There's been a huge issue of people using bots and fake accounts to access people's Patreon accounts and reposting the artwork elsewhere without the paywalls. The site still hasn't addressed the issue (making new pledgers pay upfront would solve it)

I thought you hadn’t to pay upfront? Or there was a settings to do it. Every Patreon I’ve pledged to said “we are gonna bill you for this today, then once again on the first of next month.” That’s why some people say be careful when you pledge at the end of the month so you don’t get double hit with the pledge in the span of 2 days or something.

No it's not upfront, that's been the issue.

They do have an option for it, I don't know how to enable it though and right now I am rushing around so I can't fully look into it right now. However, this would be a good starting point because Patreon is testing it out:

https://patreon.zendesk.com/hc/en-u.....w-do-I-get-it-

"Please note:
Charge up front is in beta and not available for all creators yet. "

ive had to pay upfront for my two patreon, then they billed me on the first of each month

while i dont agree with pay walling art i do understand why its done, but people that do that to artists trying to get by is shitty and i thought patreon set up prevention for that issue, i guess that was a lie

People find ways around it and they're posted elsewhere for free.

There's a lot of folks out there that expect artists to not be paid for BS reasons like "it's not a real job" and "it's just a hobby".

yea, it sucks but thats the internet sadly

https://youtu.be/pMhfbLRoGEw

Sorry to hear

thats horrible I'm glad you solved your problem tho

Patreon is a great platform when used correctly, sadly I see a lot of people use it for distasteful reasons, Piracy, witholding art behind a pay-gate or just those who take money and do nothing.

it ruins it for all the hard-working artists ect.

Patreon is meant to be a patronage site, which equates to "I will give you money because I think you are spiffy and want to see more in general from you" rather than a paywall site. Though patrons could get "special things", the idea was not to give away special things of great value to the patrons and to give the things based on a promise of patronage.

Then people started trying to use it to make effectively a pay site, which was not the original intent or design. Because it wasn't the original design, and because of some efficiency things built into the patron model to reduce processing costs, it makes a craptastic pay wall.

Unfortunately people think "Pay Site Wall" and expect that their content is protected somehow, at least by a layer of "Get their money before they get access to stuff". This is not the case of course.

Patreon is working based on Lots of Very Small Payments, but credit card processors and other payment systems charge a relatively large fee for very small payments. In excess of 30% in general. So the charges are consolidated into a single payment for all pledges once a month, so the fees are much smaller by comparison. Charging on a monthly anniversary or each post would remove that benefit. Creators didn't want to have 100 $1 pledges return $60-something to them though instead of $100, so Patreon tried to roll out "We're baking the fees in as extra costs to the patrons", but that failed miserably because of horrid implementation and communication.

So creators using Patreon can only have it one way or the other. They can get more money, or they can have the false security of the idea that their stuff is "as well protected as a pay site" (which, mind you, is no protection at all either).

It all comes down to expecting the logistically-impossible from the world. Change the expectations and work with reality, or find a solution more in-line with your needs, but stressing over reality isn't going to help you feel any better or change reality itself. Some people suck, and always will. It's part of human nature.

*hugs*