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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

#401

Post by queuebert »

danShumway wrote: post #389

Another point that Patreon isn't really emphasizing here that seems relevant to any conversations about "fairness" is that Apple's fees on Patreon subscriptions in-app are now higher than Patreon's fees. It's important to recognize any time that we're talking about the market that services charge what they can, not what is fair. The market does not have a concept of fairness, only competition. This is why there is no…

Kind of like how realtors make more money on a house transaction than the closing attorneys who draw up all the paperwork and execute it legally.

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

#402

Post by wpm »

_aavaa_ wrote: post #81
Despegar wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fine for App Store developers to complain about their costs of doing business like any other business. I'm not sure what the point of bringing up nonsensical hypotheticals like bank payments is.

Except this is a clear racket and not a regular cost of doing business. Imagine Microsoft tomorrow deciding to require 30% of even a fraction of things happing on windows. Imagine Apple trying to do this on the Mac. It's laughably anti-competitive and the only reason they're not doing it on the Mac is because it would expose the absurdity of the situation on iOS.

That, and Apple probably requires a shit load of third party utilities that do "naughty" things like read the file system or be "not sandboxed" in order to actually get any work done. They need the Mac to write APIs to charge people 30% on the App Store for the iPhone.

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

#403

Post by danShumway »

queuebert wrote: post #401
danShumway wrote: post #389

Another point that Patreon isn't really emphasizing here that seems relevant to any conversations about "fairness" is that Apple's fees on Patreon subscriptions in-app are now higher than Patreon's fees. It's important to recognize any time that we're talking about the market that services charge what they can, not what is fair. The market does not have a concept of fairness, only competition. This is why there is no…

Kind of like how realtors make more money on a house transaction than the closing attorneys who draw up all the paperwork and execute it legally.

Or, I would argue, like if a realtor made more money off of the sale than the person selling the house made.

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

#405

Post by rondini »

delecti wrote: post #211
throwaway98797 wrote: post #3

where’s the line between buying something on amazon, ordering a ride on uber, and patreon? why do some purchases get exempt and not others?

The line is "can you use the purchase solely in the app distributed through Apple's infrastructure". I think their fee is outrageous, but that does seem like a defensible line.

Except they're stepping far over that line! You can use a Patreon subscription on all platforms, same as a Spotify or Netflix or Kobo... and yet they want a cut even when they have no part in the payment processing. Totally indefensible imo.

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

#406

Post by bangaladore »

gumby271 wrote: post #381
bangaladore wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not forget that if Apple created something called "Apple Creators", they would instantly gain 100% of the market share because there would be no fee (assuming feature parity) This forcing apps to use your payment platform through extortion is anti-competitive. Full stop.

Don't they already have this for podcast subscriptions? I feel like this is a direct move to get more customers over to Apple Podcasts, which can now be 30% cheaper for customers.

I'm unsure, but I'm pretty sure Spotify had this exact issue recently and decided to make payments via only their website.

But, IIRC, Apple makes it nearly impossible to offer off-app payments without breaking their TOS, including linking to them (don't quote me on that).

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

#407

Post by mcguire »

bilbo0s wrote: post #170
bix6 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that insulting to the judge? If you have 27% you could be the single biggest player in a given market and exercise monopoly-like control. Especially considering all the colluding occurring.

* If you have 27% you could be the single biggest player in a given market* Not if your competitor, android, controls 70% of the market. That's what I meant about being insulting. In court, when we're making these kinds of claims, we shouldn't talk about what could be, we must talk about what is.

70% worldwide. 30-40% in the US.

And "Android" is a bunch of companies, not one.

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

#408

Post by yunwal »

xenospn wrote: post #16
Hamuko wrote: post #7

Is there a reason why Patreon doesn't just pull out of the App Store? Whenever I got Patreon rewards, I'd just get them in an email notification and the link there took me to the website. Worked great without having to download an app.

The 30% fee is steep, but conversion rates using in-app purchase are astronomical compared to regular webpages with a credit card form. Everyone hates it (developers, I mean), but it works very well.

In case anyone wants to know why this is: it's because 1) I don't have to enter credit card information 2) Apple allows me to cancel subscriptions in a central location as soon as I sign up

If your service forces me to auto-renew my subscription, I'm probably not gonna buy it.

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

#409

Post by Y_Y »

danShumway wrote: post #389

Another point that Patreon isn't really emphasizing here that seems relevant to any conversations about "fairness" is that Apple's fees on Patreon subscriptions in-app are now higher than Patreon's fees. It's important to recognize any time that we're talking about the market that services charge what they can, not what is fair. The market does not have a concept of fairness, only competition. This is why there is no…

> It's important to recognize any time that we're talking about the market that services charge what they can, not what is fair. The market does not have a concept of fairness, only competition. This is why there is no such thing as a benevolent monopoly that charges fair prices - because fairness does not exist in the market, only competition.

I agree with you that the reality of markets is quite different to the "common sense" model. Unfortunately I rarely find either in the press or just talking to people myself, that anyone gets beyond this kind of price=cost(1+a little incentive) thinking.

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

#410

Post by [deleted] »

refulgentis wrote: post #347
gcr wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any examples of apps that do that? As a consumer, I haven't ever heard of an app that offers this (e.g. goodnotes, LiquidText, MarginNote, Audulus and Things have new major releases and don't seem to do this)

Couple of the old school macOS dev houses tried this once this hack became visible and little birdies said the hack WAI. (ex. OmniGroup) Since then, people have backed off. If you're going to this much work to help users workaround Apple nonsense, you really care about helping them save money, and the support + refund costs of people accidentally buying the bundle with the old version they don't need is > just buildi…

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