll turn a reasonably solid support into a classic “rickety stool”: if even one of those larger supporters drops out somewhere down the road, the support is gone and Seanan falls on her ass.

And she’s right.

I’m not one of her supporters, much to my chagrin, because she’s one of my favorite writers, whether I’m reading for pleasure or professional development. But I have a limited amount of money I can afford to spend through Patreon, and so I’ve had to leave out many authors and artists I’d love to support.

With this change, I’m going to have to cut back. Most of my contributions are $1 a month. If that becomes $1.38 a month, it means I’ll have to stop my contributions to a third of the creators. That doesn’t only hurt the artists and writers I’m no longer supporting, but it hurts me as well, because I’m not getting the benefits of supporting all of them anymore.

And I’m sure I’m not the only one.

Patreon needs to rethink this plan and quickly. Granted, complaints are always louder than compliments–but I’m not hearing any compliments about Patreon’s plan. Not from patrons, not from artists.

If the only people who approve are Patreon’s staff, that doesn’t bode well.

Let’s be blunt here. In most businesses, credit card processing fees are part of the cost of doing business. You factor that in when you’re setting your prices. That’s why some businesses don’t take credit cards or offer a discount for cash purchases.

So here’s a thought: Patreon could smooth out the monthly variation–which they’re touting as a major benefit of their planned change–by taking a slightly larger cut from artists and using the money to cover the processing fees. And on the other end, treat patron contributions in bulk to minimize the fees*.

* Again speaking bluntly, they’re already doing this. If I make ten $1 contributions, they charge my credit card for $10, which would make the processing fee 64 cents (2.9% + $0.35). They’re not making ten separate charges with an aggregate $3.80 fee, and claiming they are is damn insulting when I can look at my credit card bill and see otherwise.

I can’t speak for all the creators, of course, but I’d be willing to bet that the majority of them would rather get 90 cents of every dollar from their current supporters than either 95 cents from a much smaller group, or the current 65 to 85 cents.

I’m sure there are other ways to solve whatever funding crisis Patreon has. But pissing off your customers is a less-than-optimal approach in any business.