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Ask HN: Paid app to free and Patreon?

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Re: Ask HN: Paid app to free and Patreon?

#61

Post by daveFNbuck »

WJW wrote: post #49
daveFNbuck wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patreon has had some pretty major fuck ups over the years. How can you consider them a trusted service?

They have also facilitated many more donations that have gone extremely smoothly. The choice here is between an entirely unproven (homemade) service and one with an 99%+ successful service. It does not seem like a very hard choice to me...

They have a 1% donation failure rate? That's terrible. I was just referring to their recent data losses and terms of service changes. I'm much more willing to trust PayPal at this point.

Re: Ask HN: Paid app to free and Patreon?

#62

Post by adjkant »

m11a wrote: post #38
chime wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Network effect. I already have a Patreon account hooked up with my payment info. I subscribe to 10-12 different people I like. Adding one more is trivial. Signing up for a whole new service with payment info for a single content creator is a lot of commitment.

What about if you use PayPal or something, and it isn't a website? You're linked to say, www.chime.com/subscribe, which sets up a payment on PayPal via the API and redirects the user to authorise under the hood. You login with your PayPal account (same as entering Patreon credentials on Patreon), confirm, and you're redirected to a simple thanks page. You can then manage your subscription via PayPal, as you can with…

Let's say that 80% of your paetrons would have also signed up with the home rolled method but 20% would not (which would be insane numbers, I'd bet it's close to 50/50 out of sheer convenience factor). Assuming an equal donation from all, you're already losing more than the fees.

I'm not a fan of Patreons recent moves but I think that a platform that enables easy and convenient ways to support art, development, and generally small projects more than deserves a small but fair piece of the pie. Maybe that platform is another company in 10 years but right now it's Patreon. This is an example of a company that would be amazing if it was nonprofit and adjusted its fees to simply pay for hosting, a well paid but manageable staff size, and a bit of comfort for if business goes south.

Re: Ask HN: Paid app to free and Patreon?

#63

Post by tinus_hn »

JshWright wrote: post #59
tinus_hn wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don’t provide a thousand times as much of a service as they would if the donation was $2.

I'm sure Patreon's credit card processor is just as benevolent as you expect Patreon to be...

Do US people really pay monthly recurring $2000 donations using a credit card if it takes a percentage fee?

Re: Ask HN: Paid app to free and Patreon?

#64

Post by dharmab »

gallerdude wrote: post #46
dharmab wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grey also has other revenue streams- Ad revenue from YouTube, YouTube Red, podcast sponsorships, a merch store and some sort of office job related to media consulting. He's not all-in on Patreon.

Source on the media consulting?

https://standard.tv/pages/about

Re: Ask HN: Paid app to free and Patreon?

#65

Post by JshWright »

tinus_hn wrote: post #63
JshWright wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure Patreon's credit card processor is just as benevolent as you expect Patreon to be...

Do US people really pay monthly recurring $2000 donations using a credit card if it takes a percentage fee?

I don't know of any other way of paying Patreon...

Re: Ask HN: Paid app to free and Patreon?

#66

Post by conta »

humanetech wrote: post #31
conta wrote: post #9

I have an open-source app called stretchly ( https://github.com/hovancik/stretchly ) and I allow people to support it via paypal or patreon. I ask people to support me by becoming my patron on Patreon as Menu item. Right now it brings me 11$/month ( https://www.patreon.com/hovancik ) and it goes up and down. I could do better by engaging more with people, I guess (in past some people donated when I fixed their issue…

Nice project, conta! I just added it to awesome-humane-tech [0] in the Health section. [0] https://github.com/engagingspaces/awesome-humane-tech

Thanks a lot!

Re: Ask HN: Paid app to free and Patreon?

#67

Post by jesterjester »

rofo1 wrote: post #34
jesterjester wrote: post #5

I wonder if there is an app that handles the "VC" side like gofundme but for software startup funding? Patreon takes a huge chunk of money, so might not be ideal for this.

Patreon takes 5% according to https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/204606125-How-... I don't think 5% is unreasonable for what they offer. It seems fitting.

I think it's unreasonable for my idea. They don't offer much.
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