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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

#931

Post by dvngnt_ »

dwaite wrote: post #816
dvngnt_ wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

following this to its logical conclusion you would never install an app if they offered a web version which also means if you get a DM from a creator on pateron you have to load the website instead of easy access to your app drawer. > See OnlyFans i bet they would do even better as a native app. also let's remember that apple goes out of their way to not support PWA in an effort to maintain control https://techcrunch…

I don’t know if that link supports your point?

people always say turn to webapps as an alternative to native apps but on apple for years pwa lacked feature parity

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

#932

Post by gretch »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #755
gretch wrote: post #738

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah we could. But just because we do, doesn’t mean it’s the right thing or the smart thing to do. Once upon a time alcohol was voted illegal and even now marijuana is federally illegal. I personally think it’s a shame when the government takes something interesting and working and makes it illegal. Patreon could easily not be an app on iOS, but they really want that money, so now the government has to make laws on a…

do we really call "give us your subscription money or get banned" an "interesting and working" system? That's pretty much peak antitrust fuel there. This is quite literally what Epic spent years in court fighing over.

> "give us your subscription money or get banned"

This is literally so many businesses. Are you kidding me? Get a membership at a gym. Then stop paying the subscription. And see if they kick you out or not. Or stop paying your netflix bill. See if netflix bans you. Btw, stop paying your patreon, see if you still get the videos. Every subscription business is literally give us your subscription or get banned.

I don't care what Epic is fighting in court over. Why is that mega corp the good mega corp? Mcdonalds spent years in court fighting the responsibility to pay for some woman's burns.

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

#933

Post by dcow »

eduction wrote: post #913
dcow wrote: post #908

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is CLEARLY worth the 30% to most companies, because they keep pumping out single use apps that would be better as a mobile web page. Based on the context given in the OP, this conclusion does not follow and is not fair. 1. Patreon is passing the 30% on to customers by default, or allowing creators to pay for it out of their existing income, so Patreon isn’t making any value judgement at all. They are leaving it…

> Patreon isn’t making any value judgement at all. They are leaving it up to creators and users. That’s incorrect. They are phasing out two of their three payment options (per creation and first of month) for all creators in order to have the right to operate an app on iOS. That’s a value judgment - Patreon would rather have an app than continue to make independent business judgments. They could have said “well, peop…

In the OP Patreon leads with a pretty strong assertion that they would not be making these changes to their subscription model on merit alone. “Do this or you’ll lose X% of your users” is not Patreon making a value judgement on 30% margin, it’s post facto extortion.

Nothing is answering the question, “would Patreon itself take a 30% hit to margin just to operate natively iOS”? I am pretty dubious.

My point still stands that none of this is fair first principles representation of the value the platform provides. I’m sure the product conversation and user research inside Patreon HQ is much more along the lines of “fuck you Apple you’re making me choose my 10% iOS user base over the 7% of global users that happily use per-creation billing”. Not “oh Apple was right subscriptions are a more consistent payment model for users why didn't we realize that before thanks Apple here’s your 30% rev share for the idea let’s just pass that cost on to our iOS users they won’t mind”. LOL

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

#934

Post by inanutshellus »

meowster wrote: post #870
krger wrote: post #867

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That Patreon is even considering keeping the app is proof of this. No, that Patreon is "even considering" keeping the app is evidence that they get more valuable information about users and their habits from the app than they could from a website.

I doubt it. What evidence supports your claim? I took a look at the Patreon app permissions in Android, and it doesn't even ask for location which is probably the most valuable thing about users they could ask for.

The broad argument holds, regardless of what Patreon itself does right now.

Facts are simple here: Apps grant easier access your habits and identity as compared to a relatively-sandboxed browser.

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

#935

Post by throwaway290 »

danShumway wrote: post #929
throwaway290 wrote: post #840

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this makes it effectively impossible for creators to go on vacations, take a sabbatical, whatever... without continuing to charge patrons. "I will want to withhold money the moment you go on a break" is not "patronage".

Patreon does not require creators to pause payments when they go on break. But that should obviously be a choice that is available to creators, for a variety of reasons. They might be treating Patreon more like a subscription service than a donation platform. They might have personal psychological hang-ups (read about why per-creation pricing is so popular with some creators). I would criticize Patreon if it forced c…

> Patreon does not require creators to pause payments when they go on break.

I didn't say it does, but someone apparently thinks they should. That someone doesn't get the idea behind patreon

> It ought to be a creator's choice

There's plenty choice. Sell your stuff, there are plenty platforms for that. Sell physical media. Stream. Patronage is a specific thing.

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

#936

Post by microflash »

azinman2 wrote: post #752
Nekorosu wrote: post #750

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh. I didn't even know there was a Patreon app. There is an issue though. A lot of people (not me) use phone as their main computing device. And Apple is well known for keeping web app experience subpar compared to native app experience. Safari is lagging behind all the other browsers regarding modern APIs support. Bugs are not getting patched for years. At the same time other web rendering engines are not allowed o…

Is Chrome on Android complete in terms of modern APIs? If so, do people use it instead of apps on Android?

I use Firefox on Android (which I can't on iOS) and I use it instead of apps wherever I can. Why should I install an app for every single thing?

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

#937

Post by CivBase »

nottorp wrote: post #900
CivBase wrote: post #890

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why does patreon need its own app? Notifications. Performance. Responsiveness. Bandwidth. Offline access. And a lot of users simply find apps to be more convenient than browser bookmarks. I use the web interface for Patreon, but I can see why some users would want the app. Why does Apple themselves have apps for things like maps, news, stocks, weather, video chats, etc? These all rely on web services and could theo…

> Notifications. No thanks. > Performance. Responsiveness. Bandwidth. Offline access. Isn't Patreon basically a web site where you can pay a subscription to ... something? Why would it need all that? Does the subscriber content get delivered through Patreon?

You and I may not want notifications, but a lot of people do.

> Does the subscriber content get delivered through Patreon?

Yes. Many of creators deliver media content through Patreon.

Announcements, updates, Q&As, early access to regular content, bonus behind-the-scenes content, and sometimes exclusive content. It all depends on the creator.

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

#938

Post by pjerem »

meiraleal wrote: post #926
pjerem wrote: post #893

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m really not defending Apple here. I’ve always been pretty vocal against Apple practices, especially with the App Store policies. But I do think that the situation we are in where any company have to develop an application when the web does it nice enough (and it’s especially true for products such as Patreon) is pretty ridiculous. Of all the companies around, Patreon is one who could easily avoid this in app fee n…

How can you be vocal against App Store and in favor of Web and Apple's effort on that front while Apple/Safari blocks multiple attempts of making the Web a good platform for web Apps. That's the biggest complain of every web app developer but you are saying that Safari is already great for that while excusing Apple's behavior. Wow.

Please quote where I excused Apple’s behavior and where I said that safari didn’t lag behind other browsers. I just said that Patreon ran fine on Safari and so that Safari had enough features / API to do the job for Patreon. I didn’t say anything about safari being a good platform for web apps in general and I don’t understand where you read that in my comment.

So let me repeat my opinion : yes Safari lacks a lot of features and APIs to be a good application platform. Yes, Apple is a shitty company especially when it comes to app policies. But, in the current state of affairs, Safari is enough for simple applications/websites such as Patreon.

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

#939

Post by mrkstu »

Andrex wrote: post #876
espadrine wrote: post #839

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is cultural: a growing population do not know what the Web is. When they are asked to search for a website, they open the app store and search there. If there is no result, they give up.

"The problem is cultural: a growing population do not know what the Web is." I'd love to know where this idea started, because I'm not convinced it's actually based on any kind of real data. If it is, I don't think it's accurate for the past 5+ years. Knowledge of the web is probably flat. And apps and smartphones have peaked in the West. Those are my anecdotes to add, since that seems to be what we're doing. This li…

My daughter’s boyfriend just bought a MacBook for college- his first Mac. He was immediately flummoxed going to the app store looking for apps that on a Mac are just websites.

He was somewhat appeased when I helped him find the Spotify Mac app though. Just going to their website just presented the music interface, with no links to the app download (which isn’t available in the Mac app store I would guess, since the BF hadn’t found it.)

Developers not allowing iPad apps to run on M-Series Mac’s are really hurting themselves with the younger set.

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

#940

Post by azinman2 »

microflash wrote: post #936
azinman2 wrote: post #752

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Chrome on Android complete in terms of modern APIs? If so, do people use it instead of apps on Android?

I use Firefox on Android (which I can't on iOS) and I use it instead of apps wherever I can. Why should I install an app for every single thing?

That’s fine as an anecdata of n=1. But it doesn’t seem that apps are unpopular on Android, where as the GP seemed to suggest that Safari was the reason for app popularity. That just doesn’t seem to be true, given on Android we don’t see a large inversion.
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