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Facebook wants up to 30% of fan subscriptions vs Patreon’s 5%

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Re: Facebook wants up to 30% of fan subscriptions vs Patreon’s 5%

#181

Post by mfoy_ »

NicoJuicy wrote: post #158
NicoJuicy wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19270786 European non-profit is not the same as American non-profit. So i made a new item for liberapay, since I thought it was worth it. Also, I would much rather see Liberapay on the frontpage of HN than Facebook "fan subscriptions"... We have enough multinationals that try to claim 30% on top of someone else's work.

Fyi. HN has flagged it ( lower ranking ) and removed European and 0 commission from the title without moderation comment ? ... :(

Generally speaking submissions should just match the of the page... so if you want, write a blog post about it, then submit the blog post?

Re: Facebook wants up to 30% of fan subscriptions vs Patreon’s 5%

#182

Post by collyw »

Deimorz wrote: post #11

I don't understand why people are acting like this is ridiculous and will obviously fail. 30% is the same cut that Apple and Google take for everything that goes through their app stores, including all in-app purchases. It's the same cut that Steam takes. It's the same cut that YouTube takes for channel membership. Twitch takes an even larger cut: 50% from subscriptions. It's extremely well-established that people ar…

I would be more concerned about platform censorship with both of them.

Re: Facebook wants up to 30% of fan subscriptions vs Patreon’s 5%

#183

Post by briandear »

ibeckermayer wrote: post #124
morganvachon wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US does have freedom of speech at the federal government level; i.e. the government is not supposed to repress speech. However, it appears the parent is intentionally conflating freedom of speech and a private entity's right to censor their own platform. One has literally nothing to do with the other; private entities in the US and abroad are largely free to run their platforms as they choose, including censoring…

Are we really going to pretend that financial institutions are “private” enterprises? I recall the taxpayer being forced to bail them out for their incompetence. They are effectively government institutions and should be regulated as such.

Not to get off topic here, but banks were bailed out because they made subprime housing loans that went bad, however it was the government that compelled those loans in the first place. By doing what the government demanded (increasing home loans to people who didn’t have the proper credit,) the banks crashed. Government policy and housing “activists” created the housing collapse.

https://fee.org/articles/how-the-federal-government-created-...

Re: Facebook wants up to 30% of fan subscriptions vs Patreon’s 5%

#184

Post by gamblor956 »

acolytic wrote: post #149
Deimorz wrote: post #11

I don't understand why people are acting like this is ridiculous and will obviously fail. 30% is the same cut that Apple and Google take for everything that goes through their app stores, including all in-app purchases. It's the same cut that Steam takes. It's the same cut that YouTube takes for channel membership. Twitch takes an even larger cut: 50% from subscriptions. It's extremely well-established that people ar…

Disclaimer: I'm working on a platform that allows you to contribute to open source as a whole and which distributes your money proportionally to how much you care about various projects. I'm thinking of taking 30% as well. I think people are just getting hung up on the number without thinking deeper on what it costs to make things sustainable. 5% of the 500 million Patreon claims to be able to process is 25 million.…

If you're charging 30% then donors and the projects they support are better off leaving you out of it and just interacting directly with each other as you don't appear to be providing any significant value to either side.

Re: Facebook wants up to 30% of fan subscriptions vs Patreon’s 5%

#185

Post by gamblor956 »

xpaulbettsx wrote: post #25
gamblor956 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't the %. It's the perpetual IP license, which grants Facebook complete non exclusive rights to the Creator's IP, including licensing it to third parties without further pay to the Creator.

This boilerplate exists in literally every site that hosts user-created content in some form and displays it to other people. If it didn't exist, the site would immediately be violating your copyright if they showed your content to anyone other than you

I love when non lawyers try to claim that two completely different things are actually the same...

The objectionable part is not the exclusive license. The objectionable part is the sublicense right, which lets Facebook sell creators works to third parties without paying the creators, and even after the underlying business relationship with the Creator has ended.

Re: Facebook wants up to 30% of fan subscriptions vs Patreon’s 5%

#186

Post by bolzano »

eropple wrote: post #150
bolzano wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is Apple have a monopoly. Your supply/demand point is facile. For small indie developers 30% is an outrageous cut. That is what the complaint is about.

For Steam specifically, I can state with confidence that that's not true. On a phone at the moment so linking is difficult, but Jeff Vogel (the definitional "indie developer", there are very few people who have been doing it as long or as consistently) has a GDC talk on YouTube where he goes through his numbers--and he's a guy who went to Steam very late overall. Steam's bigger marketplace and that it removes the unc…

Thanks for that. Big fan of Jeff Vogel. Hadn't seen that talk so a link would be great.

I'm not saying Apple don't provide a service, of course they do, though at times it sucks. My main point is about is about the price, not the principle. I pay Apple a yearly subscription just to develop for their platform. On top of that every sale I make they get 30%.

Would 95% be ok?

Another extreme element of this is that I cannot sell a licence outside of the App Store to my customers. I cannot ask them to buy from my website (which many have asked about and would be happy to do) and provide them with a code they can use to unlock or upgrade. This is explicitly banned. Unless you're a big player like Spotify or Netflix your app will not be allowed to do this. I've tried and been denied and stonewalled.

In this case I am willing to build and manage my own payment/licencing setup to gain 30%. I'm just not allowed to do that.

Re: Facebook wants up to 30% of fan subscriptions vs Patreon’s 5%

#187

Post by koonsolo »

bolzano wrote: post #143
koonsolo wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Price is set by supply and demand, nothing else. 30% is the price, set on the non-monopoly market. I don't get what you are complaining about.

The point is Apple have a monopoly. Your supply/demand point is facile. For small indie developers 30% is an outrageous cut. That is what the complaint is about.

> For small indie developers 30% is an outrageous cut.

No indie game developer that has been around for a while would say this. A 30% cut is way less than anything else that came before it.

Steam also allows you to sell Steam keys from wherever, and you get to keep 100% of that. This is how Humble Bundle works.

When you release on Steam, you also get free exposure at first, which is basically free ads. You would otherwise pay several thousands of dollars for that.

So in any sense, Steam worked to get that 30%, and there is no serious indie game developer that is arguing with that.

Re: Facebook wants up to 30% of fan subscriptions vs Patreon’s 5%

#188

Post by bolzano »

ceejayoz wrote: post #145
bolzano wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is Apple have a monopoly. Your supply/demand point is facile. For small indie developers 30% is an outrageous cut. That is what the complaint is about.

Apple has a "monopoly" over the app store as much as Disney has a monopoly on Disney movies.

I don't think this is a fair comparison. If I had the skills (which I certainly don't), I could make a cool Disney style movie and make it available for anyone, and even charge them whatever I liked.

I explicitly cannot do this for iOS apps. There is just no way for me to get my app in front of people's eyes without paying the Apple tax.

If I was prevented from distributing my movie somehow by Disney, you might have a point.

Re: Facebook wants up to 30% of fan subscriptions vs Patreon’s 5%

#189

Post by gamblor956 »

randunel wrote: post #139
thucydidesofusa wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh, now assume the creator makes $80k/yr and lives in California. Marginal tax rate - ~38%? $5 subscription. 30% to Apple: $1.5 30% to Facebook: $1.05 (of the remaining $3.50) 38% to the Government: $.93 (of the remaining $2.45) Leaving the creator with: $1.52

> 38% to the Government: $.93 (of the remaining $2.45) If the invoice you give your customer says "$5.00", isn't the tax taken from that? That's how things work in Europe, the gross income is taxed.

No, because the shares of the transaction that go to Apple and Facebook were never your income to begin with.

Alternatively, those costs are simply deductible from taxable business income, for the same result, even on individual returns. (In the US business income is taxed on a net basis.)

Re: Facebook wants up to 30% of fan subscriptions vs Patreon’s 5%

#190

Post by ceejayoz »

bolzano wrote: post #188
ceejayoz wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has a "monopoly" over the app store as much as Disney has a monopoly on Disney movies.

I don't think this is a fair comparison. If I had the skills (which I certainly don't), I could make a cool Disney style movie and make it available for anyone, and even charge them whatever I liked. I explicitly cannot do this for iOS apps. There is just no way for me to get my app in front of people's eyes without paying the Apple tax. If I was prevented from distributing my movie somehow by Disney, you might have…

> I could make a cool Disney style movie and make it available for anyone, and even charge them whatever I liked.

Disney's not going to put it in their online store, though.

In the case of an iOS app, you can sell the source and let people build it on their own Xcode installs, if you like.

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