Live data from Hacker News

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

news.patreon.com

221–230 of 1001 posts

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

#221
post #167

The world where Apple is just completely fine with Apple users paying $13 instead of $10 for a subscription if they do it through an app is an interesting one. Obviously this makes a lot of money for them but when you think about it they must think very little of their customers treating them with disrespect like this. This is how 'Tim Cook's Apple' should be remembered.

From Apple's perspective they say they are helping their customers with things like making subscriptions easy to cancel and Apple thinks that's genuinely worth 30%. The fact that Apple doesn't want their customers to know they are paying more is an interesting wrinkle though.

That's funny, I actually hate Apple's subscriptions because they are a pain to cancel. My wife has an iphone, she travels regularly to different countries for work. Because apps on apple store regularly have country restrictions (apps are not available in different countries), she has multiple apple accounts to deal with that.

Now this is also a problem with Android (and it's the fault of the app developers), but Android make switching to a different account easy. Apple, doesn't. So, when you have 3-4 apple accounts and want to cancel subscriptions, it's a pita since you need to logout and login to whichever account has the subscription.

Now, you might think that's not a typical use case, but I can assure you that in South East Asia, a lot of iphone users have multiple accounts. One recurring thing about Apple products is that they are designed by people who are not internationally minded (see for example the fact that you can't change the currency when using apple pay in a website and recalculate the totals without stopping the entire flow, or the fact that dual sim in iphones is an after thought and badly designed)

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

#222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the app give any benefit over the web? Asking customers to use the browser over the dedicated app doesn’t seem unreasonable.

Does apple allow that? I think there are rules about telling people not to use IOS method. Not sure if that would extend to content displayed in the app too from creators?

Sure Apple allows it. However it is much easier to have a good UI experience with a custom app than a web app. Some people also think they must have an app for everything and so even if there is a good web experience they will demand the app anyway.

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

#224

The world where Apple is just completely fine with Apple users paying $13 instead of $10 for a subscription if they do it through an app is an interesting one. Obviously this makes a lot of money for them but when you think about it they must think very little of their customers treating them with disrespect like this. This is how 'Tim Cook's Apple' should be remembered.

Apple users (I'm not one of them) seem fine with that arrangement.

In a survey of my non-technical friends, only a very small minority seemed to know that Apple took any cut whatsoever.

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

#225
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Patreon also stands to gain from this change. Come think of it, the new arrangement is a win for everyone involved - except the actual patrons ofcourse.

How can they gain after losing 30% to Apple?

Patreon doesn't lose anything to Apple - they give creators on Patreon a choice - charge Apple users more to cover the 30%, or eat the loss. I don't know what Patreon's take is, they are going to take the same either way. However they know their customers and users will lose from this and it is good for them to look out for their customers (it doesn't costs them much)

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

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they tried that, Apple will just remove the app from the App Store.

Yes. If you have a link to a site that has the ability or even another link to another place where you can buy something, Apple will block publishing of your app. They pulled this on us earlier this year after three years of publishing with no problems. All we had was a link to our support site, which had a link to our main site (where you could buy a subscription), the latter we had to remove or they refused. In fac…

It's still comical to me that Google lost their anti trust suit while Apple does blatant offenses with their 30% fee.

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

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the platform you should switch to here is Android. This is Apple's fault, Patreon doesn't seem like it likes the changes any more than you do.

Google forces apps on the Play Store to use Google's payment methods and give them a 15% to 30% cut of revenue, as well. You can sideload, but the duopoly exists and they're shaking 99.9% of users down for every dime they can get out of them.

True, but Android at least allows alternative app stores, and there are a few. Obviously it's not as easy as the native store, but if enough developers are dissatisfied, there is a way out.

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

#230

I like being able to cancel subscriptions from the App Store, it’s a huge advantage because companies will usually try to make it difficult to cancel.

While I agree that the peace of mind for subscribing through a service like Apple or Google is nice (or any other service that you know will be easy ahead of time), Patreon's model is the same. It's really easy to subscribe and unsubscribe from individual creators. There's no benefit to the user from adding Apple into the mix.
Post reply on HN