[eridius]

You're ignoring the fact that increasing the number of distinct fees charged to Patrons translates directly to more money for Patreon (because Patreon was charging a much higher fee to Patrons than they themselves are actually paying on the transaction). Their public explanation was that a traditional subscription model is simpler, but it's obviously worse for users and the only reason to do that instead of the alternatives (such as the wallet approach) is so Patreon can get their cut of those extra fees.

[chipotle_coyote]

As Wikipedia would say, "[citation needed]". The transaction fees to patrons that Patreon proposed of 35¢ plus 2.9% are real familiar to anyone who's worked on a payment processor. Patreon was essentially passing the transaction fees they would have paid onto patrons, and they would not have been making a material amount of extra money for themselves if they'd stuck with the new system.

[eridius]

That’s a rate that a brand new company just starting out might get. For that to be the actual rate Patreon is paying they’d have to be extremely incompetent.

For comparison, both Square (which is not known to provide the best rates) and Stripe advertise better than 2.9% + 35¢, and that’s the rate you’d get without any negotiation at all.

[richardknop]

35¢ plus 2.9% is for average e-commerce and small business clients. A company like Patreon that does large volume of transactions will almost always be able to negotiate a much lower transaction fees with payment processors.