Why is Patreon still more popular than Subscribestar?

[yeeterboy2]

Recently all I have heard about NSFW game devs and Patreon is complaints about Patreon's strict guidelines and shitty management. I'm just wondering why any dev even bothers with it at this point? If your game is not 100% vanilla then you can just get nuked with no warning. Why is Subscribestar not the go to for this type of content? I can think of a few possible reasons myself, but I'm just curious whether there's a deeper explanation to why people still roll the dice with Patreon.

 

[Corvo Bianco]

I think it simply boils down to how well-known Patreon is. Practically everyone knows and trusts them with their credit card info without a second thought. Subscibestar is too niche and people are wary of it.

 

[morphnet]

First you have to realize that those are two different points, first point is dev's and the second is patreon. Patreon has had some very bad reviews here and on other adult sites BUT patreon was never, is not now and will never be designed with adult entertainment in mind. It was designed as a platform to allow creators to get support for their works.

The main problem is alot of people don't think about or see the big picture, if you are a christian creating religious art or a programmer trying to make software for schools, would you want people to see in their search results that the place you are asking people to give money to also has people making games where young boys drug their mom and sister so they can have sex with them? Not only is there a chance that creators would stop using patreon but their is a chance other companies would stop working with them and that is REALLY bad for business.

If patreon had started out as an adult entertainment support platform then a case could be made against their "strict guidelines" and "shitty management" but they have to think about the big picture, try balance creative support and the reality of today's communities and make money.....

As for dev's, they see that the platform has worked and IS still working for many other dev's and that it is a VERY well known platform, so I guess (just an assumption i'm making here) they known there are people already registered there and giving money to other dev's so it's a win / win, minus of course the limitations placed by the rules there.

There are alot of other places dev's can and DO go, itch.io, substar, buymecoffee etc. but Patreon is better known and does work as long as you follow their rules.

As a side note... there are a few places that did start off designed for adult entertainment, DLsite as an example and they DO allow things like incest etc...

 

[Pretentious Goblin]

I can't even access Subscribestar, it's being blocked by my ISP I think. I need to use a VPN to access it. Also, it seems they only accept credit card. Which is understandable I guess given how troublesome payment processors can be when it comes to porn, but it definitely reduces the userbase.

 

[moskyx]

PayPal and major credit card companies won't even work with SubscribeStar, so that platform has way less audience because is not as 'customer-friendly' as Patreon. Devs who are creating something that goes against Patreon's ToS and content guidelines can go largely unnoticed at Patreon and cash in some decent money before 'getting nuked' from there. So it's just reasonable to risk it and wait for a banhammer that may never come. Smart devs use as many platforms as possible, it's just a matter of giving more options to your potential supporters.

 

[anne O'nymous]

PayPal and major credit card companies won't even work with SubscribeStar, so that platform has way less audience because is not as 'customer-friendly' as Patreon.

And there's also SubscribeStar's "you can't get your money before you've US$ XXX", who isn't really engaging for the creators. The minimal amount seem to now depend of your country, but for most creators it still mean that they can only get your money at most every two months.


Plus there's the lack of transparency regarding what SubscribeStar is. They expect us to let them deal with our money, the least they can do is to be fully transparent, in order to gain our trust.

Patreon is doing it, we know exactly "who they are". It's a company registered in the USA, created by Jack Conte and Sam Yam, and located in San Francisco, 600 townsend Street. Go there, and you'll see the company office, you'll be able to enter it, talk with the people working here and the owner ; well, all this being relative, they'll probably not let a random guy enter this easily.

But for SubscribeStar, it's a radically different story. To know anything about them, you need to dig through the archives of different US institutions. You'll then learn that the company is registered in the USA, but actually registered under the name of some guy living in Russia. I say "actually", because if you dig deep enough, you'll see that it's not the same person who created the company.
The fact that the owner live in Russia isn't really important. What matter is that the company is registered in one country, while the owner live in another one. Worse, he live in a country that, without a single doubt, have no intent to one day follow any decision made by the US justice.
As for the location of the company, last time I took a look, it was just a mailbox managed by a company that manage a lot of mailboxes, for a lot of very strange web sites. Web sites that, for most, have a really short live span ; who would have believed that selling rocks supposed to protect you from all deceases isn't a really successful activity ?
It doesn't mean that SubscribeStar is suspicious, but it's enough to say that it's shady. Too shady for a company that expect to win our trust because they'll have to deal with our money. Imagine that PayPal was as obfuscated than this, would you really trust them ?

 

[Diagnosed]

Why isnt everyone using crypto is whats baffling to me. Its like it was specifically invented for the purpose of paying for shameful porn games. I understand the network effects though. Patreon has the patrons, so they get the devs. It has the devs so it gets the patrons.

 

[moskyx]

Not sure if this is the best week (or month) to talk about the wonders of crypto as a payment method

 

[NRFB]

Patreon has first to market advantage along with their all of their possible competitors having entirely different sets of baggage that are holding them back.

It's hard enough convincing people to crowdfund your creative venture on a monthly basis, most creators don't want to add trying to convince people to switch payment sites to something unfamiliar on top of that.

 

[Pretentious Goblin]

Not sure if this is the best week (or month) to talk about the wonders of crypto as a payment method

Why's that? Is it that supposedly upcoming Telegram leak?

 

[anne O'nymous]

Why isnt everyone using crypto is whats baffling to me.

The answer is easy, really few people effectively want to use crypto.
Late last year, Patreon started a poll regarding crypto currencies. They had 13,000 answers and the result is clear,

You must be registered to see the links

. It's not the majority, but it's more than four time the 9% who believe that it's a must have. Even adding the 18% who think that it could be nice, it's far to equal those 43% who don't want it at all.
Since the majority of those who really want for Patreon to introduce crypto have jumped on the occasion and answered, those ~1,200 creators who think it's a must have are also the only one, among the ~250.000 creators, who believe that. And suddenly they become even less significant since they represent less than 0.5% of all the creators.

All this is perfectly understandable. Being indexed on nothing, crypto-currencies are too volatile to be used as effective currencies. Even the creators who earn near to nothing on Patreon expect to have the same amount of "nothing" the next month and plan their project based on this. But what can you plan when you'll be rich, or poor, depending on the day you'll withdraw your money ?
The same apply for the pledgers, who will overpay, or underpay, depending on the day they'll pledge.

Its like it was specifically invented for the purpose of paying for shameful porn games.

Wrong, everyone know that it was invented to pay for pizzas.
And, incidentally, probably regret it for the rest of your life, since he spent what today worth 216 millions for those two pizzas.

Why's that? Is it that supposedly upcoming Telegram leak?

I guess that it's more because cryptos crash as usual.

 

[Diagnosed]

Not sure if this is the best week (or month) to talk about the wonders of crypto as a payment method

lol its still wonderful to me

The answer is easy, really few people effectively want to use crypto.
Late last year, Patreon started a poll regarding crypto currencies. They had 13,000 answers and the result is clear,

You must be registered to see the links

. It's not the majority, but it's more than four time the 9% who believe that it's a must have. Even adding the 18% who think that it could be nice, it's far to equal those 43% who don't want it at all.
Since the majority of those who really want for Patreon to introduce crypto have jumped on the occasion and answered, those ~1,200 creators who think it's a must have are also the only one, among the ~250.000 creators, who believe that. And suddenly they become even less significant since they represent less than 0.5% of all the creators.

All this is perfectly understandable. Being indexed on nothing, crypto-currencies are too volatile to be used as effective currencies. Even the creators who earn near to nothing on Patreon expect to have the same amount of "nothing" the next month and plan their project based on this. But what can you plan when you'll be rich, or poor, depending on the day you'll withdraw your money ?
The same apply for the pledgers, who will overpay, or underpay, depending on the day they'll pledge.




Wrong, everyone know that it was invented to pay for pizzas.
And, incidentally, probably regret it for the rest of your life, since he spent what today worth 216 millions for those two pizzas.




I guess that it's more because cryptos crash as usual.

Oh man a poll by patreon on the matter is a like a poll by tobacco companies and the effect of smoking. For the purposes of donating money to a developer you like, you would use stable coins backed by dollars in a bank account. There is no good reason not to allow for it, there is not any more or less counterparty risk than what we have currently. Any people saying they dont want it dont understand the question, or the question is being framed to elicit a negative response.

It would be like, "do you want to be paid in pesos or dollars?" Everyone will say dollars. Rephrase the qestion to "would you like to allow for people in mexico to also make payments to you" everyone is saying yes.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Oh man a poll by patreon on the matter is a like a poll by tobacco companies and the effect of smoking.

They asked their users what they want, and the said users answered. It's way more significant than what a cryptidiot can say on a piracy site.

It would be like, "do you want to be paid in pesos or dollars?" Everyone will say dollars. Rephrase the qestion to "would you like to allow for people in mexico to also make payments to you" everyone is saying yes.

Do you even know what you are talking about ?

Patreon actually permit to pledge in 16 different currencies, and creators can also choose among them the one they want to use. But of course, whatever if you pay in Czech Koruna (one of those 16 currencies) or in US dollars, the creator will still receive the same sum in the currency he have chosen. Patreon just apply the actual change rate.
This mean that your guy in Mexico is already able to pledge, this without problem. And if he had some time to loose, he would even choose to do it in the currency that have the most favorable change rate for him, instead of choosing US$.

But anyway, creators who answered Patreon survey come from 113 countries. They are, apparently way more than you, aware that people can pledge whatever the country they live in, and that they don't need crypto-currencies for that.

 

[Diagnosed]

They asked their users what they want, and the said users answered. It's way more significant than what a cryptidiot can say on a piracy site.




Do you even know what you are talking about ?

Patreon actually permit to pledge in 16 different currencies, and creators can also choose among them the one they want to use. But of course, whatever if you pay in Czech Koruna (one of those 16 currencies) or in US dollars, the creator will still receive the same sum in the currency he have chosen. Patreon just apply the actual change rate.
This mean that your guy in Mexico is already able to pledge, this without problem. And if he had some time to loose, he would even choose to do it in the currency that have the most favorable change rate for him, instead of choosing US$.

But anyway, creators who answered Patreon survey come from 113 countries. They are, apparently way more than you, aware that people can pledge whatever the country they live in, and that they don't need crypto-currencies for that.

I used that as an example to indicate that no reasonable person would say "i dont want money" regardless of the currency. So the questioning must have been very biased. Not sure why you have a problem with crypto. It will change the world for the better and remove the power from corporations like patreon to control developers with their terms of service.

 

[Luderos]

The answer is easy, really few people effectively want to use crypto.
Late last year, Patreon started a poll regarding crypto currencies. They had 13,000 answers and the result is clear,

You must be registered to see the links

.

I couldn't find the list of actual questions, but I suspect the wording was poor or biased. Patreon accepting crypto as payment shouldn't have any affect on creators other than opening up new markets for them. Patreon should be the one shouldering the volitility risk in this case (would would be minimal for them if converted quickly since they have no fixed cost associated with the transaction). If they forced creators to accept payouts in the currency used, it would be a different story, but that would be highly unreasonable.

 

[moskyx]

I couldn't find the actual question either but considering it's placed

You must be registered to see the links

and the answers are categorized as 'Please don't', 'Don't care', 'Nice to have', 'Crucial', I guess it was something simple like 'How important would it be for you to have this option available?', with no further elaboration about what would be the actual system to be implemented. Just one more question among many others.

If you, as a creator, are not familiar with crypto, chances are you will say 'please don't add this option to the mix', or 'Don't care' since everyone using crypto can perfectly pay in ordinary currencies and you won't have to deal with questions, complaints and all the buzz that comes with it. Also, I think this quote from the article mentions another good point:

Sure, crypto skeptics could simply just not use web3 features with their audience. But some creators worry that their audience will be less likely to support them via Patreon if the company dabbles in web3.

“Any creator becomes like customer service and a representative for any of the services that you use,”

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CEO Amanda McLoughlin

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last year, noting that patrons had reached out to her in the past with concerns about Patreon pivoting to crypto. For small business owners that make a significant chunk of their income from fan memberships on Patreon, these seemingly small feature updates can make a serious impact.

Personally, I can understand that giving people more options to pay is always a good move, but if I'm not sure about how that new system is going to be handled and I fear it would create more complications for me -or even fear that there are more people with negative feelings against just having the option than people willing to actually use it, my answer will be negative too since I feel it's a totally superfluous payment method.

 

[woody554]

Why isnt everyone using crypto is whats baffling to me. Its like it was specifically invented for the purpose of paying for shameful porn games. I understand the network effects though. Patreon has the patrons, so they get the devs. It has the devs so it gets the patrons.

because it's monopoly money and everybody and your uncle understands it except the people who've been suckered into the scam.

I know, I know, that's not what the crypto people think. but that is what EVERYBODY else thinks and that's why they'll never use crypto.

 

[anne O'nymous]

I used that as an example to indicate that no reasonable person would say "i dont want money" regardless of the currency.

More than money, what creators want is peace of mind. And it's something that isn't compatible with crypto-currencies.

Not sure why you have a problem with crypto. It will change the world for the better and remove the power from corporations like patreon to control developers with their terms of service.

Do you really believe your second sentence ?

Do you really believe that there were no indie creators before 2013 and the creation of Patreon, or before Internet reached the public in the 00's ?
What about Apogee Software, ID software, and so many others, who started in the late 80's early 90's, as indie studios selling shareware through BBS ? What about painters, writers, and so, who were going from fair to fair, to sell their creations, this since the late 19th century ? What about minstrels who were traveling from village to village during all the middle age ?

Do you really believe that there's only ~250,000 indie creators in the world ?
In 2017 the number of

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was estimated to 16.98 millions, and apparently

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. If even only 1% of them effectively match the criteria to be called "indie creators", it would still be near to two time more indie creators in the sole USA, than there's creators from all around the world in Patreon.

Do you really believe that creators are 100% depending on Patreon ?
They aren't. According to the same survey, only 41% of their income come from Patreon. It's not even half of it, and if Patreon wasn't there, they would have found another way to earn those 41%.

Do you really believe that creators can exist without having to comply to terms of service ?
Creators need a platform to advertise their creations, and this platform will have terms of service. Even BBS had terms of service ; including those who were temples of piracy (and not just 'software piracy'). Of course, they can always find a platform without a single term of service, but they'll not found many people there. Honest customers (and despite being pirate, here there's mostly only honest customers) do not goes on those site. So, creators would advertise in the void. Not only it isn't really efficient, but there they'll also found more people who will try to scam them, than people who will effectively want to give them money.

And, finally, do you really believe that they'll be free because they'll use crypto-currencies ?
There's already banks who refuse any money coming from crypto conversions. There's laws, you know, and among them there's one that affray any payment processor and bank all over the world: If you proceed money coming from drugs, prostitution rings, p*d*shit rings, and things like that, you'll be seen as accomplice of this crime and sentenced as it.
Drug traffickers don't keep millions in banknots for their pleasure. They do it because they don't have choice. It's why money laundering exist. And guess what those peoples like to use for their transactions nowadays ? Bingo, crypto-currencies.

You second sentence is not just a dream or an utopia, it's a deny of reality.
And, it's what I have against crypto-currencies. The people who actively promote them are way too often totally blind to the reality. They believe that crypto-currencies are something new that will change the world because they'll permit so many things... that already exist since decades, when not (on other forms) centuries.
Blockchains are interesting, and they can open some gates in the future, like

You must be registered to see the links

by example ; I'm skeptical, but done well, yeah it can be something useful. But it's blockchains that are interesting, not their actual use.
Crypto-currencies are just a toy to keep anarcho-libertarian busy enough for them to not try to start a revolution. Why would they, they are convinced that they are already doing their revolution.

I couldn't find the actual question either [...]

Can't either, but I remember the fire it put on Twitter when the creators started to receive the survey.
Of course, it's Twitter, so angry birds became reality. But the last time I saw so many people threatening to quit Patreon was when they started their ban ; and at this time it was just adult creators.
A big part of those who answered "please don't" really meant it. And, interestingly enough, the more they were tech wise, the stronger were their opposition.

 

[Droid Productions]

Part of patreon's problem with accepting and auto converting crypto into fiat is that they become a defacto exchange, or at least crypto exit point, and as such liable for all the various and ever changing kyc rules across the world that exchanges have to deal with. If they accept, but don't convert, crypto the devs eat that risk, and many of them don't want to.

This is especially true as it becomes harder and harder in many jurisdictions to withdraw your crypto into fiat.

 

[Hadley]

Patreon is the fucking worst. I would never give them any money.