Hello snackers, what up and welcome to Pretzels+Prints+Repeat, which is, well let me explain.
Saturday I posted up on my Instagram a post which may or may not have cost me 25% of my follower base
but which nonetheless felt distinctly
me.
And I'm all, I should do that more; the reason
I haven't been doing social media more is
because it didn't feel like something necessary,
not just for me but for anyone.
But doing something uniquely me, something
that only I could do, that felt good.
That felt necessary.
So uh yay new feature!
The idea is, ideally once every week (though
more likely once every, when there’s news
of the world to discuss and comment on,) I’m
going to discuss the news of the world and
comment on it, and hopefully get everything
factually accurate?
I make no claim for objectivity, which is
kinda the point why I’m starting this in the first place,
doing something uniquely me,
my subjective opinions on things, but I will try to be as accurate factually as I can be.
I’ll probably make mistakes, but I do have
my sources in the description.
Everyone has an agenda, no one source should
be relied upon, trust but verify.
All that.
Dateline: Tuesday, December 12th.
Break the Internet day.
Though Wreck-it Ralph 2 isn’t coming out
for another 344 days, obligatory joke obligatory
joke, today is Break the Internet Day.
See, on Thursday Congress is voting on a proposal
to repeal Title II of the Communications Act,
rekilling Net Neutrality, giving cable and
phone corporations the power again
to charge whatever they want for internet service,
essentially giving these companies power to restrict access to any website they want,
or make you pay through the nose to access some services over others, that kind of thing;
I remember back in 2014, Netflix had to strike
deals with Comcast and Verizon in order to
speed up their connectivity on those networks,
keep them from bottlenecking the connection
speed, where connectivity should be neutral
and liberal- there was/is some controversy
over whether such “peering” is a net
neutrality issue in itself, but either way
it’s a pretty clear taste of what can and
does happen without net neutrality laws in place.
Netflix makes up about 40% of internet traffic,
so it’s a good metric for exactly what companies
would do were they able to offer selective
service.
And it’s already happened.
So.
Whatever way congress votes Thursday, and
let’s hope they don’t suck, this isn’t
the only change going on in the internet.
This change is a little further out- 6 days
instead of 2, but that’s close enough to
tackle the subject in this episode, instead of a whole week for another episode.
Because it will have already happened by that point.
I don't have a patreon. I’m thinking about getting one, y’know, ever.
I’m a Patreon patron, and proud of the fact,
but not a creator myself at the moment.
My Patreon support paid for this commission
here.
Look, it’s me!
It’s flattering.
I'm not that thin, though actually yeah I
totally drew myself that thin on my blog image,
so yeah there’s precedent.
Monday, on the 18th, the Patreon fee structure
is updating so that more money per pledge
is going to creators.
Good thing right?
Patreon uses services such as stripe and paypal
in order to deliver money to creators, and
those require fees, and Patreon needs to charge
fees of its own in order to stay afloat and
make coin for its own self, so it makes sense
that fees exist; what’s happening is Patreon
is changing how these fees are processed.
On Monday, pledge fees will become external
to the pledge instead of as a part of that
pledge; in the current system there’s some
variable fee deducted off the top of promised
pledges, and this change will make that fee
flat and predictable.
It will make things more regular for the creators.
Like a big old bowl of bran.
But is this a positive change?
I’ve looked into this.
Reading mathy subjects for me is a lot like
reading political arguments in the comments
section: I love doing it, or I would, if my
brain didn’t shut down immediately when
I try; I find it impossible to pay attention
when there’s all this, y’know, math and/or
trolling going on, but it is fascinating to
me.
It’s just the way my brain works, that I don't quite understand it all.
Reading about the Patreon update, knowing
how important it is, I managed to focus long
enough, via several careful read-throughs,
to get the gist of the change.
I may not be 100% correct in my understanding,
economics is weird, so once again sources
in the doobles, double-check me but this is
what I’m getting out of this.
The way I understand it is basically it’s
just changing the system to be more like buying
wasabi peas at the grocery store; you check
the price of wasabi peas, and they list the
price without the tax, bop you with a 6% at
the register--
first of all, you pay more than what was promised, and I hate that.
I’d much prefer having the tax calculated
into the item price in the first place, which
is what Patreon had been doing.
The downside in that system, where the tax
is incorporated into the price of the wasabi peas,
was for the wasabi pea manufacturer--
the tax wasn’t always consistent, skimmed
unevenly and seemingly at random off of the
flat price that you the consumer paid.
No good, obviously; Patreon decided to fix
this, but no change comes without consequence.
What it comes down to is this.
This new update may be better allegedly for
some creators, but not for all.
In terms, both short and long, it will scare
patrons away, specifically those who want
to pay more creators less money instead of
focusing on one or two creators they really
enjoy and giving them all the monies; it could
scare some patrons off entirely.
Patreon focuses their energy on FSCs- financially
successful creators.
FSCs are the “north star metric,” whom
they want to optimize growth around; you can’t
really blame them, FSCs are the ones making
money, for themselves and thus for Patreon,
and in addition to that FSCs have the ability
to grow the Patreon brand, these already successful
creators essentially attracting more starry-eyed
new creators to Patreon, like young actresses
with Hollywood dreams, because hey that could
be them!,
or like young vloggers getting attracted to YouTube…
WELL ANYWAY.
With FSCs as the north star metric all policies
are built around, the change in fee processing
is designed to be good for them (FSCs,) but
it gets worse for those who aren’t making
as much money.
It becomes simply not as worth it to be a
patron paying less money to creators--
the new fee system is that there’s a flat 35
cent fee per pledge, regardless of payment amount.
If I’m patronizing a creator for say $1
a month, that’s 100% of my pledge going
to the creator, but an additional 37.9 cents
coming out of my pocket on top of the $1 pledge.
That’s 38% of my pledge.
However, if I’m patronizing a creator for
$100 a month,
which actually I currently am doing IRL btw,
the 2.9% fee becomes $2.90,
the 35 cents reflects a mere third of a percent
of the total of the pledge, and the fee represents
a mere 3.25% of my declared pledge total added
on top (as opposed to 38% if I'm only paying one dollar.)
Let’s illustrate this with person A and
person B.
If a person (person A) is supporting 100 creators
for $1 each, under the old system they’d
be paying the same as if they’re person
B, who is patronizing just one creator for $100.
$100/$100, right?
Under this new system, person A is now paying
$37.90 on top of the $100 they’d been paying,
while person B is paying just $3.25 for supporting
just one creator; A is paying $34.65 more
than B, just because they’re into more than
one thing.
But hey, at least things are better for the
creators;
they’re making 100% of the pledged amount, right?
Only, as I’ve mentioned, with this system
in place, person A would be tempted to drop
many of their pledges, and focus more on the
creators they really really like, instead
of the ones they just think would be nice
to see blossom.
It becomes much more cost-effective to patronize
few creators with macro-payments,
than pledge micropayments to many creators.
Competition for limited market space is of
course a motivator for true greatness, but…
c’mon guys, this is Patreon, the idea was
to circumvent limited market space, create
a safe haven precisely for artistic niches
which would otherwise not be monetizable.
In other words. What the heck, Patreon?
Did you at least test it or on a small market,
receive feedback, then roll out gradually
like we did with changes when I worked at FamilySearch?
You did.
Oh, okay.
Still, the change does seem a bit… sudden and mandatory.
In addition to all this, the new fee structure
enforces this wall between creators and patrons,
when a lot of people are both.
What do I mean by this?
I’m a patron already, and proud of that
fact.
If I wanted to start being a creator as well, which I'm considering, most likely under this new system I’d have
to pay out of pocket, instead of being able
to automatically transfer from my pool of
money I make through Patreon, into their pool
of money they make through Patreon, like you’d
been able to do under the old system.
The fee gets paid twice.
Which strikes me (and I’m not the only one)
as… inefficient.
So.
Is this change for the better?
There are pros and cons.
Like I said, the creator-patronizing-creator
thing is only most likely going to take place,
and ostensibly this change will attract more creators to Patreon
--with creators making more money off of Patreon--
and hopefully more patrons will be attracted with them.
Will they stick to those creators, or branch
out, or will they even come?
Time will tell.
Meanwhile, I have run out of things to say.
This being the first episode of Pretzels+Prints+Repeat, I've uh,
never signed off before,
so I don't really have any, catchy… that’s the way the pretzel,
crumb--?? I don't--
… nah.
