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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

#571

Post by Izkata »

debugnik wrote: post #336
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, fair enough — I've only known Patreon the 'open' way before. So the Patreon app is actually an exclusive publisher of some content? Do they actually market that feature?

Nearly every Patreon creator I know of has subscription tiers with exclusive content. Posts can require a minimum tier to view them, creator pages list the tiers you can join, and your feed teases you posts you could access if you joined the right tier from creators you follow.

But not exclusive to the app, as far as I know it's just another interface to that same exclusive content available through the website.

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

#572

Post by freedomben »

newsclues wrote: post #398
Wazako wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is absurd is finding yourself paying 30% on every digital item purchased on a smartphone app. It would never even occur to us that Microsoft takes a 30% margin on Steam, yet that is what happens on webtoon apps.

Remember when software was sold in a box with a paper manual in a store? Before App Store and steam, retailers and publishers of games and software also took their share of the revenue from the work software developers created. Their cut wasn’t small. If the government stepped in to regulate the sales of software (to protect developers and consumers?) do you think: A) apps will cost less B) the government won’t want…

Yeah but there was a big difference: As a developer you could opt out of that distribution and go your own way. I knew people who sold floppies out of their garage. IBM or whoever made your hardware, and Microsoft or whoever made your OS, could not prevent your users from installing your software on their machine.

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

#573

Post by spacebanana7 »

willtemperley wrote: post #467
spacebanana7 wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every software company can do this. Oracle Java is free for personal use but if you use it in prod you have to pay a licence based on the number of employees in your company. Epic games takes 5% of your revenue above a million if you use unreal for a game. Docker desktop requires a paid license if you have over 250 employees or $10 million in revenue.

Let's continue with the reductio ad absurdum - a taxi driver uses their iPhone to navigate. Can Apple take 30% of their revenue?

Absolutely, if the taxi driver signs a contract / agrees to terms of service. What law prohibits them from charging that? This is why open source is so important.

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

#575

Post by vlod »

jeroenhd wrote: post #241
brianwawok wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like try to break the internet and the java programming language? The former being most successful for years

IE was not just used to break the internet. It also had advantages. It supported features other browsers didn't. Without IE, we wouldn't have had XMLHttpRequest, which means we wouldn't have had Gmail, which means we wouldn't have seen the bloom of "web 2.0" websites. As for Java, Microsoft's C# is way ahead of Java in terms of language features. No idea how the runtime performance compares these days (both are very…

>IE was not just used to break the internet.

It still did. Did you ever have to write specific code for ie6?

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

#576

Post by Teever »

gyulai wrote: post #508
Teever wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve been thinking for a while now that a really effective way to deal with problem companies would be coordinate a mass action on small claims closets around the world all on the same day. Often in small claims court you win by default if the other person doesn’t show up and I’m sure judges know average will sympathize with the kinds of arguments that you raised above.

I don't know. We don't have any such thing as small claims court in Germany, but my expectation would be that judges in low-level courts will try their very best not to get noticed for setting any kind of precedent whatsoever. The only thing that's going to happen if you rule against Apple in a low-level court is that they will go into revision, and carrying a high probability that the higher-level judge will overtur…

The idea isn't just to use small claims courts, but to use whatever first level legal venue to seek redress you can find in your area. That might mean small claims courts, or consumer protection bureaus, or binding arbitration. Whatever it is the idea is to coordinate with others to do so in a way that strains the resources of the organization you're fighting against and is in venues that are sympathetic to consumers and are able to make clear judgements with little chance for the opposing side to appeal.

The goal of this isn't to annoy someone, the goal is to seek compensation for their unacceptable behavior and raise awareness of it so that others may do so as well.

With the mindboggling assymetry in resources between a single individual and an entity like Apple or Google it only makes sense for people to team up and coordinate against them.

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

#577

Post by iamnothere »

lelanthran wrote: post #513
happymellon wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Apple doesn’t allow you to mention that you have alternate payment channels on other platforms. Can’t even allude to it.

To me this is the thing that should be outlawed. Let people pay the Apple tax if they want, but don’t prevent people from making other arrangements. Most people are lazy and will pay the tax, if it isn’t excessive.

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

#578

Post by g947o »

pjc50 wrote: post #373
pavlov wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They must be looking at the revenue Claude Code is making on Mac and thinking “Why aren’t we getting 30% of that?” Wouldn’t be surprised if macOS starts locking down CLI tools towards an App Store model too.

Presumably if you buy an AI subscription through an iOS app you also have to pay 30% Apple tax. Nice work for them.

It does work like that.

For me personally, I have used this method to spend my Apple gift cards purchased on a discount. Effectively I got a Claude subscription at 15% off. (You could argue this only works because OpenAI/Anthropic charge the same price across web/mobile, and I agree.)

So, as much as I despise Apple's business model, in some sense I have directly benefitted from it (other than stock price).

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

#580

Post by kkukshtel »

supernes wrote: post #210

How long until they make the argument that they're entitled to 30% of your salary because you use Apple hardware to do your work?

Stuff like this is ironic but I do think it's escape hatches like this that will make these tech companies, if they ever go down, go down kicking and screaming. Any platform holder that ever finds themselves in a bad place financially will 100% pull all the levers like this.
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