Hacker News Reader

This is most likely due to EU's new PSD2 regulations (see https://stripe.com/connect/eu-guide)

If you ride the guide in its entirety (or the text of the PSD2 at http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX...), you would see that one-to-many transactions are fine under the PSD2 regulations.

The most likely reason for the change in fee structures is that Patreon simply needs to charge more money.