I use DonorBox for supporters of my indie conference [0] and I have a healthy revenue stream (would be healthier if I had a Patreon.)

Is that an OK choice given your preferences? It seems low friction, with the caveat that you have to remember my random website URL.

[0] https://handmade-seattle.com/donate

I poked at your site's donation functions. For me personally, if I was doing a one-time donation, that flow seems fine and something that wouldn't block me for a one-time.

For a recurring donation, the hover over "A donor account is created automatically for recurring donations. Account setup info will be emailed to you." would remind me the hassle of using a random extra account that I need to keep track of, trust that it won't get breached, and be able to find and login to when I want to stop the recurring donations [and trust that the site will actually stop the donations without hassle].

That's going to be enough to block me for recurring (but you probably have data on the people it doesn't block, meaning people's preferences vary).

Thanks for the feedback. Indeed I'm not capturing the supporters with your concerns.

However, I get immediate cash access to a donation (recurring or otherwise), and almost everyone covers the transaction fee. This feels less centralized and gimicky than Patreon -- at the cost of losing sokoloff.

You could A/B test showing Patreon to a subset of your users (or in different positions) and see if Patreon gives you enough incremental lift to cover their higher vig.

It’s not about sokoloff. It’s about what gives your group the most net income after all fees and factors.