[Updated to add: Kevin Sonney is drawing a line in the sand for Patreon — he’ll not only walk on 31 Dec if the changes aren’t rolled back, he will use his (and I can speak to this personally) considerable tech skills to help any creators that want to move off Patreon to do so, for free. He may want to get one of those take-a-number things like at the deli counter, but expect others to replicate this offer.]

[Updated to add 2: Patreon is apparently planning to levy fees on money that’s already been through the credit-card processing charges.]

There are many things I want to do today, not the least dig into the book I just received, but Patreon has other plans.

Since yesterday’s newsbreak, the consensus has formed: this new plan (not yet in effect, but only 11 days away) is pissing off the US$1 supporters¹ (who will see an overhead of nearly 40% on their pledges), the high-value supporters, the creators (to whom the change has been pitched as a benefit), those who prize honesty and transparency, pretty much everybody.

Everybody except Kickstarter, that is. If you told me that Kickstarter had bribed somebody at Patreon to make this change so as to stir up interest in Drip, I’d almost believe you.

Crucially, the people that Patreon has promised will win out in the new regime are mad. They hate that they’re being sold on a plan that will make them a little more money (and a lot more for Patreon) at the expense of their supporters, about whom they are protective. They hate that Patreon is intruding into that relationship. They hate that Patreon is not even offering an option for the creators to eat the new fees. They hate that they’re being blown off. They’re making plans to exit rather than screw their supporters. They’re trying to figure out ways to game the system until they can find other means of income from the supporters they’re losing.

And everybody really hates the US$0.35/pledge fee, considering Patreon doesn’t charge backers per pledge, but once per total. It’s a naked cash grab. But, it appears, that was the entire point.

What’s really surprised me (apart from the ham-handedness about the entire rollout that I noted yesterday) is that I couldn’t find one person with an interest in Patreon that’s even neutral on this change. I’ve spent all my free time since last night trying to find one person — creator or backer — whose irritation went no higher than meh, whatcha gonna do? But no; literally everybody whose email address doesn’t end in @patreon.com hates everything about this change.

Which leads to a philosophical question — even if Patreon opted to abandon their plans, would anybody trust them again? To my mind, Kickstarter is smart enough to start picking off high-profile Patreon accounts in their invite-only period, giving them time to scale up without being overwhelmed.

Even more important, Kickstarter is fundamentally different from Patreon in a critical fashion: they’re a public benefit corporation; they are required by their charter to engage in a decision process that is not solely governed by how much money they can make.

Given the widespread (and, I think, correct) perception that Patreon’s changes are a cash-grab to make their investors happy (possibly in preparation for a sale), the institutional culture at Kickstarter is sure to engender a metric fuckload more trust than Patreon will ever be able to muster again.

Yesterday I said that Patreon would be much smaller in a year; I now think that was optimistic. Given their tone-deaf refusal to even acknowledge the concerns of their users, I think they’ve actually destroyed their platform. Even if they reverse, they’ll never be trusted again; those that stay will be whoever hasn’t gotten in with Drip yet, and they’ll jump ship as soon as they get their invite. I hope it was worth it, Patreon, because you’re well and truly pooched³.

Spam of the day:

How did I earn 11000 bitcoins in 55 days

Stealing electricity and causing untold ecological damage? I can’t wait for that bubble to burst.

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¹ I wonder what percentage of all pledges at Patreon are at the $1 level? I’d give 50:50 odds it’s a majority.

² That’s 2.54 Imperial fuckloads.

³ And thus, we turn full circle and return to Ryan North, with whom we opened. Life’s great like that sometimes.