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Message: <blockquote data-quote="talien" data-source="post: 8653855" data-attributes="member: 3285">Yes.At least for my Patreon, it's a subscription model with the value directly determined by how much product is offered at a support tier. What this means is that you could join at five dollars/month, download all the content that is immediately available, and then cancel your subscription. What's offered at that tier is worth far more than five bucks, because otherwise I'd just sell the products exclusively on DriveThruRPG. So the Patreon is a better deal, with the assumption that if you support the Patreon over time, more products get added, and therefore you have an incentive to stick around as a supporter and keep your subscription longer. Conversely, each monthly payment directly supports the creator, paying them to keep producing more product.When people just download everything and then quit (sometimes within minutes!), it's a lopsided deal. The consumer conveys the message to the creator that they like the product, not the creator. They treat it like a coupon rather than a social contract.Where this gets really problematic is when physical product is involved as a reward for a tier. I've spent considerable effort signing books, packaging product, paying for shipping, taking it to the post office ... only to discover that the patron was already gone by the time I shipped the product. So at the higher support tiers there's even more personal investment on behalf of the creator.Patreon and creators all accept this as part of doing business on the platform. It's not just Patreon either, it's an ongoing problem with ebook creators on Amazon where people read the entire book, don't like it, and then return it, forcing the creator to PAY AMAZON BACK.Add all this up, and on bad days, these types of fast-transactional relationships can be very demotivating.</blockquote>

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