Kyle Baxter at TightWind on real patronage:

I briefly considered allowing recurring “donations,” so if you enabled it, it would automatically make a yearly donation. I considered it, and then dismissed it, for this reason: you would not be making the donation. Paypal would be, in your name.

By manually making a donation, you are saying that it is worth the time and money for you to send it. It means a lot more when you are making the donation, and not an automated system.

And that is the point.

When you support someone collecting money isn’t always the main goal. Writers, or anyone who freely releases their work to others, want to know if people care about what they do. They want to see that there are people behind all their stats and numbers that actually enjoy their content—ones that are willing to write a email just recognizing what they do. It’s also the thought, not only the action, that counts.

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