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Lots of Plotting

@northsartcave / northsartcave.tumblr.com

Lots of pony plot and Hijinx.
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reblogged

Patreon’s Petty Fees

Hey guys!

This is a head’s up regarding Patreon’s new payment scheme. Although they bill it as a benefit to the creators, Patreon is unfortunately not being 100% honest about why they’re setting up this plan. The real news, and the important thing here, is that from now on, any and all transactions on Patreon will accrue a minimum $0.35 surcharge. If you follow ten different creators and pledge $1 to each, Patreon will apply a surcharge of $3.50, one for each creator. If you follow one creator who has a pay-per-post plan and he posts ten videos, Patreon will apply a $3.50 surcharge - that’s $0.35 per post.

Obviously, your credit agencies have not been charging me or anyone $0.35 per creator you support nor per video posted to page. You pay Patreon once, and Patreon pays the creators once. That’s one transaction fee spent paying me, and one transaction fee spent receiving payments from you every month. The surcharge is a surcharge that goes directly to Patreon. I’m afraid it’s sugar-coating to try to call it anything else.

This puts me in a bit of a bind. With this new billing scheme, the best thing for patrons is for me to switch over to a monthly billing pattern, but since my income isn’t exactly 100% stable I’m nervous that if I switch my current plan, I might wind up losing enough income to derail me. So for now, I’ll stick to the current pay-per-post plan and keep a wary eye over things.

The best way to avoid getting hit with these sequential surcharges is to adjust your payments. The way that will keep you closest to where you were before the change is to set a cap on the number of videos you support, but then change your support to be a higher value for a fewer number of videos. This way, you would only receive the surcharge once or twice, you’ll still be offering a similar level of patronage, and the total fees won’t be too substantial compared to your actual donation.

However, DO BE AWARE that with the way Patreon is applying the surcharge, it may exceed your budget. If you support ten videos or creators at $1 each and you mean not to spend more than $10, you will need to set a cap or abandon some creators, such that you avoid the surcharges that will send you over your budget. You’ll want to reduce support to only 7 videos from 10, or to 7 creators instead of 10. Unfortunately this does reduce the amount that the creators will receive so that you can provide Patreon with a greater portion of your money, but if you drop me or support fewer videos from me then I understand - I appreciate you having been here to support me in the first place, and I respect your financial needs. We’re all just trying to make it in the world!

All that said, there is a sliver of good news. In some select cases, Patreon’s change will mean creators earn more money. They’re offsetting the costs on to the patrons, but if you’re donating larger quantities, then the $0.35 surcharge could be less than the transaction fees the creator was originally paying. Patreon is, naturally, also happy with large sum donations because they collect 5% on everything, so there’s really no losing for them with their new fee plan.

Whatever any of you decide to do, I fully understand and hold nothing against you. Unfortunately, Patreon’s decision is out of our hands, and since they’re nearly a monopoly in this market, like all monopolies before them, I knew the honeymoon would have to end some day. We can hope, but this may not be the end of rent-seeking schemes, and we may see more questionable choices from Patreon down the line. Such is the nature of the beast. But, come what may, this has been another good year of making stuff, I’ve learned a lot, made some great strides, and wish you all the best!

Here’s to the following year, and whether you stay or go, to everyone’s good health and happiness!

This is important bit of info! Since Patreon decided to use the paypal adpocalypse to scalp people harder than ever now that they’re flocking over there.

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So I recently found out that Picarto is now doing  “Verified Channel” thing now.

pretty cool!  I would like to become a verfied Picarto.TV user!

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I need to get commissions done. I have been pushing them off too long.

I was doing good when I was continuing to update my Stream Work Schedule regularly, which I will be doing my best to get back into habit.

Anyways, this coming week, I will be working on finishing commissions I have already started, then work on the other commissions I have that are in queue. I want to have all the commissions I have right now completed by the end of the month. (excluding the one animation commission I have. Animations take time, yo)

I will be working trying to stream 8 hours or more each day, except Mondays and Tuesdays, which will be under 4 hours if I do stream on them.

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