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Apple to soon take up to 30% cut from all Patreon creators in iOS app

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Re: Apple to soon take up to 30% cut from all Patreon creators in iOS app

#151

This means Apple is literally going to take nearly 3x in fees from Patreon's customers than Patreon is taking from their own customers. My understanding is that the reason the number 30% is so magical is a historical anomaly. When software was physically distributed back in the day, 15% of the MSRP was reserved for the distributor and another 15% for the retailer. When these digital marketplaces were set up, the comp…

Had no idea about the history and the 15%/15% split but when the topic comes up I just remember how good the 30% seemed back in, what, 2008? It made perfect sense that this shiny new iOS platform would take 30% of a cheap app to ensure that it matches the high quality of iOS. These were little productivity apps and games at the time. This however - I just don't understand what the need is for an app at all for Patreo…

>This however - I just don't understand what the need is for an app at all for Patreon. Isn't this a website/platform kind of thing? Wouldn't an app just be an additional window into the Patreon platform?

That's the other part of the surrogate war happening with mobile. The web was unregulated and hard to profit off of, so Jobs took great strides to push the "there's an app for that" mentality that overtook that age. This had the nifty side effect of killing off flash, but it's clear the prospects didn't stop there. Not to mention all the other web hostile actions taken on IOS to make it only do the bare minimum required to not piss off customers.

It very much could just be a website with no reliance on IOS as a dependency. But Apple clearly doesn't want that.

Re: Apple to soon take up to 30% cut from all Patreon creators in iOS app

#152
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Had no idea about the history and the 15%/15% split but when the topic comes up I just remember how good the 30% seemed back in, what, 2008? It made perfect sense that this shiny new iOS platform would take 30% of a cheap app to ensure that it matches the high quality of iOS. These were little productivity apps and games at the time. This however - I just don't understand what the need is for an app at all for Patreo…

>What's next - 30% of my pizza price goes to Apple because I ordered it on my phone? I'm pretty sure Apple has discussed things exactly like this. Their upper management really does tend to think that 30% of any monetary transaction on an Apple platform belongs to them. Too bad our government is too busy being ran by the billionaires to do anything about these abuses from billionaires.

Really hope the 2nd wave of Sherman hits these bit tech companies hard if/when this regime inevitably falls. I just hope there's something left of America when it happens.

Re: Apple to soon take up to 30% cut from all Patreon creators in iOS app

#153
post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a theory that they've actually succeeded with the latter too. I mean, look at Java now, and look how many mini-Javas (all those JIT-compiled languages and their runtimes) have emerged since. The point of Java was to unify, we've got more division than ever instead.

The point of Java was write-once, run everywhere, and that is perfectly viable these days. I don't want to live in a world where everyone is a Java programmer, and I don't think there is really any reason to suppose that unifying on a single programming language would be desirable for developers. IMO, Javascript already shows the dangers of over-unification; you get an ecosystem so full of packages that a significant…

> a significant portion of the language's developers are only capable of developing by stacking 1000 packages on top of each other, with no ability to write their own code

That's because those devs are incompetent, not because there are a ton of packages.

Re: Apple to soon take up to 30% cut from all Patreon creators in iOS app

#154
post #111
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don’t understand this attitude. Of course it will. If enough people do it. This is how corporations change not through protest and we’re certainly not going to get any antimonopoly anything going on soon. They make literally about 40% of their profit off of Apple services. Do you really think if people on mass stopped buying Apple TV, Apple Pay, Apple Music, an iCloud, they wouldn’t care? https://www.apple.c…

> if people on mass [sic] stopped buying Ah, the "vote with your dollar" argument. How's that been working out.

It ended apartheid in South Africa.

Re: Apple to soon take up to 30% cut from all Patreon creators in iOS app

#155

I think I’m old enough to have experienced this cycle so many times with so many businesses that I just feel kind of silly to hate on Apple or Microsoft or whoever. They’re all just maximizing profits as designed. I think people find it easier to scowl at the villain du jour than to dig into the deep complex issue of when capitalism doesn’t work, when the government isn’t doing enough, and what we could do about it……

>or the feeling that we really can’t do much.

We can do a lot if we pressure the company or the regulations around it. Maybe not right now in this current regime, but tides will shift.

The issue is that people's attention spans on this are much too short. The fervor around this may not even last to the end of this month, let alone until a change in power allows a new administration to properly go after the company.

Re: Apple to soon take up to 30% cut from all Patreon creators in iOS app

#156
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you want to give the government such power? That always amazes me... when there is an issue, people jump on "let's vote for government to regulate this", but then they are surprised when a new government gets to power and uses this new regulation/capability against you.

I want them to use antitrust regulation against everyone, including me. That's what having values is like. Markets without competition degenerate. Markets are also artificial and always rely on government enforcement to exist - Apple sues people who try to get around its market manipulation. You just prefer that governments help enforce trusts and destroy competition that those trusts denote as unfair.

> Markets are also artificial and always rely on government enforcement to exist - Apple sues people who try to get around its market manipulation.

Historically, markets are destroyed by government interference, not propped up by it. Your own example is a case in point: were it not for the government making laws in favor of entrenched companies, Apple couldn't sue the people trying to get around its market manipulation.

> You just prefer that governments help enforce trusts and destroy competition that those trusts denote as unfair.

This is a grossly unfair mischaracterization of the post you are replying to. Bad show, old chap.

Re: Apple to soon take up to 30% cut from all Patreon creators in iOS app

#157
post #83
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, that won't do much. How about convict Apple of monopoly practices.

I really don’t understand this attitude. Of course it will. If enough people do it. This is how corporations change not through protest and we’re certainly not going to get any antimonopoly anything going on soon. They make literally about 40% of their profit off of Apple services. Do you really think if people on mass stopped buying Apple TV, Apple Pay, Apple Music, an iCloud, they wouldn’t care? https://www.apple.c…

I do think it will work. I also think most people won't even know this is a thing, and that many who do know won't be clamoring to ditch their tech anytime soon. I never owned an apple service, so I'm just paying lip service if I say I'm "boycotting apple". I can't do much more on my front as a customer.

I can do a bit more as a voter, but not in this current administration. It's sadly not even a top 10 pressing issue compared to what BS is going on right now. But I won't forget this.

>I mean the minute people started talking a general worker strike in Minneapolis all of a sudden all these companies freaked our and wrote a letter protesting about IVE’s behavior in Minneapolis.

Yes. And it took not one, but two blatant murders on the street to do that. Tech is much more ephemeral in its evils.

Re: Apple to soon take up to 30% cut from all Patreon creators in iOS app

#158
post #99
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don’t understand this attitude. Of course it will. If enough people do it. This is how corporations change not through protest and we’re certainly not going to get any antimonopoly anything going on soon. They make literally about 40% of their profit off of Apple services. Do you really think if people on mass stopped buying Apple TV, Apple Pay, Apple Music, an iCloud, they wouldn’t care? https://www.apple.c…

>I really don’t understand this attitude. It's not an attitude, it's an observation. Corporations almost never change their behaviors because of protests and people bitching about them. It's one of the least effective ways of implementing change, especially when said company holds a locked in/monopoly position. The thing is the end consumer is mostly hidden from the problems of Apples over charging, it deeply affects…

>Corporations almost never change their behaviors because of protests and people bitching about them.

Yes, because protests almost never reach critical mass when talking on the scale of a billionaire conglomerate.

The 3% rule is at effect here. if Apple made 200 billion last quarter (I don't know the exact numbers), we'd need at least 6 billion dollars worth of damage to make them listen, and make it clear it's because of this.

Even if the average IOS spender spent 1000/month (averaging in some super whales), we'd need 6 million users to stop spending for this to start having an effect. Can we get 6 million users to do that? I don't think so, but I'd love to be proven wrong.

>The thing is the end consumer is mostly hidden from the problems of Apples over charging, it deeply affects the companies selling services on the Apple platforms.

Yes. But that isn't proof that protests don't work. It's proof that people are ignorant to these situations. Making them aware is the hardest part in all this, and I'm sure corporations know this.

>every other company ends up paying a huge Apple tax because pulling out hand the competitor a huge market.

Companies work too, but we have even less coordination on this. And their incentives match Apple's. Patreon proper does not actually get directly impacted by this unless a bunch of creators pull out.

But the rare chances companies do push back, it works quickly. Just look at the Unity situation a few years back for a modern example.

Re: Apple to soon take up to 30% cut from all Patreon creators in iOS app

#159
With only two mobile OS providers, they should be highly regulated. But given Tim Cook gave Trump a golden award and attended the premiere of the Melania documentary, I doubt they’ll get any antitrust trouble. Disappointing rent seeking behavior.

Re: Apple to soon take up to 30% cut from all Patreon creators in iOS app

#160
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tremendously, villainy evil of getting money for a service.

So - the devs all need to get licesnses and specific hardware to develop for IOS - They spin up their own servers to manage all the finances coming in - They work on their payment processing solution separate from Apple. And Patreon still pays some fee to apple over the app. - the model of Patreon only takes 5% off of creators, so that's not enough for Apple. It also wants a cut at the customers of the website who pr…

I see you don't have much interaction with landlords and their thought processes.
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