Patreon increases its fees – Join the resistance!
May I have your attention, please?!
As you know, Powree receives a large part of her monthly income from our Patreon campaign. However, Patreon announced a new fee structure yesterday. And the change can only be called a giant slap in the face of creators like us who rely heavily on people contributing small amounts of money each month. We really appreciate the support of all of our backers, but Patreon itself doesn't seem to care about the little guy anymore. Their new fee structure comes with a minimal fee of $0.35 for every pledge, even $1 pledges!
You can find a detailed description of the change at:
https://www.pretty-terrible.com/funny-money-patreon-style/
There is also this handy graph that shows the proposed change for a $1 pledge:
https://www.sandraandwoo.com/images/patreon/patreon-new-fee.jpg
However, there is already an enormous backlash on the web, e.g. on Patreon's Twitter account, in response to this callous move that came completely out of the blue. Creators and backers alike are furious about the change. The notification email about it was particularly jarring. It was written in the typical business doublespeak of a company that tries to make bad news for almost all its "customers" sound like a big boon. In reality, only some selected creators relying on high pledge tiers and Patreon itself will profit from this backhanded cash grab. I guess this is just another example of a self-proclaimed "progessive" company that doesn't practice what it preaches!
I'm positive that there is still a chance to prevent this change, but only if as many people as possible join the protest and write complaint letters to Patreon.
For example, you can contact Patreon using the form at:
https://patreon.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
But it's probably better to send polite but firm complaint emails directly to Patreon employees. Here are a couple of public email addresses of Patreon employees who are in some way responsible for the platform and its operation:
heather@patreon.com (Heather, Creator Care Lead)
dave@patreon.com (Dave Hunt, Creator Care)
elliem@patreon.com (Ellie MacBride, Community Manager)
darby@patreon.com (Darby Thomas, Experience Researcher)
jamiec@patreon.com (Jamie Shroff, Patreon Researcher)
jessica@patreon.com (Jessica Crabb, Designer & Researcher)
tpalmer@patreon.com (Tyler Palmer, VP Operations)
There is also Patreon's Twitter account at:
https://twitter.com/Patreon
and it's Facebook account at:
https://www.facebook.com/patreon/
There is also a Change.org petition with almost 2,500 signatures already:
https://www.change.org/p/patreon-patreon-drop-the-external-service-charge
Thank you for your support!