[SLSTalk] Merry Christmas & Happy New Year (Patreon)

- ENGLISH -

Hi patrons! SLS here. It's been a fantastic year; I hope you are doing well. Our Patreon page has run for more than a year; thanks for supporting me so far. For the upcoming 2023, I have a few thoughts about adjusting our Patreon services. Let me make a brief explanation.

I want to separate the functionality of Patreon and YouTube Membership more clearly. I know I always said that supporting me on Patreon is more efficient than on YouTube because YouTube takes 30% of your donation while Patreon only takes 8%, but what I really prefer is that while supporting me, you can also enjoy the proper feedback that you like.

For YouTube Membership, I'd like to focus on the connections with the audience, like the interactivity of the exclusive videos and live streams, the member-only badges, and emotes. 

For Patreon, I'd like to stay and enhance the files-releasing, including mp3, wav, pdf, and midi files, the tutorial videos, and exclusive content like the patron-only recording.

If you're a piano player or just someone who wants to collect downloadable files, then you could go through Patreon. On the other hand, if you want to support me, see more videos, or interact more during the live stream, you might want to go with YouTube Membership.

I've been thinking about it for a long time. The posting and retrieval system on YouTube Membership is so bad it even doesn't allow file attachments! Not to mention the weird notification. And it feels like they don't seem like Google would do anything to improve it shortly. Sharing sheet music and audio files on Patreon is much more convenient. You could 100% get the notifications when I post something; you could use the "tags" function to access specific types of posts easily, and you could even use the search engine to find what you want directly. That's why I wanna make these changes.

While adjusting here, I'll also make changes to YouTube Membership to stay focused on what youtube allows us to do, like the live stream and member-only videos, and engage more with the platform itself. Meanwhile, there're still some standard features that both platforms have would not be removed, like the Discord Server and exclusive videos.

However, I still insist that no matter what platform you choose to support me it means a lot to me. Just think about yourself, about what perks you wanna get and which level you could afford the cost. I deeply thank you from the bottom of my heart. If you have any suggestions or wanna say something to me, feel free to leave a comment! Thanks for the support again. Looking forward to 2023. I wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Best Regards,
SLS

- 中文 -

Patrons大家安安，我是SLS。2022也來到了尾聲，大家今年過得怎麼樣呢？我們的Patreon頁面也已經上線超過一年了，感謝大家一直以來的支持。在即將到來的2023年，我有一些對於調整Patreon及YouTube會員之服務的想法，在這邊跟大家做一個概略的說明。

總的來說，我想明確獨立Patreon與YouTube會員兩邊的定位。我知道我常和大家說在Patreon上支持我比起YT會員要來的好，畢竟YouTube抽30%而Patreon才8%。但思前想後，兩平台的優劣和適合提供的內容本就來就不甚相同，而且我更希望的是粉絲在支持我的同時能夠獲得適合自己的回饋。

對於YouTube會員，我希望能更發揮YouTube的直播&會員影片的強項，強化與觀眾的聯繫與互動，讓會員徽章、表情符號、會員發言、會員直播等功能更加亮相。

對於Patreon，我希望能保持檔案的發佈（包含Mp3, Midi, 無損音檔, 樂譜等等）、教學示意影片的上傳、限定內容上傳（如錄音等等）。

其實我想這件事一段時間了。YouTube的發文、檢索功能實在是做得太差強人意，他甚至到現在都還不允許上傳附件，排版和網址也常常跑掉，大家想舊PO文也是難上加難，更別提大家常常都收不到的「通知」系統（這些持續很久的問題感覺Google近期也不會改善就是了）。而在Patreon上分享音檔、樂譜檔及預覽圖是那麼地方便好用，用戶甚至可以使用標籤和搜尋功能快速找到自己想要的內容，會員層級分界等各種功能也很完善，但相對地，Patreon在直播及互動上就稍微顯弱。這就是為什麼我想朝這個方向去改動。

做這些改動的同時，有一些共同福利內容還是不會變的，例如會員的Discord伺服器、會員限定影片等等。我還是老話一句，大家無論在哪個平台支持我創作對我來說都一樣重要，我十二萬分地感激，大家只需要考慮適合自己的回饋以及符合自己能力所及的方案就好。

如果你有任何建議或者只是想對我說什麼話，歡迎在下方留言。感謝大家的支持，我們2023年再見！祝大家聖誕快樂&新年快樂！

Best Regardsm
SLS