Man that should not be allowed. 30% (pre-tax) loss, plus taxes, plus platform cost. Thats insane
Apple to soon take up to 30% cut from all Patreon creators in iOS app
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Re: Apple to soon take up to 30% cut from all Patreon creators in iOS app
#632Re: Apple to soon take up to 30% cut from all Patreon creators in iOS app
#633Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could make the argument that Patreon isn't much more than a banking app. It just focuses on the receiver of the money than the sender. I think Apple is slowly killing apps with this policy. Everybody will slowly move to "web only" as 30% would kill their ability to compete with anybody else. This will likely be much stronger in countries where iPhones do not have the same market share as in the US.
> Everybody will slowly move to "web only" as 30% would kill their ability to compete with anybody else. Frankly, yes, please. I mean, I'm biased as my whole career is in web app development, but there are so many things these days that do not need a whole native app . They're just communicating with a server backend somewhere, using none of the unique native functionality of the phone (much of which is available in…
> I think they're very overused
I disagree, native apps on iOS have important abilities that no web application can match. The inability to control cache long-term is alone a dealbreaker if trying to create an experience with minimal friction.
Re: Apple to soon take up to 30% cut from all Patreon creators in iOS app
#634There's a kind of dissonance here that Patreon should be allowed to take a cut, being a platform on which creators can earn money - but Apple should not be allowed to take a cut, being a platform on which companies can operate their business.
There's "a cut" and then there's 30%. Pretending Patreon's cut is morally or even objectively equivalent to Apple's is a little bit of a stretch.
I agree that 30% is high but the arguments I see online are generally in favor of a cut to 0%, not a reduction. If you get into the weeds of what the cut should be then it gets messy, who gets to decide? How do you determine what is actually fair for all parties?
I would argue Patreon is far more parasitic than Apple in this case, they're shaving off 10% for a pretty simple service.
Re: Apple to soon take up to 30% cut from all Patreon creators in iOS app
#635Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is that Apple owns the platform and half of the mobile ecosystem. You can't just launch a competitive marketplace which could compete alongside Apple's app store, nor can you launch an alternative operating system. You have to launch a whole new smartphone stack complete with operating system, app distribution and app ecosystem.
Or not use apple.
This. Doing business with almost any major company is unethical, but Apple sits near the top of the big tech companies people shouldn't do business with. They are not a force for good in the world.
Re: Apple to soon take up to 30% cut from all Patreon creators in iOS app
#636Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Discussion here started on whether users check apps more often than websites and whether Patreon is the kind of platform that one might want to check often for new content.
I'm not sure how has the goalpost here moved to app-exclusivity, I understood exclusive here to mean "exclusive to Patreon" as opposed to supporting a creator that posts everything for free somewhere else, which is the use case that made that one user assume one doesn't check on Patreon often.
Also, mobile browsers easily cut out background audio so the website is nearly useless on a phone for audio posts compared to the app, as much as I'd prefer it.
Re: Apple to soon take up to 30% cut from all Patreon creators in iOS app
#637Earlier 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...
Visa/MasterCard take like 0.3% the rest of the interchange fee goes to the issuing and acquiring banks.
Re: Apple to soon take up to 30% cut from all Patreon creators in iOS app
#638There's a kind of dissonance here that Patreon should be allowed to take a cut, being a platform on which creators can earn money - but Apple should not be allowed to take a cut, being a platform on which companies can operate their business.
Apple has already been compensated in the form of $1,000-$1,500 for the phone.
Re: Apple to soon take up to 30% cut from all Patreon creators in iOS app
#639Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's "a cut" and then there's 30%. Pretending Patreon's cut is morally or even objectively equivalent to Apple's is a little bit of a stretch.
I agree that 30% is high but the arguments I see online are generally in favor of a cut to 0%, not a reduction. If you get into the weeds of what the cut should be then it gets messy, who gets to decide? How do you determine what is actually fair for all parties? I would argue Patreon is far more parasitic than Apple in this case, they're shaving off 10% for a pretty simple service.
Payment processors are generally really wary of services like Patreon. Cohost tried to set one up and was unable to find someone willing to stick by a commitment to process payments for an equivalent service.
I think it's reasonable to say Patreon shouldn't take 10%, but you can't ring up Visa and get a regular 2-3% rate from them for something like Patreon, most likely, due to things like brand risk, chargeback rates, etc.
Then there's all the administrative overhead involved in disbursing payments to creators from all sorts of different legal jurisdictions and reporting information to the right government agencies. I can easily imagine the operating costs of Patreon being something like 7-8% of the money they handle.
I haven't seen anyone in this particular thread calling for Apple's cut to be 0%. I do think they could afford that, but a common refrain is that Epic's rate of 12% would be sustainable, and I agree with that. It's also the case that Apple moved to a gradual rate system where low-income developers only pay 15%, which kind of proves that they don't actually need 30%, they just want 30%.
Re: Apple to soon take up to 30% cut from all Patreon creators in iOS app
#640Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Everybody will slowly move to "web only" as 30% would kill their ability to compete with anybody else. Frankly, yes, please. I mean, I'm biased as my whole career is in web app development, but there are so many things these days that do not need a whole native app . They're just communicating with a server backend somewhere, using none of the unique native functionality of the phone (much of which is available in…
> I think they're very overused I disagree, native apps on iOS have important abilities that no web application can match. The inability to control cache long-term is alone a dealbreaker if trying to create an experience with minimal friction.
Those same elevated controls are used to steal PII and sell to data brokers. Again, it's the companies that are trying to force apps on their users. If it were genuinely a much better UX, they wouldn't have to do that.