The moralists strike again.

Yeeeep. Not that I personally like Patreon one bit (I think it's awful), I don't think they have a clue how severely this may impact the use of their service.

Not to mention the obscene amount of money they're about to lose themselves.

This is true! The porn industry moves more money worldwide than any other industry, of any kind, in the world.

Mmhmm. But therein has been the core of their problem; they have always been blissfully unaware of how/who uses them and why. I mean, pay-walling itself is actually against their terms of service, but it's not really enforced because I don't think they have anywhere near the manpower to properly police what they do.

Oh wow; I didn't actually know that was against their ToS. Guess most everyone else never got the memo. XD

*nods* well, how many people actually read a ToS? :P

Good point. XD

I feel it has the potential to be a great way for content creators to make a living while rewarding their supporters in a special way if done properly (like a custom drawing, or a cameo in a comic) but unfortunately it's abused as a Paywall by people who don't care it's against ToS. Bring in enough money and Patreon won't touch you.

Before anyone attacks me for the paywall bit, while I personally don't like or support paywalling, as long as a content creator doesn't paywall commissioned content (double dipping to the extreme) and uses either their own site or a service made for paywalling, I dont see it as my business. Patreon is not one such service

(Hidden comment was mine. I wasnt sure I replied to right comment)

I agree - the concept was not a bad one, but the moment people realize there are more ways to bring in profit (look at random loot boxes in games of late), and a company realizes they profit by turning a blind eye to it, then it just kinda snowballs on it's own.

What bothers me is just that for the few furs who use Patreon correctly, this is going to really hurt them.

I'm not surprised by this honestly considering the payment processors usually really don't allow adult content for their services.

I've never quite understood that myself. Business recoil back from adult content on whatever moral grounds, yet... come on, you're a corporate service; you're already evil. It's not fooling anyone. XD

I've heard about that going around. Honestly if this is because of PayPal then it's only a matter of time before they try to ban any adult/fetish work involving anthros or any other non-human sapient beings under the grounds of "bestiality." Patreon already has it as a no no under ToS but it's not specific as to what qualifies. For now I think they define it as sexual content involving "feral" or non-sapient beings, but PayPal has another opinion on the matter.

Like others have said they'll lose a lot of money and I don't think their pay service partners will cover their losses.

*nods* Yeah, this will be be a death knell to them, and I really don't think they realize just how serious the implication is.

I shared this link and my comments on my FA page.

I am ashamed to be associated with a country who feels it's more important that adult related material not EXIST than to simply stay away from it.

One way around this issue is for Patreon creators to publish censored versions of their creations, and somehow provide a private link to the uncensored versions stored elsewhere. That in itself has it's own set of problems, of course.

Its quite strange that religious-based ideals are still so aggressively enforced in the US! Even our movie and video game age-rating systems give adult ratings based on skimpy attire and implications.

Mmhmm... that whole "separation of church and state" thing isn't working out so well in the US.

"IN GOD WE TRUST" on our Federal government-issued money doesn't help, either.

Heh - yeah, even as a child, I never understood the references too "God" on official government things like US money, or in our own anthem where there is a line that says "God keep our land, glorious and free..." - though, some people simply replace it with "love". Still, would be nice to have politicians that could uncouple their personal believe in the supernatural from their day jobs.

The fact that one of my friends was so worried he had to look at laws before putting his porn game up for money on a site that ALLOWED PORN GAMES is sad. I guess every country has a thing they're scared of, but the fact that my friend was so anxious about his game that he didn't even want to release it is just sad.

That really is sad. I think we've definitely gotten to a point of being overprotective. I hope in time that the pendulum swings back and slows so that we find a nice centre ground.

Yeah, and of late, that's been getting worse down there.

Agreed - one way around it is for the "adult" content to be linked/sent to the various Patreons via an alternative source like dropbox, Discord or whatever.

This is what I've been doing from the start - I've always stated that I'm an adult-oriented/NSFW-friendly artist, but I've never posted any NSFW or adult-themed content on Patreon itself. My rewards are always sent directly to my supporters by me personally at the end of each month - it began as a way to combat fraudulent accounts, but wound up being a protective measure for my patrons as well as myself, so win/win.

The thing I'm not understanding is, this has been a recurring topic with Patreon, especially lately, and their stance seems to be wobbling on something. From what I understand (at least from the time I joined onto Patreon), there was a very specific distinction made between depictions of real-life pornography (i.e. actual photos of real people/footage of real people/sexual acts, etc.) versus anything fictional/created (i.e. written content, digital media of any kind, art and illustrations, etc.), but that seems to be less solid now. It's strange for them to decide to retroactively crack down on a rule like that.

And above ALL OF THAT, there has been a specific way to flag your Patreon page/account as being NSFW, so it's not like they can pretend to claim that they're opposed to supporting creators whose work includes adult-themed content. For them to heel-turn time and again on the specifics like this is becoming unsettling.

But the good news is that from what I've been seeing so far, the suspensions are being handled on a case-by-case basis, and most of the creators I've been watching have had their suspensions dropped after getting in touch with the staff (usually on Twitter if I'm not mistaken) and discussing things individually, so that's an optimistic kernel to keep in mind.

Well that's the problem with "morality" rules - they're always a shifting, changing thing based on the opening mindedness (or not) of the people in charge, or the companies they have to interface with (like PayPal).

Also, the first sign of a company that is not trustworthy to me is one that allows you to interact via social media instead of providing a direct goddamn phone number or actual staff e-mails. The former is easy to ignore or alter.