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

macrumors.com

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

#511

Post by NewsaHackO »

gabaix wrote: post #453
NewsaHackO wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what are they even doing for regulators to have to step in? Making profits from someone selling their product in your market seems pretty valid to me. Are you saying this is anticompetitive to other possible app store storefronts like Google Play or something?

They are not allowing other marketplaces, or creators themselves, to run apps on Apple devices directly.

Why should they have to allow third parties to run apps on their platform? The fact that it is a clear security risk already gives them justification, but even looking past that, Apple is not the only platform that bars users from running third-party software or marketplaces on their products. For example, playstation, xbox, and switch all disallow running unauthorized games on their platforms. What makes Apple different?

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

#512

Post by bluescrn »

Gabrys1 wrote: post #361
plufz wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what about my banking app! I think it’s only fair Apple take 30% on every transaction I make. After all they put in a huge amount of work validating and making sure my banking app is safe and functional. Edit: Maybe I am greedy now, but it would be nice if large transactions like say buying a house only would cost me a 15% transaction fee to Apple.

Visa/Mastercard take like 1 or 2%. That's why they cannot compare to Apple...

If they tried to take significantly more, cash would be a lot more popular.

Yet Apple can get away with taking 30% and companies still accept this and push their apps rather than websites.

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

#513

Post by lelanthran »

happymellon wrote: post #483
lelanthran wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The relevant market here is the creators not the consumers. As a creator you have no choice but to accept whatever fees Apple, Google, Steam etc set. Or whatever rates Spotify pays you per stream. The fact you "could" host your own website is irrelevant when the reality is nobody will visit it. Collective action by the creators would help. All they have to do is dual-host (a fairly trivial matter, compared to organ…

> specify in their content that the competing platform charges lower fees. Apple will ban you for this.

> Apple will ban you for this.

How? I thought it was a Patreon thing - the "competing platform" would be competing with the Patreon app.

I'm not familiar with Patreon, but I thought the way it worked was that you could tip content creators via the Patreon app. I'm pretty certain that Apple cannot tell Patreon (a third party) that they are only allowed to offer exclusive content.

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

#515

Post by seanhunter »

podgorniy wrote: post #387
seanhunter wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I genuinely don’t know, which is why I asked. Even on mobile I only ever use the website and can see literally no benefit whatsoever to there being an app.

TLDR: user reach and convenience (or avoidance of the inconvenience artificially created by the app store companies to ensure own monopoly). App stores are another source of distribution of the platform. Apps create another engagement channel. Apps are another way to reach more people and keep them "hooked" longer (push notifications, tighter integration with the system). Poor performance of the website-only apps is…

Thanks for taking the time to write this. I can totally see how my original message may have come across as snarky but it was honestly not intended as such. I sometimes feel like I don't understand my fellow humans at all and this is one of those times. I can see why patreon benefits from users using their app, but as an occasional user of patreon, as I say I am baffled that it's the sort of thing users will install an app for. It honestly never occurred to me to do so and as I say I use the website.

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

#516

Post by londons_explore »

rubyfan wrote: post #472
saimiam wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a user almost exclusively uses the Patreon ios app to consume the artist’s content and likes to live inside the ios ecosystem for frictionless payments using the card on file/privacy/UX/whatever, then I feel apple should get to set the terms of engagement. If you were a chain store in a high end mall where customers cars were all parked for free by valets, mall staff knew their names, and generally made them feel…

I don’t think anyone suggests Apple should get nothing for their app store services, just that it shouldn’t be 30% of every transaction processed through every iOS app.

The EU has the right approach. Don't try to legislate exactly what is a fair/unfair amount of profit to make - change the rules of the game by requiring third party marketplaces and payment platforms so apple has to lower rates or lose every app into a third party store.

Apple can easily say "Use our store exclusively and you get our security/privacy guarantees. Go outside our store and you're in the wild west". App developers can then decide how much fee they are willing to pay for access to the user base who refuse to venture into the wild west. Other stores might try to persuade users that they are more secure and more private too via stricter review policies or more locked down permissions etc.

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

#517

Post by jacquesm »

conartist6 wrote: post #452

Take from the poorest to give to the richest of the rich -- that is the new way of doing business. I feel like I've just watched a man in a $4000 suit wresting the change jar out of the hands of a homeless person

Took his mobile phone and shoes too!

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

#519

Post by TheDong »

saimiam wrote: post #455
rob74 wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say that in the case of Patreon, any fee for Apple is unjustified. Apple can justify their fee on app purchases/subscriptions in the app store, but Patreon is not an app subscription, the money goes mostly from the patrons to the people they support. Ok, Patreon takes a cut to cover their operating costs, and also make a profit (not sure how profitable they are currently), but I really can't see how Apple, who do…

If a user almost exclusively uses the Patreon ios app to consume the artist’s content and likes to live inside the ios ecosystem for frictionless payments using the card on file/privacy/UX/whatever, then I feel apple should get to set the terms of engagement. If you were a chain store in a high end mall where customers cars were all parked for free by valets, mall staff knew their names, and generally made them feel…

Presumably you also would agree that it's fair if Chrome, Windows, and Lenovo all charged me 30% each for using Patreon via Chrome+Windows on a thinkpad, right?

They're doing about as much to facilitate my use of Patreon as Apple is.

This isn't like a mall at all. This is like a web browser, where apps are webpages, and Apple is insisting that the contents of that webpage are something they can dictate all payment terms on.

For the airport analogy to work, it would have to be that you go to the Airport, go into the electronics store, buy a Kindle, and then the Airport insists it can take 30% not just on the purchase of the kindle, but 30% on every single book you buy on the kindle forever.

Apple taking a cut on the purchase price of an app that a user found via the app store does make some sense. Apple taking a cut of an in-app interaction with a creator that the user almost certainly found elsewhere is nonsense.

What next, should apple take a 30% cut of my rent because I found my apartment on the Craigslist app? Should they take a 30% of my train ticket that I purchased using the Safari app? Why does Patreon have to add a 30% cut on in-app content, when Safari lets me pay for in-app content with my credit card without taking any cut?

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

#520

Post by layer8 »

pjmlp wrote: post #310
jinzo wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm running a small service, sub 150 users, no online signup kind of business, B2B. Small EU country. 95% of users ask 'do you have an mobile app?' in first 5 minutes of onboarding. Telling them how to install a PWA (and what it is and so forth) is an uphill battle. Unfortunately App Stores rule the non technical crowd.

Why do they need to install a PWA? We do mobile friendly Web UIs, that is enough. Their customes, employees, go to the respective company website, get a responsive UI for their device, done, the services require to be online anyway.

Notifications.
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