Hey folks, first of all, happy hoohaa, etc. I wanted to offer a word on Patreon's sort of confusing "free membership" option, because I think it's a bit misleading. I know I have a good chunk of free members and I really dislike the idea that they might be under the impression that hitting that button gets them literally anything at all. As far as I'm aware, being a free member just lets you know when I post but not necessarily what I post (maybe just the title of the post? Not sure.)
I think this was Patreon's way of maybe getting people in the free tier to see that the actual content/early access is paywalled, and thus encouraging people to upgrade to a paid tier. But I think this is left pretty unclear to the viewer and probably ultimately hurts the creator-- why wouldn't you hit the big blue button that says "Join for Free?" But essentially, you get nothing out of it, and I get nothing out of it, so I'm not sure why the button was displayed so prominently. I had to dig through my page settings to make it less in-your-face, because I just hate the idea that someone clicks it under the impression that they'll actually get access to anything.
All that being said, my current lowest tier is $5, which I try to make as valuable as I can, but I also understand that's still a considerable amount of money per month. In the new year, I'm planning on adding a sort of "tip jar" tier of $1 that just allows people to support for a dollar a month.
Anyway, thanks for your support or interest in supporting, and for potentially reading this rant. It's a "feature" that's been bothering me for a WHILE now. Because, y'know, the operative feature of Patreon is a viewer financially supporting a creator and getting additional benefits for it, and I feel like they sorta MUDDIED THE OL' WATER with this free membership thing. Love ya's!