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

[eewitsanne.livejournal.com]

I was a patron rather than a creator, and I ultimately ended up dropping all of my artists because none of them did what they said they'd do. I would sign up for certain tiers promising certain things (sketches, livestreams, etc.), and then didn't get those things, would go weeks and months without any content being posted, and yet my pledges would successfully leave my account every month. I'm all for supporting people to do what they love, but I work *really* hard for my money, and it kind of stung to watch it leave my account without getting anything in return.

Everyone here is (rightly) concerned about pledgers not upholding their ends of the bargain, but maybe you should put something in place to ensure that the artist does the same? I feel like a huge jerk writing this, but I faithfully pledged for a few artists for the better part of this year, and saw very little return, and I'm honestly pretty disappointed.

Edited for grammer, sorry!

[eewitsanne.livejournal.com]

oh my god spelled grammar wrong and I can't edit it any more. I'm going home.

[perldiver.livejournal.com]

That's a good point, we should definitely add that, as there clearly needs to be protections on both sides. Thanks for the idea