Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.patreon.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

351–360 of 1001 posts

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

#351

Post by derefr »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #327
derefr wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, alright. There's nothing actually stopping you from doing this — it requires two things: 1. either a third-party licensing server (and thus some SSO auth system — but just require Apple's own SSO for it and it'll still be a clean-ish workflow) to share/sync the transaction status from one app to the other; or a local Group Container plus logic in each app to write the transaction statuses fetched for the given ap…

@jayd16 - it’s been a few years since I read the Apple Developer Agreement but at that time downloading code and executing it within your app was forbidden by the agreement. A sensible security safeguard IMO.

iSH does it. Not sure how they get away with it, but the dev is around on here so maybe they can explain.

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

#352

Post by mistercheph »

bluGill wrote: post #242
danShumway wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When was the last time you bought any large item from a physical store that didn't come with advertisements in the packaging for direct services? If you buy a Disney DVD from Walmart, there will be advertisements inside the DVD case for direct services (heck, last time I checked there were ads on the outside of the case). If you buy a Roomba from Walmart, there will be advertisements for direct parts and addons from…

Looks close - those services are typically not the same as what you can get at Walmart. You can get parts, but often the device itself isn't sold (instead they list places you can buy). Or if you can buy direct it is cheaper from Walmart. Walmart is a large enough customer that they won't let you sell it for less (either you don't undercut Walmart, or you will sell zero at Walmart).

Walmart does, in fact, sell devices, and Apple uses their devices to advertise third party services to Walmart customers which compete (e.g. Amazon app)

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

#353

Post by DrBenCarson »

I’m a huge Apple fan in general, but this isn’t right. Feels like a leader is getting ambitious, trying to squeeze revenue in a couple quarters instead of building new stuff that would generate new revenue

Maybe they have data suggesting people were using Patreon as an easy way around in-app payments?

Can’t imagine this generates enough revenue to offset the long-term reputation cost among creators (what I would imagine is disproportionately an Apple user base)

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

#354

Post by pwdiscflatmajor »

saratogacx wrote: post #277
derefr wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They still don't support upgrades/upgrade pricing. What would this mean, exactly? You can sell people a demo→full-version permanent unlock as a one-time purchase, same as you can sell DLC in a game. And you can also have subscription tiers, where you get more features out of the higher tiers of subscriptions. And you can, in theory, freely mix these — e.g. charging someone a subscription for the base version, and t…

The model is the "old school" model for software sales. The first version you sell to a user at full price and offer a discount for upgrading (something like 40% off). It lets the customer pick when they feel the value prop is worth the cost and lets you offer a loyalty incentive to the user. Right now the choice is "keep paying for it to keep working" or "fully price for every upgrade".

FL Studio (fka FruityLoops) is an outstanding exponent of this old method (but once, free upgrades for life)

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

#355

Post by kmeisthax »

talldatethrow wrote: post #108
kmeisthax wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The App Store model was specifically implemented and approved by Steve Jobs. There's old internal e-mails from him complaining about Amazon's reader app making it too easy to buy books without paying the (increasingly literal) Apple Tax. In fact, the reason why antitrust lawsuits seem to never stick to Apple is because all the mens rea was stored in the mind of a guy who tried to cure his pancreatic cancer with fruit…

[flagged]

Is this the same guy who sold Jobs on the "mucus-free diet" bullshit that led him to not shower for several years on end?

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

#357

Post by mullingitover »

kmeisthax wrote: post #259
dangus wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to guess that the antitrust lawsuits don't stick because iOS has a 27% global marketshare, and because Apple has a very well-paid legal department. The difference between iOS and a game console in terms of antitrust law is "not a whole lot." The EU has been able to get further with restricting Apple's policies because their laws and courts work a lot differently than the US courts. The EU is all about prese…

Google's legal department is also very well-paid, but they've lost both the Epic lawsuit and the DOJ lawsuit. In some markets (e.g. search) they have dramatically more market share, but 27% of phones is still high enough to have some market power. Antitrust doesn't care about the market share, it cares about actions taken to restrain competition. Government-granted monopolies (e.g. copyright law) have partial antitru…

> Antitrust doesn't care about the market share, it cares about actions taken to restrain competition.

Yes, but "only when it harms both allocative efficiency and raises the prices of goods above competitive levels or diminishes their quality."[1]

[1] https://law.stanford.edu/press/congress-hears-challenges-to-...

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

#359

Post by FredPret »

probably_wrong wrote: post #337
FredPret wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The beauty of capitalism is that you can choose. You don't even have to have a smartphone at all and if you decide to have one, you don't HAVE to have an Apple device. There are countless other brands to pick. If you truly hate the 30% thing, then don't buy an iPhone.

And yet the point of this post is that, thanks to Apple's dominance, all users will lose the "pay per finished production" payment option regardless of whether they use an iPhone or not. The beauty of capitalism is that you can choose the color of your car as long as it's black.

You act as if all the iPhone Patreon donations would've rolled in regardless of the app / app store, but also that Apple is somehow going to kill it. It's logically inconsistent.

1. If Apple plays a key part in getting those donations, then the 30% is not a problem: the content creator is not getting 70c on the dollar; the content creator is getting 70c instead of 0c. Apple gets people to donate that wouldn't otherwise have done it. There's a ton of money flowing through the Apple ecosystem purely because Apple made it a premium experience.

2. If Apple does not play a key part in getting those donations, then the 30% is still not a problem: the content creators / app makers / Patreon can simply switch to some other platform and get the same results.

The beauty of capitalism is that we used to have horses and shoes only, then black cars became an option, and now you can buy any color you like. I guess some people think they appear to be clever, thoughtful, and fair-minded finding an issue with every step forward.

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

#360

Post by xyst »

It’s odd how Apple picks and chooses where to enforce this requirement.

Netflix has been using their own billing system for years, yet I can still download Netflix on iOS, tvOS app stores.

Makes me wonder if there is an under the table deal between Netflix and Apple.

On the topic of Patreon vs Apple. I am not a lawyer but this seems to have the same basis as the Epic Games vs Apple litigation.

Post reply on HN