Originally Posted by cyxui
My problem is that they only provided the API for the happy path and 0 protection for exploits.
Couple red flags I see are
https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us...46-Patreon-API
"As of June 22nd, 2020, we no longer provide Patreon developer support for our API due to resource constraints. Endpoints will continue to function as normal, and you can also find peer-to-peer resources in our Tech and Dev channel on Discord."
"Unfortunately, at this time, we do not offer a separate testing/sandbox API."
"Fires when a user stops pledging or the pledge is cancelled altogether. Does not fire for pledge pausing, as the pledge still exists."
and then
"APIv2 is still in beta, and while the scopes and endpoints are stable, the specific properties returned on the resources may change."
yea great so property might even change within the same API version. Why bother versioning it after all. Best part is that v1 is deprecating and V2 is not even stable.
I initially thought Paypal's API was bad enough but Patreon is just another level lol |
Man, I know this thread is supposed to be for website issues (I have none), but I just read through this thread and it doesn't seem you've gotten much good feedback so I thought I'd share a few thoughts that might be constructive, hopefully it's useful, and if not just ignore the crazy person.
First off, I feel like a tool that I haven't donated, TTC is the de-facto market tool..it's like the NYSE. So just kicked a hundred your way right now. Anybody else who reads this thread should too.
Secondly...
I think you're pretty much spot on with your challenges. There's probably some optimization you can do on the infrastructure, but it likely won't be enough given your volume.
Personally, I disabled my adblocker and have no issues with the ads and haven't identified any malicious scripts being deployed, looks like your ad network is pretty legit...looks like google. You could also join an affiliate marketing network, these have a higher return and your audience will probably be receptive to tech/gaming related affiliations which pay out the most.
I would say the "donate" button could use some work...it moves around on the screen with the ads and looks like an ad. I'd make it more intrusive, small banner at the top of the page, place a button next to every listing...also indicate that it's donating to TTC instead of just "donate", looks kinda sketchy otherwise.
Also, you need a couple of good "benefactor's" to help with the donations, I know most successful donation projects have a few benefactors who provide the majority of funds. Maybe some outreach to Guild Masters of large guilds or Devs of popular add-ons could help out. Guild masters can crowd source funds pretty quickly.
Patreon's API is garbage, just do a quick search on how to view Patreon content for free and you'll uncover at least a dozen exploits. Paypal isn't so bad, but yeah, plenty of issues. I haven't tried myself but some of my friends have had good luck with
Buy me a coffee for their open source projects.
I think your best bet will be monetizing the data. The people you're catering to have money and will definitely spend it...I bought a mountain goat for $25 this week, so yeah...
Real-time API (you could even do a day delay on the website by default and paid users could get real time), premium alerts, market trends, paid Discord bot integration, etc...you could leverage the guild community greatly in this, I'm sure. Also, several add-ons rely on your data as well..mine included...I don't think it's possible, but charge other add on developers access to your data could be something.
It would be cool to provide some analytics, some of my guildies today are wondering why sales have been soft the last couple of days. They are speculating it's because there's a drop in the usual mats and PvE items in favor of the PvP items due to the event. I would bet you have the data that could confirm or reject that hypothesis...how cool would it be to present that to users a week before? "ESO has a PvP event coming up, here's the top selling items during the event last year".
I think a challenge you'll have though is the desktop client, people volunteer their data with no real benefit to the individual...so you may have to make it so desktop client users don't have to pay for certain premium content, or something. Also, maybe make the client grab more info, not just the individual user's sales but all they see for sale and all their guild sales. That'll amp up the amount of data but also not require you to have as many users active with the desktop client to maintain reliable data.
Anyway, hope something in there is helpful. Thanks for the add-on, it's killer.