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Apple's requirements are about to hit creators and fans on Patreon

news.patreon.com

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Re: Apple's requirements are about to hit creators and fans on Patreon

#191

Post by TheDong »

ensignavenger wrote: post #153

What advantage does the Patreon app offer to iOS users that the Patreon website is unable to offer? Why does Patreon even need an app?

There's a few things:

1. Some iOS users don't realize there even is a web browser, and only look for apps. If there's not an app, they give up.

2. The patreon app has features like playing music and video (patreon rewards), notifications (new posts and messages and such), etc.... and while those features would work for a webpage on android, they either don't work on iOS, or are more difficult to implement, buggy, and feel "non-native" for the user.

Notice how the other two replies assumed "web page" didn't mean "using safari on iOS". If hacker news commenters have trouble with the concept of "using a webpage, not an app, on iOS", what hope does the general populace have?

Re: Apple's requirements are about to hit creators and fans on Patreon

#192

Post by heavyset_go »

stavros wrote: post #144
bkraz wrote: post #80

As a longtime YouTube creator who uses Patreon for financial support, the news is terrible: Patreon informed me that all creators must switch to a monthly subscription schedule instead of the per-creation schedule that I and many other currently use. The whole point of per-creation is that it allows me to take time off, and only charge people when I release something, thus incentivizing me, and being fair to my suppo…

I think the platform you should switch to here is Android. This is Apple's fault, Patreon doesn't seem like it likes the changes any more than you do.

Google forces apps on the Play Store to use Google's payment methods and give them a 15% to 30% cut of revenue, as well.

You can sideload, but the duopoly exists and they're shaking 99.9% of users down for every dime they can get out of them.

Re: Apple's requirements are about to hit creators and fans on Patreon

#194

Post by InsomniacL »

SilkRoadie wrote: post #163
spullara wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you think that they can switch their customers platform? this comment doesn't make any sense at all.

Does the app give any benefit over the web? Asking customers to use the browser over the dedicated app doesn’t seem unreasonable.

Does apple allow that?

I think there are rules about telling people not to use IOS method.

Not sure if that would extend to content displayed in the app too from creators?

Re: Apple's requirements are about to hit creators and fans on Patreon

#195

Post by lenerdenator »

pornel wrote: post #69
mensetmanusman wrote: post #66

I like being able to cancel subscriptions from the App Store, it’s a huge advantage because companies will usually try to make it difficult to cancel.

Apple could add an API for 3rd party subscriptions to integrate with that screen. But Apple prefers to insinuate that you either pay them 30% or get scammed, and there is absolutely no option in between.

> Apple could add an API for 3rd party subscriptions to integrate with that screen.

They could. And the third parties would absolutely ignore it or make it a front door to their own subscription management, which could mean anything from something as simple as the current iOS subscription management (highly unlikely) or a link that opens a browser page that tells you to call a given phone number to cancel your subscription that is always "experiencing high call volumes" and "thanks you for your patience" after half-an-hour on the phone.

A service that is effectively un-cancelable really is the dream product: the person doesn't want it, so they don't actively use it (meaning you have no expense in providing it), but also don't want the hassle of putting up with your "are you sure?" tactics to cancel. Businesses make hundreds of millions of dollars annually on hard-to-cancel subscriptions in the US.

Re: Apple's requirements are about to hit creators and fans on Patreon

#196

Post by stalfosknight »

As a user, I welcome this change if it means it becomes possible to easily cancel Patreon subscriptions with a single click in my device settings instead of having to go through Patreon’s cancellation process. Patreon makes it a completely unnecessary pain in the ass to cancel multiple subscriptions.

It seems like only Apple gives a shit about making things easy to cancel and I find it hard to have any empathy for companies / developers that make canceling things painful.

Re: Apple's requirements are about to hit creators and fans on Patreon

#197

Post by ziml77 »

atommclain wrote: post #112
vehemenz wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll bet if you polled most people, even non-Apple customers, they'd be okay with paying a little extra for the convenience of an app store. The problem is that it's 30%.

I thought it was 15% for the first million in revenue, then 30%.

But that's not designed in a way which considers that despite the app bringing in millions in total revenue, each individual creator makes far less than that.

Re: Apple's requirements are about to hit creators and fans on Patreon

#198

Post by lotsofpulp »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #110
pornel wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple could add an API for 3rd party subscriptions to integrate with that screen. But Apple prefers to insinuate that you either pay them 30% or get scammed, and there is absolutely no option in between.

30% is too high. Charge whatever Visa charges.

Without commenting on the appropriate level of charges, Visa and Apple provide very different services. For example, with Apple, you get administration of taxes in many locales as well as dealing with currency exchange. Also, I don't think sellers have to deal with chargebacks, although Apple might have their own version of a chargeback, but I am not sure.

Re: Apple's requirements are about to hit creators and fans on Patreon

#199

Post by ensignavenger »

daemin wrote: post #40
pavel_lishin wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patreon has been pushing an app-based approach for awhile now; every email I get from them has callouts to open the notification in their app. I don't know why they badly want this - presumably for more user tracking, or because studies show that people engage more, or whatever - but pulling out of the app store would be at odds with this desire to push everyone into their app.

My assumption would be that if you have a company's app installed it allows them to spam you with marketing notifications for different things. Much harder to do when you can only use emails, because too many emails can get you put into spam.

Companies that send me too many notifications for crap get their notification privledges revoked... Can't Apple users do that too?

Re: Apple's requirements are about to hit creators and fans on Patreon

#200

Post by sersi »

I dislike Patreon because they keep making their UI worse over time but that said, I'm furious at apple for this. I like Patreon to allow creators to do per-creation schedule and I hate that Apple has enough power to impact me despite being an Android user (specifically because of these kind of behaviors).

So, to people who say that with only 27% of global marketshare there's no case for an antitrust lawsuit, well if they can impact users outside of their ecosystem, there's a clear case for antitrust.

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