After quite a bit of quiet time, I am renewing my Patreon site for sponsorship. About a year or so ago, I dropped Patreon as a bit of experiment, since I didn’t have any supporters anyway, and switched instead to a YouTube Membership format. This made it easier to update and post, as well as to allow early releases.
However, after another bunch of content, the situation hasn’t changed (still no supporters, which is fine). I suspect part of the issue is that YouTube Memberships are strange to a lot of people – virtually every video I watch instead points to their Patreon supporters, and none I am aware of use YouTube Memberships. I was increasing the barrier to entry by quite a bit.
Separately, part of my issue with Patreon was the development of many of the tools – most of which have been updated and improved notably since I last looked. Because of this, it is far more worthwhile and the ease of use factor is much improved.
I have also added several hundred additional YouTube subscribers in the intervening time, so our audience is quite a bit larger.
As part of this, I am still going to continue the YouTube Membership, on the off chance that gets any traction. But you will start to see Patreon links show up again on the site and in video content. I have spent some time overhauling the current configuration, and updating for all my new content. This includes streamlining the needlessly complex membership levels, and making the rewards more consistent. I will also be populating all of my digital files on the Patreon shop site at the same rates (still free for supporters). As a bit of a stretch goal, I even added a Merchant tier, in case any of my ideas are worthwhile enough for others to try to produce.
If you are interested in supporting the channel and our various efforts, consider taking a look, and if it is worthwhile, perhaps a subscription.
