Does Donating Give You a Benefit Or No Just To Get Those Cool Wings?

Hello, Lichess community! I was just wondering if that if you donate money on Lichess do you get more access to the site or no it's just to become a Patron and get those cool wings?

You can see for yourself.

If so, why would anyone even be a Patron?

@Arianplayschess16 said ^

If so, why would anyone even be a Patron?

I like the concept of this platform. Everything is free, and there are no ads.
That is why I decided to support Lichess.

Actually yeah makes sense

@Arianplayschess16 said ^

If so, why would anyone even be a Patron?

https://lichess.org/about <- the links in this article are worth clicking btw

Donations make lichess sustainable. In 2024, more than 90% of their 645k€ revenue was from donations (the rest is listed as consulting - "prestation de services" - for 39k€, and sales of goods for 10k€).
Thanks to this revenue the servers run and a small team is paid. The small team is basically a lead dev, a mobile dev, an ops person and a few moderators (+ a few occasional consultants, for stuff like accounting or short term "dev stipends").

If you read French you can even access the audits of their books

Edit: I'm not part of the lichess non-profit so any inaccuracy is from me misinterpreting a public doc or sucking at accounting ;-)

@Arianplayschess16 said ^

If so, why would anyone even be a Patron?

It's something users can do to keep the site alive.

@Arianplayschess16 said ^

If so, why would anyone even be a Patron?

You sound like the guy in that Monty Python sketch:

Merchant Banker: What is my incentive to give you the pound?
Mr Ford: Well, the incentive is to make the orphans happy.
Merchant Banker: Happy? You quite sure you've got this right?
Mr Ford: Yes, lots of people give me money.
Merchant Banker: What, just like that?
Mr Ford: Yes.
Merchant Banker: Must be sick.

Also I guess chess.com should disable the premium and make this donate button. And yes I understand now. Thanks for the information!