> they have Patreon people to keep happy

Reminds me of when I briefly accepted donations from users of my forum. Suddenly it was like my life was beholden to people that had once given me $5. At least when they'd given me $0, it was pretty straightforward to dismiss their complaints and they'd looked silly when they'd demanded more of my free time. But once they gave >$0, the water got murky.

I ended up refunding everyone a few months later and I generally roll my eyes when I see posts like "um why not just take donations?" on HN.

It's just not no-strings-attached money like people seem to think it is. It's more akin to selling a service for peanuts, it rears the same issues.

This makes me think of how moot (creator of 4chan) was against receiving donations from 4chan users, presumably because of this type of issue. He later started selling "4chan passes" which added certain specific features to the site. I think that was a very clever way to go about it: the people who bought them couldn't demand moot's attention. They got a very specific thing out of their money and everyone knew that.

Considering these cases, I think it makes sense to make sure that whenever one accepts donations, they make it very explicit what the donator can rightfully expect. That could be as little as a token set of extra features, a badge on their user profile, or just warm fuzzy feelings without extra attention.

Perhaps a different mentality for donations helps too. People who solicit donations should somehow communicate that you are not buying a service of some kind, they are donating to you, so you're free to take the money and do whatever. It's a strange thing however when people donate a pittance (five dollars or ten dollars or something) and then expect so much for it. When you pay five dollars for a coffee, you are at least paying for something. But the word "donation" never seemed to me like it carried any serious commitment on the part of the recipient.

Perhaps the only thing the donor can expect is the recipient is to continue whatever they were doing. Beyond that it's ridiculous.

I have the same issue. A partial solution is to only accept anonymous donations (eg. on Liberapay). Even better if you have multiple projects and don't know which one is getting you the donations.

A podcast I know of has a "membership" concept which gives extra content. Once, an angry member sent an email deriding changes in the show that the rest of us enjoyed (specifically, antics by one of the co-hosts). The main host derided their email on air, saying that they'd gladly let go of the donor's membership[0]. I know you can't really do that if everyone is complaining about the same thing--in which the situation reaches a different regime, but for one off complaints, you'd be surprised how much people will recognize the bullshit and welcome your explanations how you can't please every one-off suggestion.

[0] Of course, they kindly did not identify the angry member.

If my friend wanted to start producing content again, I'd do it in a second. Getting together for a few hours a week to create a ~45 minute podcast was tons of fun, and the conversation was very therapeutic.

I enjoyed the conversation. The back and forth. Many people have suggested I do something on my own, but I have no idea what that would be. And with stories like these, I'm less likely to dive in.

I'm an audio engineer so I enjoy the production end of things, but I enjoy video editing less than straight up audio editing. But people are suggesting I do some sort of youtube channel.

Ah, who knows! :-)