Culture Content creators in financial disarray after Patreon declines payments

Content creators in financial disarray after Patreon declines payments

August 2nd, 2018 - 02:45pm
By Danielle Partis, Influencer Editor

Some creators on Patreon have been left in panic after finding that the platform has declined their payout for this month.

According to tweets from Patreon users, internal problems with the platform caused every single pledge to a creator to be declined. This chargeback also allegedly triggered credit fraud marks from banks.

Those using Patreon as a crowdfunding tool have also posted screenshots of their patrons' pledges being declined in bulk. This isn't ideal for creators relying on Patreon as a main source of income.

Yikes

Patreon is yet to comment on the issue. The last noise from the company was that it was resolving some connectivity issues.

https://www.influencerupdate.biz/ne...ial-disarray-after-patreon-declines-payments/

I think we will see a lot of cow chimping because of this. Ready your salt reservoirs.

 

[Marvin]

I thought she DFE when she went dark. Patreon, twitter (it's up but not her), discord, etc. I personally doubt she's given up the weird life and she just has a super sekret discord where only the most beta of cucks who've given her the $$$ shekels have access to and she does skype shows for them.

I'm skeptical. I mean, I think she'd want to do that, but I think someone would've leaked something by now, accidentally or otherwise.

 

[break these cuffs]

I'm skeptical. I mean, I think she'd want to do that, but I think someone would've leaked something by now, accidentally or otherwise.

The fact that there hasn't been a leak is the what's making me begin to doubt that theory. The other thing I just thought of is the rise of sugar daddy sites. I heard a freaking radio ad for an exposée on them. I know they're just thinly veiled escort sites, but it's not like she hasn't done that before. Allison could have found paypigs that don't even know about her online footprint and pedophilic predilections. I just can't see her giving it all up and being a cashier at a gas station.

 

[Inigo]

Problem is caused by Patreon moving their offices to the UK and just suddenly charging everyone from the UK instead of from inside the US.

The people that run this company are fucking stupid as hell lol.

Guess I wasn't wrong to get that software engineer position

You're a software engineer now? Congrats.

 

[Ghostse]

I don't think patreon is internet welfare. That really elevates welfare to something it's not.

Patreon is consensual and patrons are getting something for their money. If they don't like what they're getting, they have the option to stop paying.

As a snarky truism, internet welfare is completely accurate. If you want to get :autism:, its internet panhandling.

I see where you're coming from, but at the same time most people aren't complete sociopaths so when someone is sobbing about how much their life sucks and they need to raise $500 so they can get their dog angioplasty, its hard to turn off the tap when they keep sobbing about the next crisis. You might argue that the internet tranny in crisis sob-story e-panhandling is its own sort of performance art and be correct, but you should then also kill yourself.

Patreon, as a "pay your favorite content creatros", was a good idea. But the problem is there's no accountability for content, other than fucking with someone's ability to pay rent. As the pledges are monthly, there's also no good way to "pay for updates" or, other than directly messaging the creator, let them know you're going pull your support if they can't actually meet the low barrier of minimal output they set, since everything operates on about a month lag time.

Anyway, see ZeCommissar's post.

Oh no, so now people who take 5 years to work on a project that should only take 1 can't get free gibs while they are "working on it".

I do feel bad for those that actually do make good shit tho, and are using it like it's supposed to be used.

100% agree here.

Nothing wrong with busking, apart from the public nuisance aspect. Much more respectable than begging or collecting welfare.

I've seen aggressive buskers, but most art. I really don't give a shit about someone doing their thing with a tip bucket out. They're at least doing something other than sitting there trying to guilt you into supporting their existance.

I see streaming as busking.

I think the whole thing with patreon is that you could set goals and manage them through patreon.

By Patreon's ToS, you're supposed to be creating something, and "Carbon Dioxide via respiration" is not something. Some people really push that though. If I create a patreon that says "I will create an MSPaint Spaceship every month I reach my funding goal" its pretty much just e-begging. You can set goals and rewards, but there isn't any actual accountability other than people getting sick of shit and stopping pledging.

Twitch is much closer to e-busking, as you actually need to be online to get viewers, and people have to actively donate. The only passive stream is subscriptions, and most people will move a subscription to a stream they actually watch if someone doesn't actually log on to stream.

Oh no I cant get free internet money for a month by dressing like a sexy Link and play vidya all day oh no noooo....

This but unironically. Where the fuck am I going to get my bespoke Linkle jerking it material now?!

 

[RodgerDodger]

Sometimes i wonder why sites like Patreon are so god damn stupid to move from US TO EU *no offense european users*.

For one side this affects those incels that call themselfs content creators but at the end of the day they con scammers with a fake smile.

For other side it really is a suckerpunch for plenty of swf/nsfw artist, cosplayers, musicians, freelancers game indie developers and more ... is just a big nuke to their progress just for crap that patreon does without letting them know in advance of this.

Anyways i guess in a few days i hope maybe idk can't tell the future, "Dont F*CK up again".

Honestly idk of other website that follows the same mechanic of patreon so maybe would be nice to have an efficient patreon competitor company that makes good calls regarding this as well other guidelines issues that content creators tend to deal with !

UK is much less likely to ask questions about money laundering and tax evasion. Something that the US Feds were starting to wonder about.

 

[vertexwindi]

UK is much less likely to ask questions about money laundering and tax evasion. Something that the US Feds were starting to wonder about.

Moving to the UK sure isn't a suspicious move then.

 

[Sumdood]

Anyone remember like a year ago when Patreon was going to change their rules to cut down on the lolcow circle-jerk wankery, only to sheepishly back down once they saw how brazenly angry the scammers were about not being able to scam quite as hard?

My point is, when your business model caters to the most entitled shit stains on this here planet, don’t be surprised when they turn out to be itching for a reason to shank you behind your back

 

[AnOminous]

Anyone remember like a year ago when Patreon was going to change their rules to cut down on the lolcow circle-jerk wankery, only to sheepishly back down once they saw how brazenly angry the scammers were about not being able to scam quite as hard?

My point is, when your business model caters to the most entitled shit stains on this here planet, don’t be surprised when they turn out to be itching for a reason to shank you behind your back

When your business model is taking a cut of the profits of swindling con artists, you aren't really in much position to be claiming you're going to clean up the scams on your site. Patreon's whole model is scamming. For every legitimate content creator, there's a dozen outright thieves, parasites, and hipster welfare bums.

 

[Sumdood]

When your business model is taking a cut of the profits of swindling con artists, you aren't really in much position to be claiming you're going to clean up the scams on your site. Patreon's whole model is scamming. For every legitimate content creator, there's a dozen outright thieves, parasites, and hipster welfare bums.

I miss the days when scammers actually had to put some effort into scamming people via the Amways and Herbalifes of the world. It all seems so quaint now

 

[TowinKarz]

I miss the days when scammers actually had to put some effort into scamming people via the Amways and Herbalifes of the world. It all seems so quaint now

And whatever happened to those days of finding 10 emails in your inbox, all promising you a million bucks and THIS IS NO JOKE!!!!

 

[Elwood P. Dowd]

I miss the days when scammers actually had to put some effort into scamming people via the Amways and Herbalifes of the world. It all seems so quaint now

My understanding is that the cleaning products Amway sells aren't actually all that bad. They're probably overpriced, but at least you get something out of it.

 

[Sumdood]

My understanding is that the cleaning products Amway sells aren't actually all that bad. They're probably overpriced, but at least you get something out of it.

Hoo boy, let me tell ya.. no the cleaning products ain’t that bad, but what they don’t tell you in the fine print is that as soon as you sign up for amway you become a smug, unbearable asshole. Nothing they can do, thems the rules

 

[Alec Benson Leary]

Panhandling no. Busking yes.

It depends, case by case. The majority of patreon creators actually do create something, sure, even if it's stupid and lazy. But there are people who just ask for money because they're oppressed or because dad finally said they have to pay rent after 25 years and they can't even.

But I do regard a lot of creators as being basically bums. Because a lot of them don't seem to possess a professional attitude toward their work. How many creators are there out there who promise they'll do X, Y, and Z if their total income tops a certain amount, and then they just don't do it and only offer flimsy excuses or none at all?

Patreon is a job. If you're getting paid it's a job. But a lot of these people don't seem to see it that way. They seem to think it's more of a monetized friends list. Give me X per month because you like me as a person, not because of the service I'm providing you. Our own thread about SA LPers is a prime example, those are all college communists who mocked the concept of monetizing their precious art right up until patreon came along (at the same time as they were learning their game design and humanities degrees wouldn't translate into easy careers). Then it was a sudden 180 because they still wanted a cushy life like privileged teenagers get.

It's a problem of the culture that has grown around patreon. I don't blame the service themselves or even the paradigm in general, I think the paradigm is democratizing and a net boon for us all. But people have to respect their own work in order to respect their customers.

 

[Marvin]

It depends, case by case. The majority of patreon creators actually do create something, sure, even if it's stupid and lazy. But there are people who just ask for money because they're oppressed or because dad finally said they have to pay rent after 25 years and they can't even.

But I do regard a lot of creators as being basically bums. Because a lot of them don't seem to possess a professional attitude toward their work. How many creators are there out there who promise they'll do X, Y, and Z if their total income tops a certain amount, and then they just don't do it and only offer flimsy excuses or none at all?

Patreon is a job. If you're getting paid it's a job. But a lot of these people don't seem to see it that way. They seem to think it's more of a monetized friends list. Give me X per month because you like me as a person, not because of the service I'm providing you. Our own thread about SA LPers is a prime example, those are all college communists who mocked the concept of monetizing their precious art right up until patreon came along (at the same time as they were learning their game design and humanities degrees wouldn't translate into easy careers). Then it was a sudden 180 because they still wanted a cushy life like privileged teenagers get.

It's a problem of the culture that has grown around patreon. I don't blame the service themselves or even the paradigm in general, I think the paradigm is democratizing and a net boon for us all. But people have to respect their own work in order to respect their customers.

Yeah, that's a good point.

Basically, Patreon has made it easier to be an artist. That's great for the minority of great artists who have a great worth ethic.

But I think it's rare that great art is made by people in comfy circumstances.

 

[Alec Benson Leary]

Yeah, that's a good point.

Basically, Patreon has made it easier to be an artist. That's great for the minority of great artists who have a great worth ethic.

But I think it's rare that great art is made by people in comfy circumstances.

Patreon has done good things but ultimately I view it as an unnecessary middleman.

I know this is a bit reaching for the stars but I almost wish we could go back to the web 1.0 days when everyone had their own website instead of just their own page on one website (facebook, etc). Why can't creator and consumer alike agree on a paradigm where if you like their stuff you just plug your credit card for whatever one-time or monthly amount you want to give them? Of course the first answer is reach, facebook et al would much rather you rely on them to find who you're searching for rather than cast out an ask jeeves search like we all used to. And of course the problem of your banks themselves acting like curating busybodies instead of neutral facilitators, such as certain banks outright refusing to let you use your own damn card to pay for things they don't like such as porn sites and such.

 

[AnOminous]

My understanding is that the cleaning products Amway sells aren't actually all that bad. They're probably overpriced, but at least you get something out of it.

The scam isn't the product, it's that they sell the salespeople they can actually make money selling the shit, which they sell them. The only people who actually make money are the people hard-selling the shit to the suckers who try to sell it door to door, who end up holding the bag when most of it remains unsold, and they end up with a sad story and a garage full of shit.

The few people who are actually ridiculously good salespeople enough to make some marginal amount of money selling the shit themselves soon graduate to the higher levels because that's where you have access to the suckers you can sell to in bulk.

The fact that they're selling an actual product, at least nominally, is why they're a barely legal classic MLM scam and not an outright illegal pyramid scam.

Modern MLM scams take it a step further by actually having the product itself be a complete scam, too (Herbalife etc.).

 

[Alec Benson Leary]

The scam isn't the product, it's that they sell the salespeople they can actually make money selling the shit, which they sell them. The only people who actually make money are the people hard-selling the shit to the suckers who try to sell it door to door, who end up holding the bag when most of it remains unsold, and they end up with a sad story and a garage full of shit.

I started reading this without first reading what you were quoting and thought you were directly referencing patreon and it still kind of fits...

 

[Marvin]

Patreon has done good things but ultimately I view it as an unnecessary middleman.

I know this is a bit reaching for the stars but I almost wish we could go back to the web 1.0 days when everyone had their own website instead of just their own page on one website (facebook, etc). Why can't creator and consumer alike agree on a paradigm where if you like their stuff you just plug your credit card for whatever one-time or monthly amount you want to give them? Of course the first answer is reach, facebook et al would much rather you rely on them to find who you're searching for rather than cast out an ask jeeves search like we all used to. And of course the problem of your banks themselves acting like curating busybodies instead of neutral facilitators, such as certain banks outright refusing to let you use your own damn card to pay for things they don't like such as porn sites and such.

Oh definitely. Like I said, I really don't like the big tent approach. It yokes everyone together to the same level of mediocrity.

I like to work on ways to democratize technology. (OpenFaaS is neat, haven't used it much though. Containerization in general. Unikernels.)

In regards to funding sites on a one-on-one basis, there's a browser called Brave. It was made by the guy who invented Javascript, ran Mozilla, until he got unpersoned for privately donating to an anti-gay marriage group in California. The modern web was built on his work. Brave has a very aggressive adblocker built in, but it also includes a micropayment system where you can load it up with, say, $50/month or whatever, and it'll disburse that in the form of a cryptocurrency payment to each site you visit, based on how much you time you spend there.

Cryptocurrencies suck for normal people though. I wish the banks would just ignore the screeching and do their jobs.

Oh, and speaking of porn, I worked for a bit for a company that was involved in nude pictures / sex related stuff. We had investors. We had customers. We had payroll. We had a bunch of people who wanted to exchange money willingly, and yet every so often, a bank would drop us.

One guy wants to send this girl a dollar, she wants to give him something in return. And it's totally legal. If it was IRL, they could do it in cash, and they'd happily give the taxman his cut. And yet some banker in a suit starts sweating when we ask him to handle it for us.

Null getting harassed off of every funding platform he could is no surprise for me. Shit's fucking retarded.

With how obnoxiously regulated the financial industry is, I demand some standards. I'm not a fan of the government, but apparently we've already decided that the financial industry is a quasi-governmental sector. Especially considering how often we bail them out. Well then, I demand some first amendment standards.

Of course, the people who impose their stupid opinions on the financial industry are also to blame. I'm amazed that people feel so entitled to have an opinion about someone else's life, that they'll try to do an end-run around that person's choices, and try to get them shut off at the spigot. Like goddamn, mind your own fucking business.

Like, does it bother them that that dollar bill in their pocket was in a hooker's ass-crack two weeks ago? Are they going to go crying to Uncle Sam about that? Well, knowing these dipshits, if they could, they certainly would.

But this is also why I staunchly oppose attempts to regulate facebook and social media. I really don't want software to be like the financial industry. I want to have choice about who I work with and on what projects. Now what I want to work on, is whittling away the significance of big, chunky players like facebook or youtube.

(Internet video is my big target right now. The tools exist to move video around, but they're clunky and annoying to use. I think democratized video is the next frontier.)

Edit: To paraphrase my fellow Baltimorean, H.L. Mencken, puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, might be having some fun.

 

[BScCollateral]

I've been thinking about the creators I support on Patreon.

Some of my favorites are retired guys, making content based on their hobbies, often with a tangential relationship with their jobs. That's Jive Turkey, Mighty Jingles, Space Rocket History Podcast.

But there's a number of people who do it as a job. Red Letter Media, for example.