It was only last week when Patreon announced changes to its fee structure, offloading the transaction fees that creators have normally paid onto patrons. This, of course, did not go well. In an effort to mitigate the damage, the firm has now announced that they will not be rolling out the changes, and will instead keep things as is.
In a public apology issued by Jack Conte, co-founder and CEO of Patreon, the company promised that it is going to work towards a better solution with the help of the community. The apology also points out some of the feedback that was heard from creators, with some of them being listed below:
- The new payments system disproportionately impacted $1 – $2 patrons. We have to build a better system for them.
- Aggregation is highly-valued, and we underestimated that.
- Fundamentally, creators should own the business decisions with their fans, not Patreon. We overstepped our bounds and injected ourselves into that relationship, against our core belief as a business.
For the time being, creators that lost patrons will need to work harder to gain back their audience. But at the very least, in time, an amicable solution will be created that works for creators and patrons.
7 Comments - Add comment