Part 1: Context

I've got a problem. Today, I opened my email inbox, and the first three emails were all from Patreon. However, every single one was a paid post, locked from my view.

Patreon straight up thought it was a good idea to email me three different times within the span of a few hours about things that I had no ability to access. Huh?

Let me run it back now: Patreon has been working very hard to rebrand as a social and/or community thing for the past several months. They've had a logo/website rebranding, are pushing their app hard, and are encouraging people to follow (or in their parlance "join") creators that they aren't actively paying. The last one actually excited me, as it was something I had been dabbling in for a while, and allowed me to keep abreast of what creators that either posted infrequently or that I didn't have enough funds to support at the time or that I was simply curious about were up to. This has backfired, as recently, I get these locked post emails every. day.

For context, I've been a Patreon user for close to (if not more than) a decade now. I've regularly used it to pay people whose work I enjoy for that work. I like it as a service. I was happy to have another way to follow along with other people and hopefully support them later or just get a vibe check (as many are using Patreon as a newsletter now too). But now I get these locked emails constantly. I have several jobs, I can't have these clogging my inbox. So I went to unsubscribe. I clicked on the unsubscribe button at the bottom of the email and...

Oh no.

Part 2: Dark Patterns

Clicking on the (iirc legally required) unsubscribe button at the bottom of the email leads me to the entire page of "Email notifications" settings. This page is an alphabetical list of every single "membership" you have - and remember, memberships include people you follow for free.

The only global settings are for:

Once you click on any of the listed creators, you are taken to a separate list:

This is not adequate!

Because I have been a user for so long and actively embraced their new 'free membership' feature, I have dozens and dozens of people on this list, and there is no way for me to change this setting for everyone without going into each individual link and toggling from that menu. It is important to note too: this list doesn't remember where you were in the list when you back out to return to it, so you have to scroll all the way down to reach whichever person is next in your quest to make the emails stop dear lord just make them stop.

This in and of itself is a problem, but what absolutely makes it worse is the fact that the listed names are not links to these creators' pages. You cannot just click on the name of the creator to see who they are and what they do - something that is particularly useful for me as I follow many very infrequent posters or semi-retired posters who aren't constantly loading the machine to smack me with new content. In order to find the specific creator, you need to use Patreon's search bar, labeled "Find creators." This search bar is (please pardon my french here) dogshit.

When you start typing, it starts dynamically guessing who you're looking for. This potentially can be a useful feature. However, even when I type in the exact name of the creator in question, half the time they straight up do not show up until I hit enter or click "See all results" at the bottom of the dynamic response. This is awful. It appears to more readily surface people with large post and/or subscriber counts, and will bury smaller creators at the bottom of the list, regardless to whether you type the exact name they are listed as. (There's one creator I never found!) Keep in mind here, this is one of the most readily visible ways to find a person since the giant list does not link to the creators themselves and you cannot 'unjoin' or 'cancel membership' without first visiting the page of that creator.

As an aside, while writing this, I noticed the sidebar has a tab of "Memberships" that you can scroll down and see everyone, so there is at least an easier way to find people than searching them out one by one. I do still stand by the fact that an unordered list on my sidebar is not the clearest solution, the email notification tab should link to creator pages, and the search function should actually work. These problems are not as egregious as they first appeared to me, but the fact that I can be that confused while navigating a relatively normal list is a testament to how unclear the new website design is.

This task of either unjoining or unsubscribing or un-membering or whatever you want to call it feels deeply hostile. Whenever you finally reach the creator's page, the usual 'cancel membership' button is no longer anywhere to be found. (It used to be in a more obvious spot on the front page of each creator if I am remembering that correctly.) There's plenty of calls to upgrade your pledge though.

In order to remove yourself, you need to go to the membership tab, scroll to your membership - let's assume you're listed as "Free" - and hit the small pencil icon on that tab to open a dropdown that says "Cancel Membership." Removing yourself from a service should not be difficult. It is greedy, and extractive, and I see it happening more and more and more often across all web-based memberships, whether that be a streaming service, a newsletter, a digital shop, or otherwise. In a world where I am increasingly not going outside as much - have you heard? there's nowhere to go for free! why leave your house? - this is a screaming klaxon that has been ignored for years.

I'm tired, and I'm angry, and I just want to give my measly $7 to the creators I can afford to where I can. Patreon, stop being a greedy asshole and make your website design clearer. I will respect you more for it.