741–750 of 1001 posts
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> Why does patreon need its own app? Why can't it just be web based? because apple gimps their web browser capabilities & performance to incentivize developers to enter the walled garden
I use the web version on my phone instead of most apps, and they work fine.
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> Looking at it that way, sure. It seems obvious. If a local distributor picks up a local product, and then a national distributor buys from the local distributor, it's pretty obvious that the national distributor brings more value. That isn't obvious at all. In both cases the distributor's margin will reflect how much competition they have. If there is only one distributor, their margin will be large. If there are a…
> The notion that Google and Apple are in competition with one another in this context is false, because to distribute to Android customers you need Google and to distribute to iOS customers you need Apple. It is still competition even in this context, it just happens on a slightly slower cadence. The Apple customers, by and large, are paying good money to avoid Google's app store because they believe Apple is a bett…
You're looking at a different market. The customer in this context is Patreon and the product is app distribution. Patreon needs a way to distribute their app to all of their customers. Many of their customers have iOS, so Patreon needs app distribution to customers with iOS, and there is only one supplier of that.
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Your "nobody" is doing all the work. Steam distributes to Windows, but you aren't required to use Steam to distribute to Windows, and then many people don't . Adobe isn't paying Valve to distribute their suite. Epic doesn't use it for Fortnite. Random enterprise software developers have nothing to do with it. It's like pointing to the existence of people who willingly buy a BMW as a justification for forcing everyone…
Adobe isn't paying Apple either. You buy Adobe from Adobe, "Get" Adobe from Apple, and log in with an email. Also, a minority of consumers by headcount choose Apple. A majority of wallet share is spent by those who do choose it. That's behind most of the sour grapes.
This is the sort of thing where Apple is playing politics, disallowing the same behavior for others while carving an exception for the ones with enough influence.
Ask yourself why Adobe can do this but not Patreon.
> Also, a minority of consumers by headcount choose Apple. A majority of wallet share is spent by those who do choose it. That's behind most of the sour grapes.
This argument makes no sense. People don't want to be paying 30% to Google Play either. Maybe this is why they complain about Apple more than Google, but the nature of the complaint is the same regardless of how the user base is distributed.
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Although I agree in principle, the counter-argument to this is that Apple would ultimately be blamed in the minds of consumers for not keeping those devices protected from bad software. They could say I told you so, but that doesn’t help them after the golden goose of the App Store has already been cooked.
>the counter-argument to this is that Apple would ultimately be blamed in the minds of consumers for not keeping those devices protected from bad software. To be brash, maybe consumers need to learn how to protect themselves or move to dumb hardware that is impractical to hack. I don't understand this trend of blaming corporations for not being the de facto gatekeeper of security. They should help minimize spam/malwa…
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Your "nobody" is doing all the work. Steam distributes to Windows, but you aren't required to use Steam to distribute to Windows, and then many people don't . Adobe isn't paying Valve to distribute their suite. Epic doesn't use it for Fortnite. Random enterprise software developers have nothing to do with it. It's like pointing to the existence of people who willingly buy a BMW as a justification for forcing everyone…
>It's like pointing to the existence of people who willingly buy a BMW as a justification for forcing everyone to buy a BMW whether they want it or not. products aren't markets. Steam is a market and many games only launch on Steam. That's a sign of a monopoly, be it deserved or not. Still, I'd rather have some aspects investigated because monopolies are historally dangerous.
If people are willingly paying this because the promotion is worth it, that's not necessarily a monopoly. And you can tell if they're willingly paying it because they have the option to distribute to the same customers by other viable means, without paying the fee but also without getting the promotion. And then as we can see, some people pay and other people don't.
You could make the different argument that they have a monopoly on games promotion by itself. I don't know if you'd win that one or not, but regardless it's distinct from what Apple is doing.
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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.
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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.
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…
> 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? Well, there is a simple way to test this... just get rid of the Patreon iOS app and just use a web version. Why does patreon need its own app? Why can't it just be web based? I wish fewer companies had apps. I don't need an app for everything. I don'…
So, platform developers have to take iOS support very seriously or miss a lot of profit.