True enough, but if they're just trying to keep the lights on, the alternative is that everyone is screwed.
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Customer support costs scale roughly linearly with userbase size - if the mean average customer takes 15 mins of support time per year, they lose money on an average customer spending <$7/month (assuming they get 5% of gross patron donations)
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How did you derive the 15 Mins estimate?
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Good points all around. What are some model companies that do customer service but keep the CS overhead cheap enough for micropayments to work?
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Also, if we think about life post
@Patreon: how much does the complex system of tiers and rewards add to customer support cost? Would a simple uncluttered tip jar be easier? Or is that a pointless idea because the fanbase lives for those rewards? -
At worst, creators could do their own management of rewards (manual or automated) given just a spreadsheet.
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Yes, although going back to a pre-ebay level of primitive e-commerce would seem like an odd move. And aren’t many premiums just online content where fulfillment just means an access level in the CMS?
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Yeah, but if "running the CMS" is what's allegedly making your business unprofitable without screwing over ppl who depend on it, don't be a CMS.
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Just do recurring payment aggregation & give creators the raw data to put in their own CMS.
End of conversation
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Patreon cannot change what credit card processing costs, though.
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Up until now they've passed all that on to the creators, separate from the fee they take for their service.
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Yeah, they can make it transparent. If the fees are transparent, though, they should at least give us things to do about them. Like specifically choosing aggregated pledges.
End of conversation
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They are financial intermediaries. They aren't Amazon requiring distribution infrastructure, it literally is all handled online. If they are having issues w/ credit card transaction fees, then it should be handled on creator's side, NOT the subscriber's :/ business 101.
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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