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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%

#221
post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An American can exercise their government-protected right to free speech on their own website. This right does not apply to someone else's website, since it would be infringing on the website owner's property rights. Freedom of speech doesn't grant the speaker the right to occupy someone else's private property.

If those websites wish to police speech to this degree then they can reclassify themselves as publishers and accept all the legal burdens that come with it. At least then they'd be intellectually honest.

Let's use Facebook as an example.

The "Facebook © 2019" notice on each Facebook page tells users that they are on someone else's website. Next to the notice is a link to Facebook's terms of service, which discloses their "Community Standards". Facebook has been dishonest in many situations, but they don't hide their ability to moderate content in any way.

It's certainly within one's right to be upset with Facebook's policies. If you feel strongly enough about this, you have the option to stop using Facebook, and you can switch to a different platform with policies that align more closely with your views. You can also publish your own website, where you can establish your own rules.

But Facebook's website is not your property, so you can't graft your preferred rules onto Facebook. You can ask them nicely and you can apply social pressure, but Facebook makes the final decision on how they run themselves because the site is not yours.

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

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not really. And do the extent people do live that way, it’s a new phenomenon. A hundred years ago most people had vast swaths of their productive life that operated outside of the economy. Housewives cooking meals, people fixing their own cars. Dances in barns. Etc. Many “regular” people still live that way, which is where your statement is false. Over the last 100 years there has been a concerted effort by busin…

Because the non discretionary parts of your life like rent/mortgage and medical is so expensive people don't have time after investing 50-60 hours to walk the friends dog. Note that someone who only works 40 hours but has to commute 1.5 hours to and from work because they can't live in the city where the jobs are and spends 2 hours taking text emails while not actually at work has committed 65.5 hours of their time.…

Guys, perhaps, we should to give such examples a context.

I lived/studied in Boston, MA number of years, and I used to meet up with my childhood friend who immigrated from Georgia roughly 8 years ago at his late teen years. He graduated from a very prestigious business school, and has a decent job but after the day was over he used to do some extra stuff, like driving someone from place to place, some screw driving job (I don't exactly know). It seemed crazy to me, I asked numerous times what are you doing dude? His response was extra $ is not a bad thing.

It might sound a bit bold and too generalized, no offense, I'm up for conversation - in the US people forgot what it means to rest properly.

Roughly a year ago, I was visiting my good friend in Germany, who immigrated 15 years ago. He was encouraged by another friend who lived in California to move to the US. We sat down and make a list of comparisons. Just to name a few:

Germany: 1. Workers Union protects employees. Pays a salary (70%+ of it) for 6 months if one looses a job. Also, a simple cold is good enough reason to take a week long leave and you're encouraged to do so. - US? no bro, you're on your own. It's a god damn pressure that makes people work unworkable hours and being in the endless state of anxiety.

2. Car insurance - he drives a new BMW and pays ~ 350 USD per year. We quoted the minimal package for insurance in MA for the same car, guess the number? 10fold: 3000 USD per year.

3. Education? - Free. US: 70$K per year.

4. Cost of food. Well, Germany is "notorious" even in EU for grocery affordability.

5. And Beer? German Hefeweizen 60 cents. Samuel Adams? no thank you. (half joking)

I did eventually left the US, although data science/engineering is the dream job generate money, but quality of life is no less important than the number of 0s at the end of bank acc. balance.

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

#223

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…

You are conflating freedom of speech with the US first amendment. Freedom of speech is a principle. It applies to private companies as well. Voltaire didn't say "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it, so long as it's not on Twitter, Facebook, &c in which case I'll beat you to death myself because private companies are entitled to censor their own platforms". What's the poin…

I'm not conflating anything. I stated a fact, that the federal government cannot punish you for exercising freedom of speech, nor can it restrict your speech. Private companies aren't beholden to those restrictions on their own platforms. The person above the one I replied to was the one conflating the two, as I said.

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

#224
post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If those websites wish to police speech to this degree then they can reclassify themselves as publishers and accept all the legal burdens that come with it. At least then they'd be intellectually honest.

Let's use Facebook as an example. The "Facebook © 2019" notice on each Facebook page tells users that they are on someone else's website. Next to the notice is a link to Facebook's terms of service, which discloses their "Community Standards". Facebook has been dishonest in many situations, but they don't hide their ability to moderate content in any way. It's certainly within one's right to be upset with Facebook's…

Yeah that's not really the argument I'm making. The argument I'm making is that Facebook is acting as a publisher and publishers don't have DMCA protection which is what makes the model work. They want the privileges without the responsibility.

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

#225
post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's use Facebook as an example. The "Facebook © 2019" notice on each Facebook page tells users that they are on someone else's website. Next to the notice is a link to Facebook's terms of service, which discloses their "Community Standards". Facebook has been dishonest in many situations, but they don't hide their ability to moderate content in any way. It's certainly within one's right to be upset with Facebook's…

Yeah that's not really the argument I'm making. The argument I'm making is that Facebook is acting as a publisher and publishers don't have DMCA protection which is what makes the model work. They want the privileges without the responsibility.

Facebook doesn't become a "publisher" by removing user-generated content from its platform. They'll continue to qualify for DMCA Title II's safe harbor provision as long as they take down copyright infringing material that gets reported to them. Facebook is not required to leave non-infringing material intact to be protected under DMCA Title II.

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

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a mac app which is exclusively available on the App Store, so I pay 30% of my revenue to Apple. I could spin up my own system but then I have to build out payments (credit card processing fees), distribution, updates, beta testing, and figure out discoverability. In the end, my app isn't big enough to build these things out myself, but at least if I wanted to I could. Different story on iOS.

> beta testing, and figure out discoverability I feel like these two are much harder than the others. How does the app store help you with beta testing? Isn't discoverability basically a lottery?

Oh yea, I get beta testing from hockeyapp since testflight isn't out for the mac.

By discovery I mean lots of users go on the app store and search for apps to download directly, no marketing or SEO needed. Adding the website, trials, SEO, etc helped a bit probably, but my app seems to just live on app store organic searches.

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

#227
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a mac app which is exclusively available on the App Store, so I pay 30% of my revenue to Apple. I could spin up my own system but then I have to build out payments (credit card processing fees), distribution, updates, beta testing, and figure out discoverability. In the end, my app isn't big enough to build these things out myself, but at least if I wanted to I could. Different story on iOS.

I'm not saying those platforms don't provide value and that they shouldn't charge anything, I'm just saying that 30% is egregiously high. I don't know what Apple's App-Store operation costs are, but my gut feel is 5-10% would be more realistic rate to charge.

30% is high, I agree. And I also pay over 30% to the government for taxes after that too.

But at the end of the day what can I do? There's not really competition to drive the commissions down. If another app store came up and offered 10% commissions and the audience I'd go there instead.

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

#228
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many countries in the EU have blasphemy laws and the European Court of Human Rights says they are okay: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/its-not-fr... If someone criticised Jesus Christ in their podcast (for example), they would be putting Liberapay at risk. I don't believe Liberapay would allow that, so they'd just ban the user. That's what makes Liberapay a risky option.

That's quite different from "free speech is not considered". Every country has free speech exceptions: for example, in the USA "there are several common-law exceptions, including obscenity,defamation,incitement to riot or imminent lawless action,fighting words,fraud, speech covered by copyright, and speech integral to criminal conduct" In th EU: > The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union has been legal…

> So, is speech in USA "freer" than in the EU? Yes. But in both cases free speech is recognized as a right.

True, but also trivial. Everyone pays lip service to free speech, even the most serious violators of it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_North_Korea

Article 67 states: "Citizens are guaranteed freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, demonstration and association. The State shall guarantee conditions for the free activity of democratic political parties and social organizations."

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

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are conflating freedom of speech with the US first amendment. Freedom of speech is a principle. It applies to private companies as well. Voltaire didn't say "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it, so long as it's not on Twitter, Facebook, &c in which case I'll beat you to death myself because private companies are entitled to censor their own platforms". What's the poin…

An American can exercise their government-protected right to free speech on their own website. This right does not apply to someone else's website, since it would be infringing on the website owner's property rights. Freedom of speech doesn't grant the speaker the right to occupy someone else's private property.

But on the internet almost everything is on someone else's private property, unless you run your own website on your own hardware running on your own network and using your own DNS.

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

#230
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what? If Liberapay was based in the US, they could choose to continue hosting you if they wanted to. In the EU, they don't have that option.

This just in: https://twitter.com/michellemalkin/status/110076019755373773... Twitter sends legal warning for blasphemy. They couldn't find better timing for illustrating the point.

The amount of ‘America! Fuck yea!’ in that thread is cringe inducing. Is there nobody trying to talk about the issue at hand without invoking any of the crazy emotional appeals to American exceptionalism or Muslim hatred?
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