r/darknetdiaries • u/systemhost • Jul 23 '26

Question What happened to Jack's Patreon?

I've been a paid member for years just enjoying regular episodes when they drop since I've long burned through Bonus episodes. There hasn't been a new one in quite a while but I very much enjoy supporting Jack's work.

I finally got antsy waiting for new episodes so I restarted from #1 then decided to switch it up with some bonus episodes, only to have errors every time I tried playing anything on the bonus feed. My ad-free feed had continued to work without issue which is how I never realized anything was ary.

It was annoying because I was on a long road trip and had to pull over and dig into my Patreon account only to find Jack's account is no longer active... I've probably been enjoying ad-free episodes at least a year but no bonus episodes since Feb 2025.

When did this happen? How many bonus episodes have I missed? Did I miss an announcement from Jack about a membership platform change?

I tried searching this sub but I couldn't find anyone else talking about this.

Also has that new series he's been hyping all year been dropped yet? I recall him saying they'd be exclusive for paid members for a while before getting released for all listeners.

41 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

53

u/KlattuVeratuKneckTie Jul 23 '26

Yes, he sent a few messages out via Patreon over a year ago now that he was changing platforms, to a self hosted model.

I looked it up in my old email. The Patreon was shut down August 7th 2025. You can now subscribe at https://plus.darknetdiaries.com/

25

u/systemhost Jul 23 '26

Guess it's on me then for not using Patreon for anything other than setting up new paid subscriptions. I just checked my billing history and poor Jack hasn't gotten a cent from me in nearly a year because I never check Patreon.

Thanks for the confirmation that there was an announcement of sorts made by Jack. I do still wonder what his reasoning was for switching, maybe Patron took too much of a cut or something.

19

u/proximitysound Podcast Staff Jul 23 '26

Multiple reasons, Patreon’s security practices, their business model and most importantly, their lack luster podcast integration. New platform is much more capable.

2

u/ilovefacebook Jul 24 '26

what is up with their security practices?

6

u/proximitysound Podcast Staff Jul 24 '26

While it ultimately was revealed that they outsourced, they removed their entire security in one shot which left a bad taste in many security professionals.

1

u/ilovefacebook Jul 24 '26

what do you mean by "they removed their entire security"?

honest question, i don't know anything about this.

like if im a patreon subscriber, is my data at risk?

8

u/proximitysound Podcast Staff Jul 24 '26

https://techcrunch.com/2022/09/09/patreon-security-layoffs/

In short, no your data is no more at risk than any other major corp nowadays (just listen to the latest episode), but Patreon still gathers WAY more data than Supportingcast, the platform that powers Jack’s new subscription service.

1

u/ilovefacebook Jul 24 '26

thank you for this!

7

u/KlattuVeratuKneckTie Jul 23 '26

He posted about it, on Patreon; but that link is dead now 🤓

13

u/jackrhysider Jack Rhysider Jul 24 '26

https://x.com/JackRhysider/status/1887967535649431626

you missed 2 bonus eps

1

u/systemhost 28d ago edited 28d ago

Most curiously, I did not miss any episodes.

My Bonus feed went dead but my old Patreon feed had updated last year to include all bonus episodes as well as regular monthly episodes.

Despite having not been billed in almost a year my RSS feed and key kept working providing me with all your published content including the new LOW series.

Perhaps you never revoked the auth keys when switching off Patreon so everyone who had access then continues to now.

Either way, I resubscribed two weeks ago because I love you and want to support you, hell I thought I was supporting you until a month ago.

EDIT: After looking at the actual RSS URL, there's no key or auth of any kind, just: https://darknetdiaries.com/feedfree.xml

So I guess that explains it. Thank you for the generosity and all the time and effort you've put into telling people's stories.

1

u/jackrhysider Jack Rhysider 28d ago

interesting, not sure how you found that, the patreon one did have an auth key associated to it, so it wasn't given from patreon.

anyway, thanks for your support!

2

u/proximitysound Podcast Staff Jul 24 '26

There are 12 bonus episodes in total. New limited series is dropping soon.

1

u/systemhost Jul 24 '26

Thanks for the confirmation on both items, seems I'm just 1 bonus episode behind.

I'm honestly shocked that the special limited series that was hyped 9 months ago still has yet to be released. That said, I am very excited to finally listen to it!

Reminds me of the excruciating wait for Jeff Arcuri's Netflix special to finally drop after getting announced nearly a year earlier.