Trouble brewing with Patreon.

[cZak]

Short line; Patreon is cancelling accounts for what is claimed as arbitrary reasons.
Accounts are stating that their backers (investors) are having their contracts negated by a third party (Patreon). The controversy is each investor has the ability to file for arbitration with Patreon. An Account with 1000 members/investors would cost Patreon $10,000 for every claim according to their terms of service.

{scrubbed}

[JadedDM]

{scrubbed}

[Peelee]

I'm going to quote myself here for posterity.

The Mod on the Silver Mountain: Please avoid any political discussion. This includes people who, even if not employed by the state, are notable activists, pundits, or otherwise outspoken regarding political issues.

[AxxNox]

Anyone paying attention to this?

Started with {scrubbed}.

Because Patreon had rules saying that you can't file as a group, they had to each file an individual case as. Each case filed costs Patreon money, because they have to front the costs of arbitration.

This could open the flood gates.

{scrubbed}. If enough of them do so, Patreon would be on the hook for millions of dollars they don't have the funds to pay. If they don't pay, my understanding is that they automatically lose the case.

Given the number of webcomic creators that use Patreon, including the Giant himself, this has the potential to suddenly cut off a lot of people from their funding. There is a real possibility here that Patreon could be going bankrupt in a year or so. Especially if others that have been kicked join in on the pile on.

It's not a crisis at this point, and may amount to nothing, but it bears keeping an eye on. Also, keep in mind that they might start taking money meant for the creators while the cases are ongoing, so bad things could happen earlier than you might expect.

I'd suggest mentioning it to any webcomic creator you happen to be able to contact, so they can start to consider alternative funding. I hear Subscribe Star might be a viable alternative. Better safe than sorry.

I don't think the creators would get stiffed.. Its a viable business model just poorly managed while in the worst of times. The investors and suppliers would get stiffed.