this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2023
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[–] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 89 points 2 years ago (7 children)

Everyone should watch this video: The rise and fall of patreon

Patreon is struggling financially (at least compared to the level of growth the VCs want to see), and is likely going to fully enshittify before long. It sucks because they provide a super valuable service for creatives.

[–] ArmoredCavalry@lemmy.world 41 points 2 years ago (2 children)

On a related note... I went to cancel a membership a few weeks back, and the site displayed a message "you don't have an active membership to cancel". I thought it was strange, so I checked out the network requests being made, and turned out the cancel API call was getting blocked for "security reasons". Nothing else on the site was blocked for me, just the cancellation endpoint.

I opened a ticket, and it took them nearly 2 weeks to respond, and there was zero acknowledgement on why cancellation would be blocked.

Not sure if it's a purposeful dark pattern, but it sure seems like it!

[–] LufyCZ@lemmy.world 12 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Pretty sure that if it was purposeful, they'd get slapped with a massive fine sooner than later

[–] ArmoredCavalry@lemmy.world 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Maybe, but it would also be very easy to blame on misconfiguration / mistake. Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if the behavior itself isn't purposeful, but ignoring / not fixing it is. I've definitely seen such behavior at other companies, where they drag their feet on fixing a bug that is bad for the user, but helping them.

[–] LufyCZ@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

I'm guessing the intentionality could be uncovered with a couple well crafted subpoenas.

But yeah, def can see what you're describing happening

[–] simple@lemm.ee 20 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Luckily there's Ko-Fi, which I use. Not quite as robust as Patreon but it's nice if you need a quick donation link.

[–] Franzia@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 2 years ago

Patreon is one of the few companies I really like right now. They are helping creators get out from under the boot of every other damn online platform.

[–] SomethingBurger@jlai.lu 8 points 2 years ago

They should set up a Patreon.

[–] realharo@lemm.ee 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I remember this article from last year, when they laid off 80 people, or 17% of their workforce https://variety.com/2022/digital/news/patreon-layoffs-cuts-creator-partnerships-team-1235372211/

My reaction to this is still - how the hell did they need close to 500 people?

This kind of service should be a very thin layer between the creator and the viewers, there is no need for any additional crap that a middleman company tries to provide. Plenty of other services can do the same for much cheaper.

[–] PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks 7 points 2 years ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

The rise and fall of patreon

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

[–] HKayn@dormi.zone 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

They aren't the only one providing this kind of service.

Patreon won't be missed.