Personally it doesnt really matter cuz I've joined both (of course when its financially possible, only so many one can subscribe to a month unfortunately ;;)
BUT i think with the way Patreon is going and only seems to be getting worse, it might be best to head to Substar as an adult creator :c

But that's only if someone has the same mindset as you! O: [the mindset of being open to making new accounts. I imagine there are at least SOME people who think 'I have patreon, I don't wanna make another thing.']

Meanwhile, Ama just told me how Patreon allows people to use Paypal, but paying on Substar requires a credit-card. So.. there are some who would be stymied that way, perhaps.

ahhh yeah you have a point there, some folks don't like to bother making new accounts all the time D:

This is also true, hmm
it might not hurt to have both open? Substar could still be a backup in case Patreon decides to crack down on whatever you upload there. Or if you're discord savvy and have a community, have a role for patreon subscribers for that can access the adult works. I've seen a few patreon folks resort to that lately

Now I'm the one who'll say "ughh I don't want to make ANOTHER THING", because I've never wanted to have my own discord server.

I have a Telegram channel, though. One of the broadcast ones, where I just post, and others cannot chat, save for replying to the posts.

I don't want to manage a discord community. So, if I made a Discord it would just be one channel where I can post and no one can talk.. but that kind of defeats the purpose of having a discord at all, doesn't it? >__>

Yeaaah i totally get you, i have an art storage server n only let very few people in cuz I dont want to manage a whole community n moderate everything n possibly deal with unnecessary drama, thankfully its been fine so far.

I wonder if there's a way to implement that with a telegram channel though, give em automatic access once subscribed, i don't know a whole lot of how patreon works though

Could always just proceed as normal until patreon decides to make it an issue :'D

I'm sure you can make a telegram channel where you can allow people in or not, and you'd only let them in if they prove they are your paying subscribers/patrons. But, you'd have to keep track of if anyone left, I guess? And then you'd have to kick them out of the telegram broadcast channel.

Sounds like many in general, one bad experience can outweigh 20-100 good ones in our minds and memories at times. A mild but pleasant experience might be like getting a free burger.

A sour experience might be akin to someone threatening to burn houses down unless given free burgers for Life. Many people like to eat burgers with friends, few people want to feel like a used or exploited piggie bank or caught up in drama I suppose.

I don't think most discord servers involve drama unless there were serious beefs but some people make a alt for moderation at times. People joke about reddit/discord moderators sometimes being like the smallest sort of power a person could power trip over lol.

But when there's no pay involved, a lot of servers Jokingly pay mods in emoji/gif perms and opportunities to ban people. I've seen some ban nearly just 30% of a server for "fun!" even as peers to sandcastles when poorly vetted, or click phish links and become compromised mod accounts.

Honestly modding isn't too bad or if you want to avoid main account controversy. You could just make a second discord account and run main account on say, browser, mod account on app.

Set up a discord dyno automod to like autofilter your chosen slurs/things etc.

For the most part, official servers are scrutinized but vet to get in servers are usually more garden gatey. People joke about cheapest vs 2nd cheapest dorms sometimes being 10$ differences in rent. But it can be surprisingly seeing like 7 people with broken bikes and cars vs frugal but fix it upper kinda local communities. Over like one small knee High gate.

Most toxic communities are free to join, even something as trivial as a dollar filters out some people a little. The Wal-Mart beady eyed shoplifter 1/10000 vs the Costco deal hunter 950/1000.

This comment is all about moderation of a discord server, as if I was worried about people either causing drama or being weird, or whatever else.

My issue with making a discord is not a matter of moderation, my issue is that if I make one, I will feel like I need to actually look at it and/or read what people are saying in there, regardless of me being in a moderation role, or not.

Because it would be 'my place', I would feel as though I need to be there for more than a few seconds at a time. I do not have time in my life to write the things I want to write, nor to read the stories by the people I would like to read. I certainly do not have time to pore over a discord server, for mod purposes or not.

Me? I have and use both.

Of course, going by the numbers, far more furries have a Patreon account. But I prefer Subscribestar because of its more permissive terms, with respect to NSFW work.

You could also be like some artists I follow (e.g.,  LizardLars) and operate both accounts. "Follow me on Subscribestar or Patreon!" is a fine pitch, and then you just cross-post to both sites. Neither platform has any sort of exclusivity clause that prohibits you from taking donations via competing platforms.

The main benefits, as I see them, are (i) You can reach the users who choose to stick with one platform over the other for whatever reason, and (ii) If either platform ever loses viability for you (e.g., because Patreon bans all NSFW or Subscribestar shutters its doors), then you won't have to start over from scratch. The other site shall still archive all your old posts and retain the users who'd pledged over there.

Thank you for the cogent points! :}

Yes, yes, I could. I was thinking about that possibility. Those are all fine reasons, indeed. I'm just feeling a little daunted by needing to set up and learn a new place, and then also do the extra work to fill Patreon to the extent that I have filled my Substar already, to have them at parity.

Of course. It's no problem. ^^

I have perhaps two other pertinent thoughts worth sharing:

If you do switch from Subscribestar to Patreon, you'll still have to do the same start-up work of learning a new platform and uploading content from your Subscribestar. So I'd prefer hosting both platforms over switching to Patreon exclusively. Thus, it's not a matter of choosing between Subscribestar-only, Patreon-only, or running both platforms -- but rather, it's a two-horse race between Subscribestar-only or running both platforms. You may've known all this already, but crystallising the decision in this way tends to help me come to an answer.

The other thing I'll note is that PostyBirb does integrate with both Patreon and Subscribestar. If you're worried about the work of managing yet another platform, it could be worth using PostyBirb to cross-post on the two paysites simultaneously. Whether you use it for more than just these two paysites is another question entirely, but it would certainly ensure parity in post timing and content between the two subscription-based platforms.

Yes, I was already thinking of this as 'Substar only or Patreon and Substar' I never considered the idea of starting patreon and ending Substar.

But, oh yes, Postybirb. I've been meaning to look into how that all works. I've been thinking about it on and off since it was invented, basically. @__@

I think Subscribestar is a bit more adult-friendly; I've heard Patreon has deactivated fetish accounts for things that aren't really rule violations so I'd be careful there.

I recall, specifically, how there was one rule change a few years ago about removing all content that was non-consensual. Presumably, this was about taking down things that had to do with flat out rape.

But, TF, as a kink, very very often lives and breathes in a realm of dubious consent. I recall, at that time, that TF things were under threat, but perhaps in truth, the items or artists that were removed were the ones that made a real meal out of showing TF-recipients who screamed or shouted or despaired about their alterations.

The problem, really, is that I don't really have a wealth of examples, because unless someone was a patron of one of these banned creators, or was a removed artist themselves, it's all rather 'behind closed doors' to a degree.

Nah way more for SubscribeStar over Patreon. Subscribe star at least actually is catered to and seems genuinely embracing adult content, where as Patreon still kills people accounts at seemingly random.

Can you speak to your comment of how 'Patreon kills accounts at random'? Have you seen this yourself, or..?

I'd have to go find the post. I think it's mostly just missing enforcement or people reporting the nsfw accounts and that's when patreon finally takes action, thus giving it a random appearance. I remember a fur getting their account terminated for their adult content on Patreon, but this was a couple months ago now. There's quite a few examples though if you search on Twitter. Patreon doesn't allow for a LOT of nsfw content. I'm guessing if you went there you'd be heavily restricted in the things you could do. Best to understand their community guidelines before going there. Again... With SubscribeStar actually catering to adult content, it's going to be way more open and friendly to furry content creators than Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/policy/guid.....atifying-works

Oh yes, I was looking at their permitted / not permitted list some months ago. I had half-forgotten that up until just now, when your link made me look again.

That list is surely why I never even bothered making a Patreon. Something in the back of my mind told me it would be a fool's errand, and that list was it.

Patreon is living on borrowed time. Every site that is not a porn site eventually bans NSFW content once it becomes big enough to survive without it. They'll blame "payment processors" of course.

I’d agree with everyone here so far that is saying to at least have the SubscribeStar. Patreon and Paypal seem to have an anti-adult content policy. Paypal doesn’t explicitly, but they’ve made motions to limit which content they allow their services (which is probably why Patreon is the way it is). And I’d say, make it easy for yourself: either just have the SubscribeStar or use that Postybirb functionally that is mentioned. You don’t want to be caught up managing websites rather than creating content. We all want more Amethystine content here. As much as we like our snakes in tangles, we’d prefer the erotic style and not the administrative!

I don’t have a SubscribeStar (yet), but even though I may have complained about subscription services preciously, I’d rather I be hooked up on SS than in Patreon (I have an account there already). I usually don’t make “political” decisions like this, but the platform is shaky, especially in regards to the content you dabble in. I wouldn’t risk it, personally.

The other way to look at it is this: It _does_ seem like there are more people with Patreon accounts, in general, and if I start a patreon account, and garner more 'engaged readers' via that, it's still a little bit more support each month, as long as I can make it easy to post to both, with PostyBirb.

And then if Patreon falls apart/bans smut, it's more likely that anyone who had joined me there will then make the effort to migrate to Substar, out of a sense of spite against Patreon and wishing to continue what they had begun.

Perhaps, anyway.

Then again, there has been no one responding to this journal or the last or my announcement for the story of 'Juice', who has piped up to say 'BUT AME, I only have patreon, and not substar, what about me??' -- So, it's not like there's necessarily actually anyone in this imagined category.

I feel like a good amount of the people who read my work do so quietly, privately. Perhaps because I am a quiet, insular person, my work attracts the same sort of people.. which is fine, except that they don't leave a lot of feedback or say much of anything, most of the time.