It's astonishing how a company with one product could misunderstand its own market so badly, but given the troubles of Twitter and to a lesser extent Etsy perhaps it's less surprising.
I suppose that can be construed as a warm fuzzy feeling.
I read you want to put weight on how the very fact of giving or retracting donations messages an expectation to the creator and creates a kind of defacto commercial relationship.
But honestly I see it the other way round, where creators on patreons have already put something out in the world, and donations come after the fact.
There is an expectation that they go on creating, but if they said “fuck it I can’t do it anymore” I won’t be running after them to ask for my money back; I already got my warm and fuzzy feelings, the deal is closed on my side.
Yes. In the same way that you purchase something from a charity when you make a donation.
There's also a fair bit of patron-only content from many people - bonus comics, behind the scenes stuff, exclusive videos, requested artwork, whatever.
So yes, you are purchasing arts and entertainment. Just in an unusual model.
Just because there's no defined benefit or exclusivity doesn't mean all you're paying for is "fuzzy feelings".
"Voting with your wallet." Or to paraphrase the way Polonius put it in Hamlet, one of the key differences between sane and insane is what people do with their money.
If they were out to solve a problem, they’d just do this for transactions say $10 and above.
Nay, Patreon knew very well what they’re trying to do, and seeing it fail, decided to use the “play dumb” card.
On the other hand, it's possible that most of thevø revenue does come from 1$ donations, and they didn't understand how much creators desired having many pateons vs. few high paying patreons.
Wonder if he's still leaving.