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Apple is threatening to remove Fanhouse unless they give 30% of creator earning

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Re: Apple is threatening to remove Fanhouse unless they give 30% of creator earning

#161
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't force Netflix to pay them 30% either. The reality is they take 30% where they can overpower the other party. Where they are overpowered, they acquiesce.

This is because Netflix, knowing Apple would take 30%, does not allow you to sign up via an iPhone app. Apple takes 30% if you sign up via iPhone, not if you sign up via web and then use the iPhone app.

Netflix was able to do this because Apple carved out an exception for them by gerrymandering the rules so Netflix could do this. They did that because Netflix was powerful enough. Hey tried to do a similar thing, but Apple was having none of it. They were going to force them to pay them 30%, because they were not powerful enough. When the social media storm made them more powerful, Apple acquiesced.

Re: Apple is threatening to remove Fanhouse unless they give 30% of creator earning

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to do photo/video/media integration on a web page. There no good way to interact with the filesystem to share content, start a livestream, etc. UIKit also make it pretty easy to create layouts that work well on your phone with swiping gestures. I am an app developer that would love to move to a mobile web app but those are the problems that I am running into at least. If web assembly can accomplish all of t…

Your service not having access to my data is a feature. It's one of the primary reasons I prefer websites over apps.

what if the service is a way to manage your data? In my case its a photo library alternative for fitness photos/videos. Take a picture of your handstand every month and store it locally in the app documents folder or on PhotoKit so that you can see improvements over time (nothing is stored in the cloud). I don't know of a way to do that on a mobile website.

Re: Apple is threatening to remove Fanhouse unless they give 30% of creator earning

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They control computing for 50% of Americans. Not games, not movies. All computing. And all of the commerce around that computing. You have to pay their tax to interact with Apple customers in any way. Who are Apple customers? 50% of Americans. It's a protection racket and it's anticompetitive af. Furthermore, you can't use your own software stack / runtimes, have to dance to arbitrary rules, and can't deploy or updat…

>Apple got this by building an awesome product, but they also played an incredibly evil game that puts Microsoft to shame. It really is funny how we went from a major anti trust case against Microsoft for simply bundling a web browser with their OS [1]. The original decision in that case was actually to break up Microsoft, though was lost on appeal. And here we have Apple doing many magnitudes worse. Even in this ori…

Apple fans are doing evil. They just don't realize it. They're too awestruck by the brand to understand the harm it does.

Talk to your legislators. That is the way to fix this tribulation.

Re: Apple is threatening to remove Fanhouse unless they give 30% of creator earning

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They control computing for 50% of Americans. Not games, not movies. All computing. And all of the commerce around that computing. You have to pay their tax to interact with Apple customers in any way. Who are Apple customers? 50% of Americans. It's a protection racket and it's anticompetitive af. Furthermore, you can't use your own software stack / runtimes, have to dance to arbitrary rules, and can't deploy or updat…

>Apple got this by building an awesome product, but they also played an incredibly evil game that puts Microsoft to shame. It really is funny how we went from a major anti trust case against Microsoft for simply bundling a web browser with their OS [1]. The original decision in that case was actually to break up Microsoft, though was lost on appeal. And here we have Apple doing many magnitudes worse. Even in this ori…

> and that Microsoft had taken actions to crush threats to that monopoly, including Apple, Java, Netscape, Lotus Software, RealNetworks, Linux, and others

More than "simply bundling a web browser".

Re: Apple is threatening to remove Fanhouse unless they give 30% of creator earning

#165

Serious question, why does everything require an app? Why can't the same thing be accomplished via the mobile web? I get so tired of being prompted to install apps when you could just *show me the damned web page*. Anything that requires speed can be done via webassembly, and sure, anything like games can ship a native app.

Because Apple is intentionally limiting the mobile web to force your hand to create an app.

I've been working on hardware that we've been trying to ship using open technology for the protocols so it doesn't need apps. So focusing on things like WebBT and WebUSB which is almost magic, a user can unbox your device go to a website and then do anything you'd possibly want with. But yeah all falls apart the second it needs to work on an iPhone and you're back in the world of having to build an app.

Whole thing works flawlessly with just a webdev team on computers and android devices but because of Apple to ship this vision we need to build a solitary iOS app too.

I say this as an iPhone user too, unfortunately I feel too locked into their platform to leave now.

Re: Apple is threatening to remove Fanhouse unless they give 30% of creator earning

#166
How does Fanhouse work?

> We pay creators 90% of earnings. Now, Apple is threatening to remove Fanhouse from the app store unless we give them 30% of creator earnings.

Apple doesn't know anything about how much Fanhouse gives to creators. They just want their 30% (15% up to a million) for digital content transactions made within the app.

If someone pays $10 in the Fanhouse app then Apple is going to ask for $3 (or $1.50 if they haven't made $1 million so far this year or last year).

I understand that Fanhouse wants to give $9 of those dollars to the creator. They can, but they still owe their fee to Apple. Unfortunately that ends up being more money than the whole transaction so the economics just don't work.

What amount is fair for Apple to charge for payment processing and the infrastructure to actually make the purchases?

Re: Apple is threatening to remove Fanhouse unless they give 30% of creator earning

#167

The antitrust case against Apple is so overdue it's embarrassing. What I don't get is people who defend it. Imagine Microsoft taking 30% of every purchase you make online because you used their OS to get there. Then would the defenders admit it's an obvious abuse of a monopoly? What makes it different for Apple?

It’s more like having a shop in a mall.

Apple doesn’t take 30% of anything using their phones. They take 30% of anything installed and bought using their walled garden/app store/api/etc. Similar to Windows store, Xbox, ps, steam, etc etc.

I used to be annoyed at Nintendo and Sega requiring their cut, but got used to it.

What makes it different is that Apple isn’t a monopoly. You can use Android or PCs or whatever.

If we want this to change, we probably need some version of right to repair that forces “right to sideload.”

Re: Apple is threatening to remove Fanhouse unless they give 30% of creator earning

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Well for that comparison to work, we'd also have to assume Microsoft disabled installing unsigned software as well. Look no further than Xbox Store and how well you can run unsigned code on it. Sure, you can buy a physical game copy, but there are two issues with that: 1. Diskless versions of consoles are becoming more commonplace, thus removing that option. 2. If you buy retail, it is still a cut to Microsoft, just…

> And before someone says "well, this is a gaming console, not a phone/computing device", I will say that it has apps (youtube/streaming services/etc.), it has a web browser, and plenty other functionality not related to games. How much is the cut for those functionalities for MS?

You are welcome to look at the leaked documents[0], and they have a nice table showing cuts for all kinds of transactions on Microsoft Store.

Looks like currently it is 30% for games, 15% for apps and app subscriptions, and they were exploring reducing the game-related cuts down to 12%. Microsoft spokesperson's reply to those leaked documents was "we have no plans to change the revenue share for console games at this time".

Though I am not sure how much the 15% (microsoft cut for app-related purchases) vs. 30% (apple's cut, or 15% if the devs haven't made over $1 million in revenue this year or the year before) difference matters here, because I am struggling to figure out how the 15% vs. 30% difference makes one a monopoly. If that's the argument, then what's the magic number threshold that makes you a monopoly after you cross it? And how does Apple's reduced cut of 15% for devs with under $1mil in revenue play into that?

0. https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/2/22415712/microsoft-xbox-st...

Re: Apple is threatening to remove Fanhouse unless they give 30% of creator earning

#169
post #50

Serious question, why does everything require an app? Why can't the same thing be accomplished via the mobile web? I get so tired of being prompted to install apps when you could just *show me the damned web page*. Anything that requires speed can be done via webassembly, and sure, anything like games can ship a native app.

I’m wondering if native mobile apps are doomed to disappear as the web and mobile Browsers meet in the middle, the same way everything was a native app for quite some time in desktop land and now everything is a webapp.

If you watch Apple they're doing everything within their power to make sure this doesn't happen.

Current day because they've neglected Macs so much over the past few years your Mac is now mostly just a shell to run a jumble of electron apps (I used to love Mac Cocoa apps but can't even name one that has launched in the past 2 years) but if you follow what they're doing they'd prefer it if it was a selection of iPadOS apps instead.

Re: Apple is threatening to remove Fanhouse unless they give 30% of creator earning

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also drew a line between in app and non in app transactions.

They did not just draw a line; they gerrymandered a line so Netflix would not leave App Store and Apple would not lose its income from smaller players while pretending it is a fair line in the sand. Even Marco Arment has commented on the ridiculousness of the complexity of the line. I highly recommend reading the link below. https://marco.org/2020/09/11/app-review-changes

Oh, I did not know all of that. I would agree those policies are ridiculous.
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