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

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

macrumors.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

681–690 of 944 posts

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

#681

Post by wbobeirne »

ryukoposting wrote: post #650

If I'm patreon, here's what I'm doing: Jack up every Apple user's monthly payment by 30%. When they go into the app to figure out what the hell happened, they will find big red text saying "want to avoid the Apple tax? re-subscribe through our website! (Link)" They click the link, it opens a webpage where all the payment info has been auto-filled. They click "ok." Bam, fee gone.

Much of what you suggested would not pass apple review, and would get your app removed from the app store if you tried to hide it during review.

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

#682

Post by matt-p »

nabla9 wrote: post #327

Apple’s App Store profits on commissions from digital sales Revenue $32 B Operating Costs $7 B [1] Estimated Profit $25 B Operating Margin ~78% [1] R&D, security, hosting, human review, and including building and maintaining developer tools Xcode, APIs, and SDKs. Apple could take just 7% cut and still make 20% profits. Fun Fact: During the Epic trial, it was revealed that Apple's profit margins on the App Store were…

Let's be honest if this was a European company it would be capped by law at 5-10%. Problem is who has an incentive to do the right thing here? Not apple and certainly not the US government (most of this revenue comes from outside the US).Nobody can defend it, yet nobody wishes to stop it.

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

#683

Post by josephcsible »

silvestrov wrote: post #527
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…

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.

This is why Apple makes PWAs so miserable in Safari and disallows other browsers unless they're just Safari with lipstick.

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

#684

Post by ibejoeb »

blahgeek wrote: post #362
nabla9 wrote: post #327

Apple’s App Store profits on commissions from digital sales Revenue $32 B Operating Costs $7 B [1] Estimated Profit $25 B Operating Margin ~78% [1] R&D, security, hosting, human review, and including building and maintaining developer tools Xcode, APIs, and SDKs. Apple could take just 7% cut and still make 20% profits. Fun Fact: During the Epic trial, it was revealed that Apple's profit margins on the App Store were…

> Apple could take just 7% cut and still make 20% profits. We can say this to any company, "$X could reduce price by $Y and still make $Z profits", but it doesn't really make any sense. Making profits is what makes a company a company instead of a non-profit organization.

Agreed, but this is about to be a special case if it's not already. We're contending with compulsory digital IDs and cashless economies that must be used on authorized devices, and Apple is one of the two makers. While it's certainly not necessary to use Patreon, not having it or something like it is an actual barrier to individual trade. I don't think I can get behind a schema that means Apple can take whatever portion it wants from a transaction initiated on a device that it creates and that is otherwise fairly necessary for day-to-day life in the developed world.

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

#685

Post by fruitworks »

intrasight wrote: post #543
phkahler wrote: post #534

For the price of paying Apple, Patreon should be able to develop a web app instead. Why isn't this happening? Why an app when the web will do?

Yeah, I don't understand this at all. I use Patreon and I support a couple of tech content creators. But my use of Patreon intersect in no way with iOS and I'm not sure how it would. Can someone please explain?

Okay so basicially apple users are dumb as rocks which is why iOS is so profitable in the first place, and they are corraled into installing apps and making in-app purchases.

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

#686

Post by Matl »

browningstreet wrote: post #630
TheDong wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 te…

Chrome, Windows and Lenovo don't have the payment system baked in, with all the consumer protections that come with it. I'm not entirely pro-Apple percentage in this argument, but I think people often dismiss the magical thing that Apple created with the app store and their payment/subscription system. The rest of the world keeps ripping users off, and Apple's walled garden is as protected a thing as it gets. I've go…

> Chrome, Windows and Lenovo don't have the payment system baked in, with all the consumer protections that come with it.

Chrome definitely does, at least to a degree.

But you have the option to not use it, because guess what? You're supposed to own the device.

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

#687

Post by josephcsible »

yeezyszn wrote: post #673

I’m surprised at the comments here. Why should the government set the “right” margin? If you cap the margin, you’re entrenching the monopoly forever. Allow them to charge what they want, and set tax rates on corporations commensurate with the size of their profits. Make it easier for competitors to start. The path to a sustainable marketplace does not come from top down enforcement of margins. It comes from competiti…

> Why should the government set the “right” margin?

For monopolies, that is the least bad option. What would be way better, though, is mandating an end to that monopoly by allowing all users to install any apps they want on their iPhones without needing Apple's permission in any way, shape, or form.

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

#688

Post by boh144 »

yeezyszn wrote: post #673

I’m surprised at the comments here. Why should the government set the “right” margin? If you cap the margin, you’re entrenching the monopoly forever. Allow them to charge what they want, and set tax rates on corporations commensurate with the size of their profits. Make it easier for competitors to start. The path to a sustainable marketplace does not come from top down enforcement of margins. It comes from competiti…

And competition comes from creating a competitive market. Rent seeking behaviour is not new. This is monopolistic behaviour that should be regulated. I agree that capping fees is not solving the crux of the problem though.

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

#689

Post by trimbo »

davidmurdoch wrote: post #544

Sometimes I think the 30% was supposed to be 3% originally, and no one noticed the decimal was in the wrong place when they shipped it, and then people paid it anyway, so they kept it. 30% is just so unreasonable that it would be totally understandable if someone would believe this.

In 2008, the app store was launching, and physical software was still sold at Targets, Walmarts and other large retailers. A 30% margin was roughly what retailers would make off of physical software sales. By setting the App Store to be the same, Apple was signaling to retailers that they were not trying to undercut their margin, and keep a healthy relationship with them.

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

#690

Post by Matl »

Zak wrote: post #671
hshdhdhj4444 wrote: post #473

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. When I paid over $1000 to buy an iPhone I thought I was buying a technological product that I could use to improve my life. I didn’t realize I was buying a ti…

> I didn’t realize I was buying a ticket to Disneyland where the seller of the product decided how I interacted with everything the device enabled. If you're the sort of person who posts on HN and you bought an iPhone after they hit the $1000 price point, you probably did know that. It surprises me a little that so many people who do know still make that choice.

I think the point OP is making is not that they actually didn't know, but that they shouldn't have to know for that price.
Post reply on HN