I believe this applies specifically to the IOS Patreon app*, so you should still be able to pledge on your iPhone via the browser without paying an extra 30% to Apple. Do not use the Apple Patreon app! This is all so tiring.
This is particularly weird to me, having lived through the Golden Age of Webcomics. It wasn’t even democracy, it was complete anarchy. We made so many comics and some of them were terrible and some were gloriously weird and nobody stopped us. Nobody is stopping anyone now! You can just make a comic!
Sharing from a post @kharyrandolph.bsky.social did on FB that I thought could benefit being here too (Khary, if you see this and want me to delete it because you want to post it here yourself or just want to keep control of this convo on your FB, just say the word)
To be clear, if you are a person with 4 million dollars to spend on a comic project and you invest that money in a system that takes work away from artists and disincentivizes people from pursuing art professionally rather than in artists to make your comic, YOU are the one gatekeeping art.
using ai is kind of like paying some guy to run a marathon for you, and you're like haha YES gamed the system, gonna win all those MARATHON $$$ and all the runners are like 'wait but that doesn't exist' and then the guy you paid to run comes in dead last