So here is the blog post from @Patreon that is causing all the furor right now: https://blog.patreon.com/2020-year-in-review-and-a-peek-into-2021

Note that as someone who depends on Patreon for my livelihood, I found out they said they're changing billing because people on Twitter started saying they'd stop using it.

This is a total failure on @Patreon's part - I shouldn't find out they're about to fuck with my livelihood from people talking ON TWITTER about no longer using the platform to support people because of their ill-advised changes.

What's the change they're talking about? Instead of getting one bill on the first of the month for all creators you support, you'd be billed individually for each on whatever day of the month you started supporting them.

So instead of one charge on the first, you might see three, on the second, the twelfth, and the seventeenth.

People are understandably upset about this because it screws up their budgeting, which is set up around one charge on the first.

Why are they doing this? They claim it's because of confusion about payments.

It used to be you were charged *after* a month was over. So if you signed up at any point in May, you wouldn't get charged until June 1st, and that covered your support in May.

Unfortunately some people started gaming the system. They would sign up to a Patreon in May, cancel on the 31st, then sign back up on June 3rd, cancel on June 31st, etc. That let them get access to content without ever actually paying for it.

So Patreon gave creators the option to switch to up front billing, where you are charged as soon as you sign up.

Unfortunately this means if you sign up on the 30th, you're going to see another charge a day or two later on the 1st.

Creators suggested that the way to deal with this was for @Patreon to prorate payments when people sign up, but Patreon has so far just stuck their fingers in their ears and pretended that suggestion has never been made.

Anyway. Patreon claims the up front payments lead to confusion and anger and patrons canceling at the beginning of the month, therefore they need to switch over to this "anniversary billing" system thing.

This is the second time they've tried it.

I keep an idle eye on my deleted pledges, and yes, they tend to happen at the beginning of the month when people get charged. But it's almost never people who have only been around for 2 cycles.

What that suggests to me is that people get their Patreon bill for the month, go "oh shit I need to cut back" and do so. Not that they don't understand up front billing.

Anyway it's all a shitshow. I realize people are trying to be nice when they tell me "don't panic" BUT I'm supported by ~950 people at an average patronage of $4/mo. If that drops significantly, I can't pay my assistant, I can't feed sheep and cats and dogs, and I can't feed me.

So when I find out @Patreon has said they're going to change the billing model because suddenly my twitter timeline is awash in people who use it as patrons saying they'll leave the platform, nothing is going to stop me from panicking.

At any rate I have no control over how @Patreon does billing, I'm kinda terrified right now, and they... Haven't asked for feedback *from patrons*, the people who are the most impacted by a change to billing.

Meanwhile it feels like smallish creators like me are basically dependent on bigger creators having Jack Conte's phone number and being willing to call him and ask wtf https://twitter.com/jephjacques/status/1352701817306689538?s=19

And the claim that this was just a communications flub, they're not really gonna do it, etc etc is... Not held up by the original post:
https://blog.patreon.com/2020-year-in-review-and-a-peek-into-2021
"This year we’re moving towards anniversary billing"
"We’re working on introducing this model"

"We’ll be sharing regular updates with you all as we make progress to ensure you have plenty of notice and time to prepare ahead of any changes."

YEAH LIKE YOU DID BEFORE THIS POST?

So hey, suddenly saying it's not set in stone is walking it back a little at least BUT it's not enough. Nobody wants this. And I mean. https://twitter.com/Kavaeric/status/1352671652988006403?s=19

So. There's the lengthy synopsis of what's going on with Patreon, why I'm a stressball, and why saying "don't panic" is not really going to help. Thank you for coming to my TED talk, don't forget to tip your server.