It's not fearmongering to point out that association with crypto can be detrimental in itself, especially back then when every brand was trying to get onto the crypto and NFT hype train.
Features are never purely additive, they can also be transformative or even detrimental. Adding crypto support to Patreon would have changed what Patreon is by attracting different people. Regardless of whether any of the people already using Patreon might have benefited from crypto, it would also have attracted people who would specifically be interested in Patreon because of the crypto support.
Like it or not "people whose adoption of Patreon hinges on it adding support for crypto" is a very specific demographic and mostly people they probably didn't want to be associated with. You can call it guilt by assocation or digital NIMBYism but it would have changed a lot more than just having another option for payouts and donations.
I pay for my food in dollars. For my rent in dollars. For my clothes in dollars. For my equipment and supplies in dollars.
What would I do with crypto?
Okay, let's say I get paid in crypto. I still need to convert that to dollars. Price fluctuation of bitcoin is such that if I was paid 1 dollar worth of bitcoin last year, it would be less than 50 cents by the end of the year.
If you need stability in your FIAT of choice just liquidate it as soon as you receive it. It won't lose or gain 50% of its value in a matter of minutes. In the case of Patreon they could even do that for you since they are the middle man.
Also, note that you'd probably receive more donations if accepting crypto currencies, so even if the values of these were to fluctuate (which they won't, cause you can sell) you'd still be making more money overall.
> It won't lose or gain 50% of its value in a matter of minutes.
If someone sets up a recurring payment of X bitcoin it means that on any given pay day your actual money is X*(absolutely random number). Minus the fees for converting to fiat.
> Also, note that you'd probably receive more donations if accepting crypto currencies
The fees for converting to fiat are generally _smaller_ than the fees MasterCard or Visa for instance will grab from credit card transactions [0][1]. If you are refering to the fees from the blockchain, note that L2 options exist, and not all cryptocurrencies have the absurd fees L1 ETHR would have, for instance Litecoin fees can be as small as 1 cent.
Relating to the varying amount monthly:
1 - It's a donation, not your source of income. If you really on that money that's your issue not of anyone else's.
2 - The platform such as Patreon could simply quote the value in dollars instead of BTC or whatever cryptocurrency. Recurring payments with crypto will have to be done manually anyways so this is a non-issue.
> And the dismissive tone about donations in general... well, I won't comment on that
Why not?
> Or they could just not bother.
That's true. The creators have the option of creating their own cryptocurrency wallets and accepting the donations without any middleman. They could also choose a more libre alternative to Patreon such as OpenCollective [0][1] or Liberapay [2].
> Ah yes. The great digital system of the future where even such a simple thing as recurring payments must be done manually
I see that as a plus personally. Recurring payments are so hard to cancel at times with credit cards I'm at the point I create a new virtual credit card for every subscription I create. Theoretically you could also setup your wallet to automatically transact, it's just that's not a functionality of your cryptocurrency, just as recurring payments aren't a functionality of the dollar but rather of your bank/credit card provider.
Because a lot of people live or earn a lot of their living through donations, and quite a lot of opensource you're using would actually be helped with more donations.
> The creators have the option of creating their own cryptocurrency wallets and accepting the donations without any middleman
Except, you know, all the actual things that those "middlemen" do like provide verification that it is the actual artist and not a rip-off, provide hosting for their content etc.
> Recurring payments are so hard to cancel at times with credit cards I'm at the point I create a new virtual credit card for every subscription I create.
Yes, dark patterns around subscriptions are a problem. However, subscriptions and notifications about whether a person has canceled their subscirption or became a subscriber is valuable information to, you know, actually be able to plan ahead, and not wonder whether that person who did something manually yesterday will be there tomorrow.
Edit
> They could also choose a more libre alternative to Patreon such as OpenCollective [0][1] or Liberapay [2].
The could skip all the middlemen, or could chose these middlemen that I personally like and call them "libre" just because they accept cryptocurrency. And LiberaPay is literally a middleman with exactly zero additional value
So, as always every discussion about "but crypto" almost immediately devolves to "not crypto, but a very specific coin that seems to be more-or-less okay at this particular point in time"
> or pay people directly with it
Which people? The dozen or so places in the entire world that accept crypto?
Its US dollars and you can transfer it to anyone that is capable of downloading a wallet app. If you want to spend at stores you can use any number of debit cards or just wait till visa integrates it which is coming soon [1]
I don't understand why you want to be so hostile towards it, it's literally the solution to this problem.
So let's just skip all the unnecessary useless steps and intermediaries in between, and let those cryptoi holders that are so willing to pay those artist just use those debit cards and visa integrations to pay the creators in actual dollars.
What's the point of a hard drive? You're only uploading and downloading from the internet, why not just keep all your data in the cloud?
This is essentially your argument just using money rather than data right?
Can you think of any reason someone might like to hold their own data? Perhaps they don't like being at the mercy of a company that can ban you from accessing it at any time like the OP? Perhaps they like the freedom of choosing where they send and receive data from instead of only using the provider approved services?
Crazy that so many people still don't get this and give all their power and control of their money away to providers because it's slighty more convenient.
But not as strong an argument as you think it is because you're still ignoring the reality of paying for food, water, rent, and the need to host your content.
Oh look, when we don't ignore reality, you yourself are immediately suggesting those creators use intermediaries.
