[danShumway]

Patreon does not require creators to pause payments when they go on break.

But that should obviously be a choice that is available to creators, for a variety of reasons. They might be treating Patreon more like a subscription service than a donation platform. They might have personal psychological hang-ups (read about why per-creation pricing is so popular with some creators). I would criticize Patreon if it forced creators into that decision. Forcing them out of that decision is also worth critiquing.

It ought to be a creator's choice when they do and don't charge their patrons. It is not Patreon or Apple's job to decide with that level of detail what the relationship between a creator and their fans should look like. And creators who voluntarily decide (for whatever reason) to temporarily pause charging fans are not doing anything wrong.

[throwaway290]

> Patreon does not require creators to pause payments when they go on break.

I didn't say it does, but someone apparently thinks they should. That someone doesn't get the idea behind patreon

> It ought to be a creator's choice

There's plenty choice. Sell your stuff, there are plenty platforms for that. Sell physical media. Stream. Patronage is a specific thing.

[danShumway]

> but someone apparently thinks they should.

To be 1000% clear, the someone who is demanding this feature... is creators. This is a feature that creators heavily use, by their own choice, because it helps them psychologically or because they prefer this style of interaction with fans, or for whatever reason because they don't have to justify their decisions to anyone, least of all commenters on HN.

> Patronage is a specific thing.

Patreon has not been a donation-specific platform since tiers were invented; and this kind of control over payments was always part of the platform for both creators using it as a sales platform and to creators using it as a donation platform. Patreon hosts a wide variety of creators who approach audience interaction in a variety of ways. This has always been the case.

It's wild to me that you're going to jump on here gatekeeping creators off of Patreon, and to act like it's somehow improper for me to suggest that the significant portion of the creator-base on Patreon that uses the platform in a way that makes them happy... should be allowed to keep using it that way.

People have this weird habit of taking creators who are making in many cases at or below minimum wage doing things that they love and subjecting them to purity tests about whether or not they're living up to some platonic ideal of what some random person on the internet personally believes fan-creator relationships should look like.

Are you seriously offended that some creators like having the ability to choose when they charge their patrons?

> doesn't get the idea behind patreon

The idea behind Patreon is that creators should be able to make money doing things that they love in a way that is comfortable to them. Your aesthetic attraction to the idea of a donation platform is not really relevant to that goal. You're not sticking up for creators if you gatekeep how they interact with fans. And your ideal of how patronage is defined has never been the exclusive model for how Patreon as a platform has worked -- nor is it consistent with the model that Apple is forcing creators into.

[throwaway290]

> To be 1000% clear, the someone who is demanding this feature... is creators

I'm a creator, not on Patreon due to sanctions and I have a dayjob for now.

This would be an anti-feature for me because if it's implemented then there is pressure to pause payments when I don't create for whatever period of time I estimate is "too long" for some average patron. What a freaking can of worms. Turns creators into service providers.

> Patreon has not been a donation-specific platform since tiers were invented; and this kind of control over payments was always part of the platform for

Tiers is basically "choose how much change you can spare to support me". Most creators I support just have different text on them and no other difference.

> both creators using it as a sales platform and to creators using it as a donation platform

Using Patreon as sales platform is a cheaty workaround to save on fees. If you want to sell stuff you better look at Etsy or whatever fits your niche. You'll make more money too

> Are you seriously offended that some creators like having the ability to choose when they charge their patrons?

Nah. Only when you call it "patronage".

This is not providing a service in return for money. I create, my choice. You want to support me, your choice. Thanks but I don't have a responsibility to create. If you feel like I have then it's too much money for you, choose a smaller amount. Or don't pay at all. You don't have a responsibility to pay. See also Github sponsorships.

> The idea behind Patreon is that creators should be able to make money doing things that they love in a way that is comfortable to them

By definition not. There is no generic "creator". People are different. "Comfortable" is different for different people. Patreon is focused on one specific model. They sorta try to do more ("pay per post") but that's feature creep and worse than using a dedicated platform. As patron I hate "pay per post" bc I have to do some math to even tell how much I'm paying you. Just obscurity for no good reason. As creator, see above.

[danShumway]

> I'm a creator, not on Patreon due to sanctions and I have a dayjob for now.

Great. Not to be blunt here, but if you're not on Patreon then who the heck cares what your opinion is on this? I feel like it's kind of reasonable to care more about the opinions of the creators using the platform than the creators not on the platform.

As far as I can tell, this "anti-feature" has existed for the entirety of Patreon. Features like pay-per-post are not new, they're not Patreon expanding or losing its way. Quite the opposite, Patreon has tried multiple times to get rid of some of these features, and they were stopped because of creator backlash. Learn the culture of the place you're criticizing.

And maybe this just isn't the platform for you? But it's a wild thing to go to a platform that has always worked in a certain way -- a platform that you are not using as a creator -- and to say, "oh, this is an anti-feature." Who are you to decide that?

> Most creators I support just have different text on them and no other difference.

Great. That is a thing that creators are allowed to do. It is not representative of the entire platform, and it's kind of gross to dismiss the concerns of creators who don't work that way.

> Using Patreon as sales platform is a cheaty workaround to save on fees.

What in the heck does it mean to "cheat" on fees? Patreon works great as a subscription platform, and people have used it that way for years, and both creators and fans benefit from it. This isn't a sport, it's not a bad thing for creators to be able to support themselves. I am genuinely thrown off by the idea that someone would look at a creator building things that an audience loves and say, "but they didn't do it fair."

> Thanks but I don't have a responsibility to create. If you feel like I have

Very literally nobody has said that you do. What I've said is that other creators do not have a responsibility to ask you how they should create or how they should engage with their fans.

They don't have that responsibility. You can go off and create however you'd like. You can even use Patreon and not pause your service. Patreon has zero requirements to send regular updates. I follow and support creators who put out one update every year. I kick a few dollars a month to a creator who has not posted an update in nearly two years. Do what you want, but stop getting mad at other creators because they're using a platform in a way that has always been officially supported and allowed by the platform.

> If you want to sell stuff you better look at Etsy or whatever fits your niche.

Or -- and this is going to be difficult to hear -- creators can do what they want because they don't answer to you. It is wild to me that you are trying to dictate who is allowed to use Patreon as a creator... as someone who is not even on Patreon. Since when do you get to decide who does and doesn't belong inside of a community that you are not even a part of?

> Nah. Only when you call it "patronage".

I don't care what you call it, I don't think quibbling over semantic definitions matters more than people's livelihoods.

> By definition not. [...] Patreon is focused on one specific model.

I mean, no, objectively not, given that Patreon supported exclusive tiers and rewards from the very beginning. I'm sorry if you thought it was focused on something different, but creators on the platform have literally never universally treated it as a donation model. Your idea of what you'd like Patreon to be has nothing to do with what it has always been. Of course, Patreon can be treated as a pure donation platform, and many creators do. And of course, some creators who do treat it as a donation platform still choose to make use of paused payments or pay-per-post, and have written en-length about how that's better for their personal creative process.

Again, I want to point out how incredibly wild it is to walk up to a community that you are not a part of, that has always included a particular set of people, and to point at them and say, "they don't belong there, we're by definition not supporting them."

> As patron I hate "pay per post" bc I have to do some math to even tell how much I'm paying you.

Set a maximum pay-out, this isn't hard. As a patron, you should use the tools available to you to control your spending rather than requiring creators to fit into your model. I feel like for all the nobility you're ascribing to being a "patron" of a creator, asking you as part of that to accommodate the preferred donation styles of creators you support is fairly reasonable.

Nobody is forcing you to support creators who use pay-per-post. But they don't have an obligation to you to handle their funding in the way you like.

> As creator, see above.

As a creator not on Patreon. And that's fine, there's lots of spaces that you can be a creator. But it doesn't particularly matter what your opinion is on what a separate community from you should and shouldn't allow.

[throwaway290]

Pro tip, don't overuse the word "creator". We are just normal people. And literally no one cares if you are on Patreon or not.

Then, chill. No one is telling anyone what to do. But there are good reasons Patreon may choose to not offer you that feature. Like standing it's original idea and not wanting to compete with a bazillion alternatives like Twitch/Bandcamp/Etsy in each niche. Like not turning creativity into a service business. Some hustlers or professional artists may want it, but most don't want it (even if they don't realize it because they didn't think about the implications)

[danShumway]

> Like standing it's original idea

Patreon's original idea included the features you're calling antifeatures.

You are imagining a fictional version of a platform that has never existed and getting mad that the real platform has lost its way from the fictional platform that only lived in your head.

The original idea that you're upset about Patreon abandoning existed only in your head. It has always been a platform for both pure donations and for transactional subscriptions. It was never the idea to serve one of those communities exclusively. That is a thing you have imagined.

> No one is telling anyone what to do.

> if you want to sell stuff you better look at Etsy or whatever fits your niche

Sure.

> But there are good reasons Patreon may choose to not offer you that feature.

Patreon offers the feature. This is a conversation about whether Apple might remove a feature that Patreon chooses to offer.

I don't know how to make that clearer? Again, the platform you are imagining does not exist; there is no version of Patreon that was positioned against creator services or the ability to pause transactions or per-creation payments. Yes, Patreon could choose not to offer these services.

But they did choose to offer them.

And only one person here showed up and got really mad about the fact that Patreon used the word "patron" in relation to a service they have as far as I can tell, always offered.

> Like not turning creativity into a service business.

> Some hustlers or professional artists may want it, but most don't want it (even if they don't realize it because they didn't think about the implications)

I don't know if you get to tell people to chill at the same time you're calling anyone who uses Patreon in a way you don't like a hustler, accusing them of ruining creativity, and questioning their ability to know what they do and don't want?

And again, only one person here is mad that Patreon is... doing what they have always done, under the direction of a community that wants them to do it, despite what people who are not part of that community want. Only one person showed up in an unrelated comment thread and said, "stop calling it patronage if a creator chooses not to take someone's money for a month."

I mean, yes, it is irritating and frustrating to hear someone who's not using Patreon as a creator badmouth a significant portion of the community that is doing stuff that people love, and to belittle them and tell them that they don't know what they want or they're hustlers and shouldn't be on the platform. If it means something to you that it's irritating to hear that, congrats! That is irritating and annoying to hear. I'm not sure what that proves, but yes, good job. Belittling creators will make people mad at you, you have cracked the code.