A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about noticing some suspicious activity on our Stripe account. It turns out that some nefarious actors were using the system to test stolen credit card numbers. I detailed the potential cost implications of this in the newsletter (in time and real money,) and I am now happy to announce that I’ve made a series of changes to hopefully mitigate this activity.

I have rebuilt the website’s supporter platform to better use Stripe’s tools for processing payments and managing subscriptions. I also took this opportunity to add a variety of features and better streamline the entire flow.

For anyone that is currently a supporter, nothing has changed. You don’t need to do anything to take advantage of the new system; your account will automatically work with it.

The Changes

• I redesigned the support page. All three plans now offer even more ways to signup, including Apple Pay and Google Pay. Just pick which tier you’re interested in, and you can easily signup and choose between the monthly or yearly options.
• There’s also a new manage page for supporters to manage their subscriptions. This page lets you change your payment method, switch from a monthly to a yearly plan, change membership tiers, and cancel your plan (plz no).

Unfortunately, I had to turn off membership signups for the past two weeks while I was making this change, and the end of the year is usually one of the biggest signup periods we have (end-of-the-year lists, holidays, etc.). So, if you were unable to signup before, or you’re a long-time reader ready to now, please do!

I’ll monitor the new system over the next few days to see how it’s all working while I finish putting together our end-of-the-year feature. If all goes well, I should have some time this week to work on a few other new features for the website I’ve had on my list for a while as well.

As always, thank you to everyone that reads this website and helps fund its continued existence. If you ever have any questions or issues with your subscription, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me.