Micropatronage

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This article is about many people making small donations to an individual. For small payments see Micropayment.

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Micropatronage is a system in which the public directly supports the work of others by making donations through the Internet. In use as early as 2001,^[1] the term was popularized in 2005 by blogger Jason Kottke when he quit his day job as a web designer and spent a year blogging full time, living off the voluntary donations of his readership. Micropatronage differs from traditional patronage systems by allowing many "patrons" to donate small amounts, rather than a small number of patrons making larger contributions.

In webcomics, micropatronage plays a large part in supporting both the author and the site itself, and it has become common in webcomics to see authors asking for donations from fans beyond a certain level of popularity.^{[citation needed]}