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Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

thoughts.jatan.space

151–160 of 351 posts

Re: Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

#151

What many people don't realize is that the operational and customer service costs of payments don't scale with payment amount. Customers will cost almost just as frequently dispute, have questions, have problems, ask for help, attempt to defraud etc with a $1 transaction as they will a $100 or $1000 transaction. This is the real killer with micro payment schemes. Customer service costs scale more with number of payme…

> The crypto bros totally miss the point in understanding this too. I don't know which "crypto bros" you've been talking to, but as someone who is building a self-hosted payment gateway for crypto [0], the benefits from using crypto are two-fold: it eliminates the chance of fraud and it moves the cost of customer support to the merchant. Also, once again I will have to repeat that no one sane will try to completely r…

> Crypto is meant to be an alternative for the cases where the cost of existing processors make the transaction not viable.

Allow me to quote myself: using proof of work in place of CC processor fees is just moving the problem around - and arguably, making it worse: you're essentially taking on environmental debt, which all of us will eventually have to pay down.

Re: Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

#152

What many people don't realize is that the operational and customer service costs of payments don't scale with payment amount. Customers will cost almost just as frequently dispute, have questions, have problems, ask for help, attempt to defraud etc with a $1 transaction as they will a $100 or $1000 transaction. This is the real killer with micro payment schemes. Customer service costs scale more with number of payme…

Yeah, all of the other payment processors have settled on somewhere between 2-4% fees to handle fraud. See PayPal.

So either Patreon has an order of magnitude more fraud going on or is massively wasteful in its business operations. Probably both.

Re: Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

#153

What many people don't realize is that the operational and customer service costs of payments don't scale with payment amount. Customers will cost almost just as frequently dispute, have questions, have problems, ask for help, attempt to defraud etc with a $1 transaction as they will a $100 or $1000 transaction. This is the real killer with micro payment schemes. Customer service costs scale more with number of payme…

> The crypto bros totally miss the point in understanding this too. I don't know which "crypto bros" you've been talking to, but as someone who is building a self-hosted payment gateway for crypto [0], the benefits from using crypto are two-fold: it eliminates the chance of fraud and it moves the cost of customer support to the merchant. Also, once again I will have to repeat that no one sane will try to completely r…

The belief that crypto eliminates fraud is pure myth. It dramatically increase the chance of fraud for customers, and for honest merchants, there is still a risk of fraud.

Re: Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

#154
post #86

15% is not a deep cut. That’s a totally a reasonable cost for smoothly running the infrastructure necessary to support a creator with a monthly subscription model.

That's about 10x more that I'd consider reasonable for what is effectly hosting a static website and bulletin board. I think we've all just had our expectations blown out of the water by Steam (and the subsequent app stores).

There's nothing static about processing payments and providing support.

Re: Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The crypto bros totally miss the point in understanding this too. I don't know which "crypto bros" you've been talking to, but as someone who is building a self-hosted payment gateway for crypto [0], the benefits from using crypto are two-fold: it eliminates the chance of fraud and it moves the cost of customer support to the merchant. Also, once again I will have to repeat that no one sane will try to completely r…

You can still have fraud, can't you still get sued to return someone's tokens?

I doubt the kind of person who's initiating chargebacks on patreon donations is going to go to small claims court to claw back their $10 donation.

Re: Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

#156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The crypto bros totally miss the point in understanding this too. I don't know which "crypto bros" you've been talking to, but as someone who is building a self-hosted payment gateway for crypto [0], the benefits from using crypto are two-fold: it eliminates the chance of fraud and it moves the cost of customer support to the merchant. Also, once again I will have to repeat that no one sane will try to completely r…

> it eliminates the chance of fraud Declaring a priori that all transactions are legitimate doesn't eliminate fraud, it just eliminates the system's ability to handle it. Actual humans can still get victimized. The gateway just says "Lalala can't hear you not my problem." > and it moves the cost of customer support to the merchant. Likewise, it moves the consequences of fraud onto the victim. > for the cases where th…

You are thinking only from the side of a customer, who already has it easy with the existing payment networks.

If you are a customer that wants to make a transaction that can be reversed, you go for the credit card. If the value of the transaction is not high enough for you to care (micropayments) or if you rather lose some money but not give away your data, you go for crypto.

The problem that crypto can solve is for the merchants, like TFA. Patreon charges absurd rates because payers are problematic.

(Edit: once again, the anti-crypto crowd decides to downvote reflexively and ignore everyone that brings legitimate use cases. Why is it so hard to at the very least consider the point that others are trying to make?)

Re: Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The crypto bros totally miss the point in understanding this too. I don't know which "crypto bros" you've been talking to, but as someone who is building a self-hosted payment gateway for crypto [0], the benefits from using crypto are two-fold: it eliminates the chance of fraud and it moves the cost of customer support to the merchant. Also, once again I will have to repeat that no one sane will try to completely r…

> Crypto is meant to be an alternative for the cases where the cost of existing processors make the transaction not viable. Allow me to quote myself: using proof of work in place of CC processor fees is just moving the problem around - and arguably, making it worse: you're essentially taking on environmental debt, which all of us will eventually have to pay down.

Ethereum is moving to PoS in less than two months. Can we please drop this BS excuse of an argument?

(Before you reply with the usual "Ethereum devs have been promising PoS for years" line, I will tell you this: I pledge to drop all work on Hub20 if Ethereum doesn't complete the transition by the end of the year.)

Re: Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The crypto bros totally miss the point in understanding this too. I don't know which "crypto bros" you've been talking to, but as someone who is building a self-hosted payment gateway for crypto [0], the benefits from using crypto are two-fold: it eliminates the chance of fraud and it moves the cost of customer support to the merchant. Also, once again I will have to repeat that no one sane will try to completely r…

Doesn’t using crypto lead to more fraud, not less?

I am talking from the perspective of the merchant.

Imagine bogus chargebacks because of buyer's remorse or purchases done with stolen credit cards. None of this happens for a merchant that accepts crypto.

Re: Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

#159
post #86

15% is not a deep cut. That’s a totally a reasonable cost for smoothly running the infrastructure necessary to support a creator with a monthly subscription model.

Pateron should work the same as they enable for any other content creator: They should get paid in donations by their customers.

Re: Patreon cuts deep inside creators’ pockets

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn’t using crypto lead to more fraud, not less?

I am talking from the perspective of the merchant . Imagine bogus chargebacks because of buyer's remorse or purchases done with stolen credit cards. None of this happens for a merchant that accepts crypto.

So if you just pretend there's no fraud, then there's no fraud?
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