I wonder if anyone relevant at Patreon reads HN.
You'd think someone at Patreon would know someone who reads HN.
Patreon suspended my account. They have not notified me
61–70 of 173 posts
Re: Patreon suspended my account. They have not notified me
#62This same story played out 10 or so years ago with Wikileaks, PayPal, and major card processors and banks. The sad realization was that private companies can control who gets to speak very effectively. Lots of people hoped cryptocurrency would fix this, but so far it hasn't.
In technological terms, cryptocurrencies really have fixede this. However, the adoption is lacking behind somewhat. However, the few creators that do use cryptocurrency (even just in a rudimentary way of putting a bitcoin address in a video) - have gained from this.
It really didn't.
Bitcoins ledger is public, marking every transaction from who to whom the money went. Yes, it's originally only the wallet id that is public, but this id only needs to be matched once to a person...
And don't even start with exchanges. They have exactly the same problem as any private entity such as PayPal or patreon has
Re: Patreon suspended my account. They have not notified me
#63Patreon sounds like something relatively easy to replicate. Effectively every utility implements what patron provides. It's essentially just scheduling recurring payments, with a discussion forum attached. More behavior like what we've been seeing Patreon do lately, and I can see larger creators shifting to hosing their own patronage services. Essentially the same reason why EA, Blizzard, and even more niche game pub…
Hopefully someone brings forth a patreon replacement. I'm not keen on how they've been acting in the last month and I kind of want to close my account, but I also want to continue supporting the groups I support.
What about LiberaPay?
Re: Patreon suspended my account. They have not notified me
#64Patreon has been on a spree to ban people that think the wrong way.
Matt Christiansen had a call [1] with Patreon to discuss their banning of Sargon of Akkad. Sargon was notified of the banning by his patrons, not Patreon, and had no recourse to challenge the decision. In the call Patreon made it clear that their platform is;
1) explicitly anti free-speech
2) is not a free market (they can ban you for arbitrary reasons, for things posted anywhere including leaked private messages)
3) their rules are enforced in a subjective manner by design
Considering that they have banned many people that disagree with progressive PC ideology, which seems to be a moving target of increasing religious [2] fervor, I can't see why anyone would trust their platform at this point and rely on it to build their income.
Even progressives might like the so-called TERFs fall on the wrong side of the party-line at some point, so I can't see how anyone can trust their platform as a source of income. Unless you of cause love staking your income on the arbitrary whims of the ideologues at Patreon.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hv7hvZee-PQ&feature=youtu.be
[2] https://areomagazine.com/2018/12/18/postmodern-religion-and-...
Re: Patreon suspended my account. They have not notified me
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
In technological terms, cryptocurrencies really have fixede this. However, the adoption is lacking behind somewhat. However, the few creators that do use cryptocurrency (even just in a rudimentary way of putting a bitcoin address in a video) - have gained from this.
It really didn't. Bitcoins ledger is public, marking every transaction from who to whom the money went. Yes, it's originally only the wallet id that is public, but this id only needs to be matched once to a person... And don't even start with exchanges. They have exactly the same problem as any private entity such as PayPal or patreon has
Couldn't one simply use the other currencies where ledger is not public, if the privacy is needed? Like Zcash, Dash or Monero (no affiliation, I'm just listing options to clearly show that public ledger is in technological sense not a problem).
I think that many of these problems stem from censorship, not need of privacy.
Re: Patreon suspended my account. They have not notified me
#66The whole backlash against Patreon didn't start now as they've done stuff like what that person on Twitter complains about but it culminated in the strange circumstances involving the banning of one Carl Benjamin, aka. Sargon of Akkad. People are upset about this, even outside of politics not because they support or even agree with Carl Benjamin but because of what Patreon did, and still does.
They banned the guy over a 10 month old livestream on an obscure channel where he criticised the alt-right using their own vernacular. If you ignore context, then sure, it is "hate-speech". The issue here is, however, that Patreon explicitly said that they only enforce their policies on their own platform in their terms. (Jack Conte said the same thing, explicitly on a podcast.) And yet, they suspended a creator, without warning and shoddily still allowed new people to pledge money to him. For other creators this does shows that their livelihoods can be shut down any time, any moment, for any reason, on a whim of someone on that "Trust & Safety Council".
Let us not mention the blatant hate-speech they allow _ON THEIR OWN PLATFORM_, even among their top 20 creators.
If you entrust your livelihood to a platform, you want someone neutral and someone who takes the time to notify you about changes related to your income, even if it's via automated messages.
Re: Patreon suspended my account. They have not notified me
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sounds like they should have hooked up with a real payment provider. If InfoWars can get one for their store (through First Data even, much cheaper than PayPal), no reason SubscribeStar couldn't.
I'm surprised infowars hasnt created their own patreon clone.
Too disorganized, its an organization made up of contractors that come and go at a whim, similar to other businesses in Austin (like Apple, where nearly everyone is an easily firable contractor :P).
Re: Patreon suspended my account. They have not notified me
#68Patreon sounds like something relatively easy to replicate. Effectively every utility implements what patron provides. It's essentially just scheduling recurring payments, with a discussion forum attached. More behavior like what we've been seeing Patreon do lately, and I can see larger creators shifting to hosing their own patronage services. Essentially the same reason why EA, Blizzard, and even more niche game pub…
>Patreon sounds like something relatively easy to replicate. I think the real problem is upstream: The payment processors. These companies set the rules and everybody else has to play along or risk being cut off from customers. Any competitor will face the same issues sooner or later.
MasterCard's publicly said they're going to exercise corporate censorship over people they disagree with. So many levels on which a platform can be hurt on, unfortunately.
Re: Patreon suspended my account. They have not notified me
#69Like someone else suggested, this is likely a case of automated flagging by fraud detection systems, but it does not excuse such terrible communication on Patreon's part. I have been following the recent Patreon backlash with interest, which I think was triggered by Patreon banning a youtuber who goes by Sargon of Akkad for using the phrase "white [n-word]" in a youtube video. Sam Harris, who was one of the highest e…
[flagged]
Re: Patreon suspended my account. They have not notified me
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm surprised infowars hasnt created their own patreon clone.
I don't see an issue with InfoWars having a platform or even to be on the same platform as me but I'd have serious reservations about having them as the platform manager, mainly because I'm not trusting them to have sane opinions (it's not like InfoWars strike me as vanguards of free speech in principle).
Lol, apparently the water turned frogs like me gay? I wouldn't trust InfoWars with my supporter's cash, Patreon, Kickstarter & ilk are in a position that demands a high level of trust, seeing as they deal with large quantities of money and the relationships that surround them.