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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

#411

Post by nozzlegear »

wmf wrote: post #167
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #14

The world where Apple is just completely fine with Apple users paying $13 instead of $10 for a subscription if they do it through an app is an interesting one. Obviously this makes a lot of money for them but when you think about it they must think very little of their customers treating them with disrespect like this. This is how 'Tim Cook's Apple' should be remembered.

From Apple's perspective they say they are helping their customers with things like making subscriptions easy to cancel and Apple thinks that's genuinely worth 30%. The fact that Apple doesn't want their customers to know they are paying more is an interesting wrinkle though.

I mean, this is exactly why I go out of my way to pay for subscriptions via the App Store whenever I have a choice. I don't want to go through some rinkydink "please don't cancel bro" cancelation process on somebody's website, I'd rather just open the App Store and cancel it in one tap. Not to mention the subscriptions and purchases are automatically shared with my wife.

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

#412

Post by octacat »

input_sh wrote: post #218
SilkRoadie wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Apple forbids even mentioning alternative payment methods within the app.

It is patreon, creators will just ask people to use a browser to subscribe.

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

#413

Post by kelnos »

FredPret wrote: post #256
orangesite wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will you still like it enough that you're willing to pay a 30% premium as more and more services start passing the Apple Tax on to the consumer? This is why I love capitalism!

The beauty of capitalism is that you can choose. You don't even have to have a smartphone at all and if you decide to have one, you don't HAVE to have an Apple device. There are countless other brands to pick. If you truly hate the 30% thing, then don't buy an iPhone.

I don't have any Apple devices, but as a Patreon customer, I'm going to be affected by this requirement that Apple is forcing upon Patreon.

The entire point of this article is that Apple is abusing their market power to force other companies to do things that affect people who are not even Apple customers.

But regardless, your argument is laughably wrong. We don't have "countless other brands". We have iOS and Android. They are not fungible. There are pros and cons to both platforms, and sometimes it's impossible to reconcile a showstopper negative on one platform with a different showstopper negative on the other. Or to reconcile a must-have feature on only one platform, even though that platform also has a showstopper negative.

Yes, it's nice that there are many Android manufacturers, but they are still largely very similar products, with the "differentiation" being annoying most of the time, not a benefit. The idea that we have "choice" is hilarious.

Anyway, any time someone suggests "don't have a smartphone at all" as an alternative, my respect for their opinion drops to zero.

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

#414

Post by jocaal »

mcguire wrote: post #387

I don't know Google's Android policy for Patreon, but I expect it is or will soon be similar, if the inability to buy ebooks from the Android apps is any precedent. Walled gardens suck.

> Walled gardens suck.

Let me fix that for you. uhuhm. Duopolies suck.

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

#415

Post by mcgrath_sh »

reddalo wrote: post #397
kmeisthax wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: > Apple has also made clear that if creators on Patreon continue to use unsupported billing models or disable transactions in the iOS app, we will be at risk of having the entire app removed from their App Store. In other words, every Patreon creator has to be billable through iOS App Store or you get kicked off. Someone should get the FTC or EU involved. This is beyond the pale.

> Someone should get the FTC or EU involved. I agree, but I also wonder why Patreon needs an iOS app. It's 2024, you don't need an app for everything. See OnlyFans, they're doing fine even without being able to access the proprietary stores.

This is speculation: for younger people, apps are the web. I think there is some age/line where on one side, your first instinct is to open the browser on your phone and navigate to a website, and on the other side of the line, you open the app store and navigate to an app.

Personally, I agree. I want better/first class mobile websites over an app. I don't want apps for most things. That said, I didn't grow up in a mobile first/mobile only era.

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

#416

Post by [deleted] »

kmeisthax wrote: post #361
dannyobrien wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why Patreon has to drop the per-creation model. Can they not just not offer that on iOS, and continue it on other platforms? (Perhaps with a "convert from susbcription to per-creation" feature online?)

From the article: > Apple has also made clear that if creators on Patreon continue to use unsupported billing models or disable transactions in the iOS app, we will be at risk of having the entire app removed from their App Store. In other words, every Patreon creator has to be billable through iOS App Store or you get kicked off. Someone should get the FTC or EU involved. This is beyond the pale.

[deleted]

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

#418

Post by nozzlegear »

jdgoesmarching wrote: post #148
EricE wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hardly! The fee has been a hot topic of discussion since day one.

Nobody is discussing this outside of tech and nerd spaces

It could be that nobody cares outside tech and nerd spaces.

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

#419

Post by mattstir »

darknavi wrote: post #299
jprete wrote: post #10

I remember reading that per-creation billing is a very important feature for Patreon creators, because it removes the moral obligation to produce content just to justify a subscription. If Patreon really doesn't want to kill the feature itself, but is just responding to Apple's enforcement, then it seems like a really clear illustration of monopoly power - pushing unrelated markets to change their own structure and p…

Maybe I am missing something but Apple supports consumable purchases. Think any game with purchasable virtual currency. Can't Patreon support a ton of different-priced SKUs and let creators use those SKUs for one-off purchases?

That's distinct from the existing per-creation billing in a few ways, with the most obvious being that the existing method is automated while consumable purchases require user input. Trying to create a SKU for every possible per-creation price is also just incredibly janky and hacky in a fundamental way that would never scale and would probably make accounting next to impossible.

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

#420

Post by kelnos »

FredPret wrote: post #359
probably_wrong wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And yet the point of this post is that, thanks to Apple's dominance, all users will lose the "pay per finished production" payment option regardless of whether they use an iPhone or not. The beauty of capitalism is that you can choose the color of your car as long as it's black.

You act as if all the iPhone Patreon donations would've rolled in regardless of the app / app store, but also that Apple is somehow going to kill it. It's logically inconsistent. 1. If Apple plays a key part in getting those donations, then the 30% is not a problem: the content creator is not getting 70c on the dollar; the content creator is getting 70c instead of 0c. Apple gets people to donate that wouldn't otherwi…

> The beauty of capitalism is that we used to have horses and shoes only, then black cars became an option, and now you can buy any color you like.

I'm pretty sure it's at best wildly misleading to argue that the reason cars were invented is "capitalism".

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