Meta: Patreon has rolled back plans to change fee structure

Hello MOP readerbase! As you are likely aware, Massively OP’s funding is a hybrid, coming both from advertising and from reader donations, most of the latter through Patreon. Last week, Patreon announced changes to its fee structure that had us all scrambling, as it would have affected sites and donors like ours and moved transaction fees from us to you in a way that would’ve made it hard to justify small monthly donations, which are the majority of our contributions and those for other indie creators on the platform. We alerted our backers on Patreon about the proposed changes last week and were as concerned as you about the future of the platform and whether it was in our and your best interests to stay on it.

I am relieved to report today that Patreon heard the public outcry over the changes and announced today that it will not be implementing those changes.

“The new payments system disproportionately impacted $1 – $2 patrons,” the Patreon blog admitted in its apology. “We have to build a better system for them. Aggregation is highly-valued, and we underestimated that. Fundamentally, creators should own the business decisions with their fans, not Patreon. We overstepped our bounds and injected ourselves into that relationship, against our core belief as a business.”

Consequently, MOP won’t have to panic-move to a new donor system. However, those of you who still want to avoid Patreon can still do so by just cutting out the middle-man and donating directly through PayPal (we grant all the same awards to those who already go this route). Patreon is probably more convenient for both you and us, however, and gives you a chance to support multiple creators, not just MOP!

“We are nothing without you, and we know that,” Patreon said. And we feel the same about you. So Patrons, old and new? Thank you for standing by us.