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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

#651

Post by brigadier132 »

idle_zealot wrote: post #641
brigadier132 wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple doesnt need to be broken up, they just need to be forced to open their devices. No proprietary apis that only they have access to, when you open the phone for the first time you should be able to pick what store to use and they have to allow alternative browsers

I agree that consumer ownership rights to their computers are the more pressing issue, but Apple should probably also be broken up. The problem is how to do that without destroying the value they bring to consumers, i.e. where do you draw the lines internally?

I don't think it's possible to break them up without immense value destruction.

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

#652

Post by brookst »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #609
brookst wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> does anybody want to argue that Apple hosting the Patreon app on iOS provides more value to Patreon subscribers and creators than the existence of Patreon itself does? I'll bite, kind of. People get emotional about particular companies so let's abstract them away: is it possible for a second-tier distributor to bring more value to a first-tier distributor than the first-tier brings to suppliers? Looking at it that…

>is it possible for a second-tier distributor to bring more value to a first-tier distributor than the first-tier brings to suppliers? In the sense that [bigger company] can make more money and reach more people than [smaller company], yes. But if all they are doing is sitting there and using that bigger presence, you can see how that roads ends in antitrust. >The economics would suggest that Patreon should do away w…

> In the sense that [bigger company] can make more money and reach more people than [smaller company], yes. But if all they are doing is sitting there and using that bigger presence, you can see how that roads ends in antitrust.

I don't follow this at all. If a big record label strikes an international distribution deal with a small label, the big label brings more value to the artist than the small label does. Is that necessarily antitrust?

> Let's not pretend this trillion dollar company that already forces devs to use IOS hardware to develop (and took down their server OS's to boot), and charges a yearly membership to dev is scaping for cash here.

I think you replied to the wrong post? I certainly didn't assert that out of pretense or otherwise. Though it's hard for me to fault "forcing" devs to own the hardware they are developing for. Phone software and iOS software have enough quality issues without letting developers ship stuff that has never been tested on real HW.

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

#653

Post by charrondev »

xyst wrote: post #471
shreddit wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK this is because you can not make changes to your subscription within the app. You have to visit the Netflix homepage. There is no “pay” button in Netflix, so they do not have to use apple’s payment system…

If this is the case, I don’t understand why Patreon and other sites cannot adopt the same approach. Very easy to remove buy buttons in apps, and redirect users to patreon.com to manage subscriptions for content creators and “per content” payments. iOS and Google apps just used to view content. Patreon is a relatively small company so velocity to complete this effort even amongst multiple teams should be at most a few…

If you do that Apple still takes a 27% commission today even after going through their special entitlement process.

https://developer.apple.com/support/storekit-external-entitl...

All purchases must still be allowed as in app purchases as well.

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

#654

Post by Aeolun »

makeitdouble wrote: post #571
theturtle32 wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, imo is a solid argument for "fine then, we're just gonna pull our app and use mobile web exclusively."

Perhaps, although that requires experimenting the new fee model first. It's too big of a decision to take without actual numbers, and having gone through it for a few months also helps on the communication side: on the surface Patreon at least gave it a try, and there's even a chance users are pissed off enough by the new model to campaign for that change and defend the move to their fans.

Why would that require them to do anything (except pull their app?)

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

#655

Post by Retric »

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…

Not all parties to a transaction provide value to everyone in a transaction. A union, lawyer, real estate agent, etc is optimizing value for one party but not both. As long as one side of a transaction has a monopoly you can end up with “middlemen” favoring the side that picks them, thus why Ticketmaster still exists.

Patroon is chosen by content creators not customers as such its goal is creating value for content creators not customers. As a customer it’s providing negative value with their policies to immediately cancel service the instant someone unsubscribes rather than letting the month play out etc. Thus why their website can be so unbelievably terrible for customers and yet they stay in business. So for customers Apple/Google/whatever may provide literally infinite more value not because it’s significant but because they are on their side.

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

#656

Post by heavyset_go »

wredue wrote: post #613
desert_rue wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally, the Apple Store would be a separate company from Apple phones. A user gets to choose which store they want to use on their phone. Along with other things like which map app is the default. This way, the different stores could compete - by charging lower fees or offering more services. Like the android store does a bare-bones check of the app and so it only charges 10%. Apple checks every app throughly, so…

What a cluster fuck that would become. I can see it now: needing to have 15 different stores with subscriptions to get apps who all have different deals with different apps for exclusivity. No thanks.

And yet that isn't the case on Android, macOS, Windows, etc.

This nightmare scenario only exists in your own mind and you're spooking yourself over it.

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

#657

Post by virtue3 »

I don't feel SUPER bad for patreon here. They're been trying to push people to their app super hard instead of their mobile website. And the mobile website is barely usable.

This is kinda what happens when you put yourself into a situation where you can't make your product work WITHOUT apple or google's store.

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

#658

Post by ProfessorLayton »

lapcat wrote: post #621
ksec wrote: post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is a very strange analogy. You can be both an Amex and a Visa card Customer. You can also be an iPhone and Android Customer at the same time as well. As well as a web user. Amex charges higher fees, and offer specific services to their customer base.

> You can be both an Amex and a Visa card Customer. Yes, which supports my point. > You can also be an iPhone and Android Customer at the same time as well. Who does this? Barely anyone. Most people can't afford to buy two smartphones, and even if you could afford two, why in the world would you use two of them simultaneously? That sounds extremely inconvenient, for no apparent benefit. Practically speaking, a smartp…

>In any case, the crucial difference is that a smartphone is a product of independent value that you can buy, whereas a credit card is not.

This is missing the broader point, which is that companies absolutely do gatekeep access to "their" customers all the time in several industries in and outside of tech. Customer acquisition costs a lot of money, and one of the ways businesses recoup their costs or boost profits is by monetizing them by selling access.

The problem with Apple doing it is that they're abusing their market power.

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

#660

Post by loongloong »

If the App Store is a place where creators can also sell their own content (story apps, etc.).. isn't it a direct competitor to Pateron as a creator's platform, and so should be treated (and maybe regulated) as such? In the manner that Apple need to allow legitimate platforms such as Pateron to survive and compete fairly in the iOS ecosystem?

(A parallel is Netscape Navigator vs Microsoft bundling Internet Explorer)

Lastly, a gentle reminder since I too sometimes slip up and fondly recall the good old six-colored apple... that Apple has been the top 3 largest company by market capitalisation for more than 10 years. They are underdogs no more.

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