Please stop disadvantaging 18+ creators

Patreon Feedback Feature Request
#1

Personally, I don’t feel I’m an 18+ creator. But I understand making ASMR which resembles sounds inside the womb and showing a woman’s belly is sexual to some. So fine, I’ll go in the 18+ category.

However, if someone searches for my name/channel name EXACTLY, I don’t even show up in the search results. But creators even with 0 followers/patrons and complete other names do. There’s no way they can find me. And if they do, my completely normal, fine for kids (which kids are on Patreon anyway!?) gets blurred!? Just write 18+.

Can’t you just have normal search results and write next to it that it’s an 18+ result. Or have people click ‘18+ results on/included’ or something.

I’ve often heard people CANNOT find my Patreon. Only via direct link. (And people are lazy) I’ve taken some huge Corona dips and keep hearing people can’t find me. Please do something about it like you’ve promised me at the wonderful Amsterdam get-together we had!

It really doesn’t seem fair or logical.

6 Likes
#2

Patreon is not yet a discovery site, so yes, you have to share your link and do your own marketing.

I understand your frustration with your specific content being marked as 18+, but even if you aren’t, you can’t use a Google Search to find anyone on Patreon unless they have shared the link somewhere that google has picked up.

This is something Patreon said they are working on to be more of a discovery platform, but there have been no updates to see that progress.

1 Like
#3

Have to agree that the search results is pretty confusing for people trying to back 18+ creators. (people don’t expect missing results in the dropdown.)

2 Likes
#4

Most of life is spent at 18+ By limiting searches to what is currently perceived acceptable for below 18 year olds you put the site in a very odd position. Opting out of that dynamic would be a gift for patrons. ‘Include adult only content’ is a check box that many adults are used to using. The way things are now, there is a weird needless censorship that does not reflect Patreons total content, the work of its creators and the desires of Patreon’s patrons.

1 Like
#5

Unfortunately, it is needed or Patreon couldn’t use the payment services it currently has. PayPal specifically, I’m familiar with, would not allow a lot of the creators if they were using it on their own site as it would be deemed pornography (even though it wouldn’t directly be porn) as PayPal doesn’t openly support adult sites of any kind… So, Patreon has to put up discovery walls in order to appease them.

2 Likes
#6

That’s good to know and understandable. But then still they could make a way in which it’s much easier for (potential) patrons to at least be able to find you. I’m sure PayPal understands this, as the pages are there. But ok. ‘Maybe later’ still applies, I guess.

#7

The simpler solution would be to disallow PayPal on adult sites. People often have alternate ways of paying. In addition, Paypal would then be the one penalized in terms of losing business instead of creators having to suffer so they can let Paypal earn money from businesses they are actively crippling on Patreon.

1 Like
#8

paypal is the one holding the cards in this situation. there are few processors that will do adult site transactions and the ones that do capitalize on this with high fees.

#9

When last I checked Patreon already had arrangements with European Banks to handle the transactions. In fact adult sites on patreon were being charged extra to use those banks. Are we sure Paypal is the problem and not something else internal to Patreon?

#10

Not true. Those European Banks are not offered to adult creators. We have the same options as everyone else.

Still doesn’t matter. In order for Patreon to function as a service provider for NSFW content, it has to do things to appease the payment processors, whether they are used by the creators or not. Hiding NSFW content from search is one of those things they do.

2 Likes
#11

yes. i have no idea why my post has to be at least 5 characters long. yes, it is explicitly openly payment processors that are the problem.

1 Like