Seeking feedback on idea: alternative to Patreon

[perldiver.livejournal.com]

Hi folks,

I messaged a few of you about this already, but was just given mod permission to post it at top level.

I’m a Patreon creator (http://patreon.com/davidstorrs), and a web developer. My business partner and I are frustrated enough with Patreon that we’re building an alternative. We’d like to make sure it does what people actually want so, if you have a minute, I’d really appreciate your feedback.

We think the site should have:

* No percentage taken from your pledges
* Charge patrons immediately to avoid in-and-out “pledge-dodgers”
* Content management for all your content, past and present
* Specify when things should become visible (a.k.a. a publishing queue)
- ...to whom
- ...and for how long
* Ban abusive or exploitative patrons

As far as creators go, our current plan is that early adopters would receive as much storage as they need (within reason!), and future creators would get 1GB of storage for $9.99/month. Again, these are tentative plans and might change as we do more research.

All comments appreciated; a few questions I'd love answers to:

1) Does this sound like a service you would use?

2) Are there any other features you’d like?

3) What is particularly good about Patreon?

4) What issues do you have with Patreon?

Comments

[perldiver.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your input. This discussion has been very useful; among other things, we had assumed that people would prefer a subscription service so as to pay less, but based on the responses I'm seeing here that doesn't seem to be the case. We're moving back towards a percentage model.

There isn't a requirement to take money out of people's income. It's standard practice in order to cover credit card transaction costs, which is why all of the companies you mentioned do that.

[bearprince.livejournal.com]

I appreciate the response, but you still haven't addressed my concerns about your business expertise.

EDIT: I read above where you mentioned running two businesses for two years, and then leaving another that is currently running; two years doesn't seem like a relatively long time for a company to run. But that's all I wanted to know, so!