boxofdelights

It looks like there are two core issues behind the change:

1) The standard "subscribe; pay at the first of the month" system, in which people could sign up, download this month's Nifty New Content, and unsubscribe before payments hit - this was a problem for creators.

2) The optional "pay immediately" system, in which people subscribe, pay the month's charge, and then get charged again at the first of the month; if they subscribed on the 27th of a month, they felt cheated.

So Patreon found a "solution": Charge everyone immediately on subscribing, and then every month on the anniversary of that subscription.

Only that means, every subscription is a separate charge, so they want to pass their fees to someone. (Along with, of course, a reasonable markup for their handling costs, doncha know.) And they knew how much outrage they'd get by telling creators, "Instead of getting $.85 for every $1 subscriber, you'll now be getting $.62 for those subscriptions."

So they handed the charge off to the buyers, phrased it to sound like a bonus to the creators and minimize the nearly 40% markup on small amounts, and decided that also, they will no longer allow pledges under $1. Oh, and they're getting rid of the ability for creators to sponsor other creators without going through the standard bank route, because their new accounting system can't handle subscriptions without bank charges attached.

End result is going to be a whole lot of cancelled subscriptions, a whole lot of reduced subscriptions, and huge swarms of people looking for other scheduled micropay platforms.