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Things to know before starting a Patreon page

pencerw.com

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Re: Things to know before starting a Patreon page

#61

Post by stickfigure »

cactus2093 wrote: post #59
stickfigure wrote: post #13

I would add - as a patron, the UI is horrible. The one thing I'd like, when I subscribe to someone, is a list of patron-only content so that I can slowly go back and watch/listen to/read past material. Instead the only option is an infinite-scroll style blog roll, which makes it extremely hard to go back and pick up where you left off. It's also impossible to navigate in anything other than inverse chronological orde…

I don’t follow what you mean by wanting a list of this content, then you go onto describe the list that they give you. If it was just paginated and let you sort forward or reverse chronologically, is that all you’re asking for?

Ok, I'll go into detail.

I recently subscribed to (patronized?) Hand Tool Rescue. His patron-only content is narrated versions of his restoration videos, which typically run 20+ minutes long. I have time to watch one maybe every few days.

To go back and watch all of his old stuff:

1) Visit patreon.com. I'm logged in, so it takes me to /creator-home. It looks like this: https://monosnap.com/file/PtG4Robbscnt7fns0omVO9a2D3IQul There are no links to who I'm following or content to consume.

2) After scratching my head a few minutes, click on my tiny persona icon top right, then click on "Posts from my creators". Now I'm looking at a blog roll of all my creators. There's a tantalizing "Patron Only Content" filter here, but that's for "all creators". There's a list of my creators on the left though, so...

3) Click on "Hand Tool Rescue" on the left side. Finally I'm looking at posts from HTR. But now there's no filter for Patron Only Content! WTF?

4) Let's see, where what was the last video I watched? Scroll down. And scroll. And scroll. Click the "More..." button. Scroll more. And scroll. "More..." again. Oh, here's where I left off. I think.

5) Oh, this is a 3-part series. Scroll down some more to the first part.

6) Open video in a new tab, watch the first couple minutes. Oh wait, I did already watch this part. Thankfully I didn't close the tab in #4 (learned that the hard way). Scroll back to the next part and watch it.

This is a trainwreck of UX. It's also pretty nearly my only interaction with patreon.com. I discover content on youtube and through friends, and rarely add/remove creators anyway.

All I want is to see is a dense easily navigable list of patron only content! Youtube is excellent for this - just a list of thumbnails. I really wish I could just pay HTR through Youtube.

BTW - before someone posts "You can sort inverse chronologically" - yes, I now see that you can do that. It still doesn't reduce the total scrolling. It actually makes it somewhat worse, because HTR's first couple years of videos weren't narrated. Ugh.

Re: Things to know before starting a Patreon page

#62

Post by smichel17 »

mirimir wrote: post #24
quadrangle wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a thorough summary: https://wiki.snowdrift.coop/market-research/other-crowdfundi... (at the wiki of still-not-launched different type of patronage platform that is sharing its own research)

Looking through that, I see some Bitcoin-driven services. What I don't see are any that accept payments and pay out via a wide range of channels, from PayPal to Bitcoin. And for Bitcoin, I don't mean Coinbase or exchange accounts that enforce KYC rules. Stripe used to work with Bitcoin, but no longer.

We don't proactively search for new services or re-review those listed to make sure the information is still up to date[1].. but we do update the page if we hear about new ot changed services through other channels. So, if you or anyone else are aware of particular services that are notable for their flexibility in payment providers, please let me know and I'll add them to the page.

That said, I would not be surprised if none exist. The more payment processors you support, the harder it is to avoid handling the money directly, which means more legal hurdles (regulations, liability); the simpler alternative (that snowdrift.coop is currently pursuing, for those practical reasons, although it is limiting in some respects) is to coordinate donations though other platforms.

[1]: Aside, I was trying to write this sentence in the form "re-review the information for [up-to-date-ness]", but couldn't think of the right word. "Accuracy" is close, but doesn't capture the element of time. Any ideas?

Re: Things to know before starting a Patreon page

#63

Post by wishinghand »

ehutch79 wrote: post #3

I'd love to know what the other options are out there, as mentioned in the article. Right now, patreon is well known, and I'd be concerned with an unknown site turning supporters off.

I keep hoping a self hosted option will pop up that’s easy to setup with Docker or an NPM install.

Re: Things to know before starting a Patreon page

#64

Post by mirimir »

smichel17 wrote: post #62
mirimir wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looking through that, I see some Bitcoin-driven services. What I don't see are any that accept payments and pay out via a wide range of channels, from PayPal to Bitcoin. And for Bitcoin, I don't mean Coinbase or exchange accounts that enforce KYC rules. Stripe used to work with Bitcoin, but no longer.

We don't proactively search for new services or re-review those listed to make sure the information is still up to date[1].. but we do update the page if we hear about new ot changed services through other channels. So, if you or anyone else are aware of particular services that are notable for their flexibility in payment providers, please let me know and I'll add them to the page. That said, I would not be surprise…

up-to-date-ness = currency

It's not the usual meaning, and so confusing, although arguably the meanings are fundamentally consistent.

Re: Things to know before starting a Patreon page

#65

Post by Traster »

eythian wrote: post #58
Traster wrote: post #52

I'm not really sure what Patreon is to be honest. It's not payment processing - they're literally passing those costs to you. It's not a community, there's no cross-patron promotion or discoverability. It seems like it's essentially just a bad version of square space that wants to charge you a percentage of your revenue instead of $20 a month. It had this exciting opportunity to build a platform, but I think that tim…

It's a centralised (not great) publishing platform where the main feature is that it supports "micro" payments. As a user (rather than a creator) I like it because I don't have to faff around with separate payments across multiple sites, just once a month my credit card is billed the sum of all the sponsorships I want to make and I get an email to tell me where it all went to. I will tend to think twice before settin…

What throws me off about it being a platform is that ther'es basically no discoverability - you search for what you want, but it's never going to say "Hey, yo liked X, what do you think of Y"

Re: Things to know before starting a Patreon page

#66

Post by jtbayly »

gadders wrote: post #54
jtbayly wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must have missed a story or two. Can you point me in the right direction for further research?

https://unherd.com/2019/01/the-politics-of-the-patreon-purge... https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qvqeev/crowdfunding-site-... https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/blakemontgomery/the-alt...

Thank you. That's helpful.

Re: Things to know before starting a Patreon page

#67

Post by eythian »

Traster wrote: post #65
eythian wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a centralised (not great) publishing platform where the main feature is that it supports "micro" payments. As a user (rather than a creator) I like it because I don't have to faff around with separate payments across multiple sites, just once a month my credit card is billed the sum of all the sponsorships I want to make and I get an email to tell me where it all went to. I will tend to think twice before settin…

What throws me off about it being a platform is that ther'es basically no discoverability - you search for what you want, but it's never going to say "Hey, yo liked X, what do you think of Y"

Yeah. Kickstarter, for example, is good at that. I've backed a number of things because their recommendation system thought they might be interesting, and they were.
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