Credit: Dissent Report (MakerSupport needs a YouTube channel!!! Just a suggestion)

This is a Table of Contents for all the materials addressed here. There is a large amount of information and videos here so if you’d like to skip to a section use the table below. Read it carefully as I have gone through quite a lot of points and if I haven’t addressed a specific point then feel free to exercise your First Amendment right in the comments section. Sorry you can’t skip straight to it, haven’t found out how to do that yet.

 

Patreon

Banning

Cost Breakdown On New Fees

Reactions

MakerSupport

The Good

The Bad

Suggestions

Records

UPDATE: PATREON APOLIGIZES, HUGE CREATOR VICTORY!

MakerSupport: The Big Three

Minds

Kilroy

The Migration

 

Patreon

We all know about Patreon and enjoy using it, myself included. I mean, I’m on the site and advertise it. It’s become ubiquitous with online careers and serves as the life blood for creators, especially ever since the Adpocalypse began on YouTube and creators started fearing the dreaded yellow button of demonetization. However Patreon has now come under fire repeatedly for poor decisions and patrons as well as creators are getting sick of them. For a quick review of the outrage over Patreon, it comes down to two issues.

 

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Banning

The first was banning Lauren Southern, a noted libertarian journalist, over concerns for her involvement with Defend Europe, a company involved in the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean. It was interpreted by fans and conservatives as a method of censorship against people Patreon dislikes politically and while I don’t necessarily agree, their decision to ban her outright is extreme. Without a warning, suspension or punishment it makes it look like they could exercise this power with no input whatsoever. This is a very real problem and rightfully scared off plenty of people, or at least just mad them angry. The second was the payment plan changes which go into effect December 18, 2017.

Lauren Southern’s video on being banned and her counterpoints.

Credit: Lauren Southern

 

The ANTIFA page, “It’s Going Down” was also banned.

Credit: Prince of Queens

 

This is Jack Conte’s response to the banning of Lauren Southern as well as the broader issue of free speech.

Credit: The Rubin Report

 

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Cost Breakdown On New Fees

The video I have below here explains it pretty well but the basic idea is that, to assure creators of a consistent payout every month (before it gravitated between 85-93% of pledges) at around 95% of pledges, Patreon implemented a new charging system. The problem is that, in doing this, Patreon added a fee to donations so that you have to pay more for the same content. For higher end contributors, this probably won’t be an issue but for people donating $1 or $2, it will be a significant increase, to the point where people are now cancelling their donations because it has become unaffordable.

Ranting Monkey explains this in more detail:

Credit: Ranting Monkey

 

The D-Pad does a good job too:

Credit: The D-Pad

 

The Know showed tweets demonstrating the destructive impact of these fee changes. They pointed out that the $1-5 patrons made up the majority of contributors on Patreon and with their departure they would lose a large amount of money. They even brought up the Change.org petition to ask Patreon to stop these changes. Their last point was Kickstarter’s new program, Drip, a website designed to compete with Patreon.

Credit: The Know

This is the Change.org petition:

https://www.change.org/p/patreon-patreon-drop-the-external-service-charge

 

MindingFreedom pointed out the effect that these changes were having on the pledge amounts. Approximately 20,000 pledges were deleted between 12/6 – 12/7. It plummeted 8,000 more pledges since, at a loss of $30,000. I expect that when the changes go into place, especially considering the approaching holiday season, you will see the pledges plummet even farther.

Credit: MindingFreedom

(Thanks for the like by the way)

 

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Reactions

The Patreon fallout from this has been predictable, with numerous YouTubers voicing their anger at the decision:

Credit: Suit Yourself

 

This video discusses some problems with Patreon, mainly paying out pledges and the fact that Patreon needs to work on their banking software and procedures more instead of their social media side and newsletters. I do agree with them though that they need alternatives, like MakerSupport. I disagree that the social media aspect is wrong, however, since certain people can find new creators that way. Focusing on it instead of the money side is a bigger problem.

Credit: Digibro After Dark

 

Deleted his Patreon.

Credit: Adrian Gaming

 

The David Pakman Show is suffering from the new decision by Patreon.

Credit: David Pakman Show

 

He will take his Patreon down if the changes are put in place.

Credit: FishOfHex

 

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MakerSupport

This is where MakerSupport comes into play. It is a personal crowdfunding website, just like Patreon. The main difference is that they are committed to free speech and have the payment model which creators think is more reasonable in comparison to the new model Patreon has introduced. The founder is Connor Douglas (sorry if I messed up the spelling), a 21 year old computer programmer who worked for Apple and Google and runs the YouTube channel Dissident Report. He founded MakerSupport in mid-October and has high hopes for it to become a competitor to Patreon. He has a funding goal on MakerSupport to pay bills so help him out while you’re there! MakerSupport is interesting for a number of reasons and down below I’ll go over the good, the bad and my suggestions. If you’re curious about what is acceptable on MakerSupport look at their Community Guidelines for further information.

https://www.makersupport.com/guidelines

 

This is a chat Orwell Goode had with Dissent Report:

Credit: Orwell Goode

 

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The Good

• They offer YouTube embedding, just like Patreon.

• MS has an excellent feature that Patreon does not. By e-mailing MakerSupport at support@makersupport.com and requesting to be put into the program. Every person you sign up who donates money or receives pledges will have a small portion given to you for referring them.

You can use mine if you like: https://www.makersupport.com/tomeoftrovius/?rc=tomeoftrovius

• Based on the loading times I have seen it looks faster than Patreon however the true test for that will be when more people are using the website.
• The notification system is better than Patreon since it acts like a social media notification page and takes less time to load.
• The social media buttons they display on your profile page which are superior to Patreon’s application of the same idea.
• MS is compatible with Bitchute and Gab specifically, the only website I’ve seen so far that offers this option.
• MakerSupport is fulfilling an important place within the free market as well, acting as an alternative to Patreon which seemed to be the only option for most people.
• The award levels are easy to design and appear quickly, much faster than Patreon’s designer program which loads slowly and is quite error prone.

 

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The Bad

• One of my issues with social media sites (this includes Patreon) is the analytics. Good analytics are essential to creators. We need to see what is popular in the short and long term, where our fans are coming from, country and websites, as well as checking overall statistics over a long period of time. Most sites are OK but load slowly, are error prone and annoying to use. This is something I would like MakerSupport to be innovative in and offer to creators. After voicing my concern on Twitter MakerSupport got back to me and said that they would implement it in the future. What form it takes, who knows. I just suggest working on it carefully before realizing it but it is encouraging to see their candid and swift response to suggestions.

• When you type into the search bar on MS the results will only show creators and no posts. I think that it is important to be shown relevant articles from across the website in case you would like to subscribe. Hastags are not featured either but I’m more divided on this so I’ll leave it to the readers to debate that point.
• If you would like to be verified on MakerSupport you can DM them on Twitter however I did so several days ago and I have yet to be verified. I assume this is due to his work schedule being busy but I do not ultimately know.

UPDATE: I received verification on 12/15 so this point is stricken

• This is a personal gripe I have with MakerSupport, so if you are a YouTuber or care about creators on YouTube it won’t affect you. The website integrates YouTube videos quite well but not blogs. I run a WordPress blog and most websites embed the posts in a similar fashion to YouTube videos but MakerSupport doesn’t do this. I would like it fixed so that my articles are presented in a more professional manner.
• Their description area is smaller than Patreon and is meant to describe you but not your overall page which I’d like split into an About (username) and a Description part. This would be a much better improvement.

Despite these issues he regularly updates his site and posts it on his Twitter so I think any issues will be hammered over the next year. Creating these sites will take money after all

 

Suggestions

• I have spoken with MakerSupport and talking with them is very easy since they are so receptive. This would be the easiest way for your opinion to reach him so if you do have questions talk to him on Twitter.

• I think an excellent feature to add to a crowdfunding platform would be a random button. You could have almost anything pop up and it would encourage greater exposure of creators (like me) who have been sinking below the wave of news and popular creators.
• MakerSupport, as I alluded to at the very start, needs a YouTube channel for updates and supporter engagement with the creators. Patreon clearly failed in this regard so avoiding their hubris would be highly beneficial in the long run.

 

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Records

Currently, MS has set two personal goals for their website. Sargon of Akkad broke $1,000/month in donations on MakerSupport recently, setting a new record for creators to beat and helping to bring more money to the website. He also has over 600 followers.

https://www.makersupport.com/sargonofakkad

 

MakerSupport currently has over 2,000 users, its highest so far.

UPDATE: PATREON APOLIGIZES, HUGE CREATOR VICTORY!

Patreon Apology Blog

https://blog.patreon.com/not-rolling-out-fees-change/

Patreon Apology to Patrons

As I was writing this article, Patreon decided to reverse course, canceling their changes, apologizing to everyone and trying to find an alternate method of implementing changes to get creators more money.

Credit: SidAlpha

 

Unfortunately this is only bad news for the website. Trust is at an all-time low and support for MakerSupport will probably be great in the future. A large number of patrons have fled and they won’t all necessarily be coming back. As for the creators, when you destroy their free speech and revenue, they will likely begin resenting you.

Credit: The Know

 

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MakerSupport: The Big Three

The big three on MakerSupport so far are Computing Forever, Styxhexenhammer666 and Sargon of Akkad who is the largest so far. Below are their videos on the topic:

Here is Computing Forever’s video on the issue as well as advertising Maker Support

Credit: Computing Forever

 

Styx’s video where he discusses Hatreon, MakerSupport, Patreon, alt-tech, censorship and revenue.

Credit: Styxhexenhammer666

He also brings up the issue of basing your life around Patreon and then being forced to put up with a subscriber flight from poor business practices. Computing Forever and Styx have both seen losses in subscribers due to the Patreon changes.

 

This is Sargon’s video and only the beginning talks about MS. His reasoning is the same; poor ideas from Patreon.

Credit: Sargon of Akkad

This is something that I have noticed and an idea that would be fantastic for MakerSupport if it happened. MakerSupport has asked Dr. Jordan Peterson to consider MS which, if it happened, would change things drastically. Dr. Peterson’s earnings on Patreon are quite large in comparison with other creators to the point where he is one of the top earners. He has hidden his donation amount, however I saw the amount before this and it was in excess of $17,000. Even %10 of that would be enormous in comparison to Sargon’s earnings so if he does switch over it would help MakerSupport considerably. I’d prefer that he show his amount for transparency but whatever his reasons are, I’ll let them stay his reasons. This actually ties in with my search problem on Patreon. I typed in “dr Jordan peterson” & ”dr peter” and neither of these showed his Patreon account. Just another problem Patreon never really fixed and one I hope MakerSupport will address.

 

Minds

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Kilroy

MakerSupport’s creator is also heading to Kilroy in Phoenix, Arizona, USA in April. I expect the Kilroy Event to be a major boon for Maker Support since it will largely be a gathering of people who support free speech as well as victims of the Adpocalypse. Should be a win-win for everyone. However, it is not exempt from controversy either:

THE KILROY FREE SPEECH EVENT – WHY I WILL NOT BE SPEAKING THERE ANY LONGER

Credit: Tim Pool

 

Kilroy and Transparency

Credit: The Thinkery

 

Resolving Your Kilroy Concerns

Credit: Computing Forever

 

The Migration

Here are some people who’ve switched to MakerSupport:

Credit: Dangerfield

Credit: Noel Plum

Credit: Mitch

Credit: CoffeeWithComment

 

Bearing is also up too, almost at $100. In this video it’s within the first 40 seconds.

Credit: Bearing

I’ll keep using Patreon, as you noticed from the ads, until it becomes unworkable to me. I’m supporting MakerSupport, will you? Let’s create a new community together.

 

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