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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

#51

Post by mdoms »

CubsFan1060 wrote: post #20
mdoms wrote: post #5

This will keep happening as long as people keep agreeing to Apple's terms and building on their platform. I wouldn't touch Apple's platform with a 10 foot pole. Nothing here is new. It's getting harder to sympathise with developers who keep doing it.

I'll give you the counterpoint. I'm very happy to spend money on apps and services that I like. However, I'm only going to do it through Apple's platform, for a variety of reasons. If you don't want to build on Apple's platform, that's completely fine. I won't be a customer. And maybe that will change the system, I really don't know.

I'm not saying Apple isn't adding end-user value. I can easily imagine a payment screen in an app that looks like,

* Pay with Apple Pay ($13.00)

* Pay with Stripe ($10.50)

If their value-add is as strong as you say then surely they'd still make plenty of money. If not, well maybe they need to start adding more value or dropping their prices, just like anyone in a competitive market.

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

#52

Post by jonny_eh »

josephorjoe wrote: post #43
capybara_2020 wrote: post #35

Just curious, if Apple is so bad, why do people build apps for it? Browsers are very robust now a days. I have never built a iPhone or Android app, never needed to. Browsers now a days I imagine can get you atleast 90% of the way. Why go to Apple if you can build a webapp. And it is cross platform so you do not have to maintain a separate Android app. What am I missing?

The web never implemented easy micropayments, and iPhone/Android did.

Actually, Apple Pay works great on the web, but doesn't charge a 30% fee.

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

#53

Post by vbezhenar »

distribot wrote: post #28
hellisothers wrote: post #12

Seems pretty disingenuous given they had to have known this would happen (note that OnlyFans has no app)

OnlyFans wouldn't be allowed in the App Store since it is essentially pornography. I am curious if they would given the chance, but they can't

Reddit allows pornography in the app if you've chosen NSFW setting. How OnlyFans is different?

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

#54

Post by patagonia »

How is Apple different than Amazon? Humans are bad at things we can’t touch.

Imagine all physical goods shops had to be listed through a “Microsoft shop store” if you’re using the Edge browser. You can’t. Because that’d be dumb.

But hey Apple made the phone and we sign away our soul and first born when it comes to software. So it follows Apple can keep all, all, every, globally, software vendor or creator or hobbyist from putting an app on “their” phone unless it goes through Apple.

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

#55

Post by jeroenhd »

alexyz12 wrote: post #38
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #25

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.

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…

I don't know about iOS, but the file picker on Android is fine. Live streaming through Javascript is also no harder than live streaming through native libraries. Granted, there may be less "official" SDKs out there because the web is an open ecosystem, but still.

Jitsi and Kickstarter have quite competent streaming systems. I remember being amazed by the incredibly low latency the Kickstarter streaming system has (always sub 100ms between camera and my screen across the Atlantic with good quality!).

An app for uploading images and videos, writing text posts, receiving payment and streaming video doesn't need a native app. If there is a choice between giving an absurd percentage to Apple or building a web version, the web version makes a lot more sense.

However, even if they build out a web version right now, Apple will refuse any update pointing users towards the web version of any app because that goes against their TOS. That will make any switch quite difficult.

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

#56

Post by cromwellian »

distribot wrote: post #31
WWLink wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think none. Apple is clearly nickel and diming their own customers at this point. Now you're not only paying Apple for your iPhone, and Apple services, but you're also stuck paying them extra every time you buy a service from your iPhone. It's stupid and greedy. Like where do we draw the line?

I think the current system is too much in Apple's favor, but I imagine they do have to spend a decent chunk of change curating the app store, validating submissions, hosting the apps for download, and maintaining the security infrastructure for developers to sign their apps and users to have confidence in them. This is all value added for developers.

The emails from the testimony indicate they wanted only a $1 billion run rate. They have a $4+ billion run rate. Do we really think it costs them $1-4 billion to run the apps store? I'd be shocked it cost even $100 million a year to run it.

The excuse that the 30% cut exists to pay for the costs of running the store seem absurd.

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

#57

Post by stalfosknight »

hellisothers wrote: post #12

Seems pretty disingenuous given they had to have known this would happen (note that OnlyFans has no app)

This is exactly what I'm thinking.

I'm kind of exasperated with all of these apps / developers who know what they're getting into when they create developer accounts with Apple, go through all of the hard work and expense of developing apps for the App Store only to whine and tweet histrionics about how they don't like the rules after the fact.

If you want total freedom to do whatever the hell you want, there's a platform for that called Android or Windows.

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

#58

Post by protomyth »

syntaxing wrote: post #2

Seriously curious, what percentage is “fair”? Or is the issue you can’t side load this app without going through the App Store?

This whole notion that Apple, by virtue of creating a platform, needs to cash in on every use of the platform really needs to go. Even IBM in the mainframe era knew not to charge transaction fees on what runs on the platform. The reason you create great APIs is to get developers to support your platform is so people will buy your platform. Without app developers, Apple is only what it can provide and probably not as popular. Those court released e-mails are going to keep showing people how wrong Apple's thinking is.

If Apple is the payment processor than so be it, but if they have nothing to do with the transaction, they deserve no money. Even saying that its an app in the App Store is lame because there is no other way to get apps on the platform. Even free apps help Apple to sell their wares.

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

#59

Post by jeroenhd »

JamesSwift wrote: post #26
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #25

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.

Usually for proper push messaging and background processing

Those have been part of the web standards for ages (serviceworkers, web notifications).

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

#60

Post by Aerroon »

WWLink wrote: post #11
syntaxing wrote: post #2

Seriously curious, what percentage is “fair”? Or is the issue you can’t side load this app without going through the App Store?

I think none. Apple is clearly nickel and diming their own customers at this point. Now you're not only paying Apple for your iPhone, and Apple services, but you're also stuck paying them extra every time you buy a service from your iPhone. It's stupid and greedy. Like where do we draw the line?

If a grocery store allows you to order groceries online, but they make it into an app instead of a website, will Apple take a 30% cut on the groceries too?
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