Patreon isn't problem-free, but I think they get dinged a little too hard by folks sometimes. It's not very easy to find a competitor that offers comparable value-added services at significantly lower cost.
The current 8% plan used to be 5%. Their current 5% plan is stripped down.
What I said, rephrased for clarity: It used to be 5% for all features. That's what the 8% plan is now. The new and current 5% plan is the stripped down version.
What you said, by my understanding: the 8% plan contains what used to be the only option [standard, by my phrasing] at 5%.
I don't see any disagreement unless you were referring to the discounts given to existing creators. I'm talking about the new creator rates.
There are multiple competitors for Patreon, but they can't get off the ground because they don't have the users because they don't have the creators because they don't have the users.... You can build much better platform and it's just crickets in the sales because operating costs on smaller userbase are higher. Small competitor might force Patreon to reduce prices a little until they can kill the competition, but it's hard to have stable competitors.
Businesses that already have massive number of customer subscriptions and brand recognition could enter the market.