Apple's requirements are about to hit creators and fans on Patreon

The problem is cultural: a growing population do not know what the Web is.

When they are asked to search for a website, they open the app store and search there. If there is no result, they give up.

It is baffling how some random people will come to Apple's defense from the most unimaginable angles. "Safari is lacking but should be enough for 95% of the apps". Why do we even have the App Store then? For the rest 5%?

I still remember when they refused to support forms constraints (there was the JS API, but not the UI designed to show users what they got wrong with their form, so you had to polyfill that specifically for Safari).

Forms are pretty darn important to 99.9% of web apps, this felt like active sabotage.

In this context, Chrome is just a browser, just like Safari is on iOS. The "problem" is less-technically-savvy folks (especially -- and ironically -- tech native youth) don't understand/care about the distinction between Apps vs a Website Bookmark/Shortcut.

That Patreon is even considering keeping the app is proof of this.

Depending on how overt Patreon's app is about ringing the alarm bells (imagine a "JUST MAKE A SHORTCUT and save 30% on everything!!!" popup) would just get them banned too, no doubt. Presumably criticizing Apple is a bannable offense.

I use Firefox on Android (which I can't on iOS) and I use it instead of apps wherever I can. Why should I install an app for every single thing?

That's because it's just like IE was back in the day. No web dev is going to build a web app that doesn't work on it, no matter what a turd it is.

Exactly, it doesn't need native access to every bit of hardware to fulfill the needs of a simple app. If needed, Mobile Safari can do push notifications.[0]

0. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/usernotifications/...

Maybe s/he doesn't want to waste their time doing that and instead the company is politely signaling to their users that they're being charged junk fees by continuing to use the iOS app. Which is quite fair and transparent behaviour. Why take on Apple when you can correctly inform your users and push them to give Apple the boot?

which in turn comes from the Apple Store

I strongly disagree with that. The store is not the reason apps are good for lots of things. You can assign a lot of value to phone and OS, but Apple does not try to take a cut based on making the phone and OS because it would be hard to defend. The store pales in comparison.

No, they actually don't know how to type in a link. Most people still don't know how URLs work. People still type in Facebook to the Google search box.

It's about friction. you could give users a PO box address and ask users to get out an envelope and write a check, and say if users really wanted to pay they'd do that. But we all know you're gonna lose out on a ton of money if you make it that hard for people to give you money. So it's about how much friction there is, and for some, an app is preferable to some website where I have to wade through a bunch of crap. Depending on what it is, if it bounces me to Safari, I might just get distracted and "just do it later" aka never.

I think you're missing the point. You're focusing on the technical differences, but it's not outlandish to imagine Apple demanding a cut of all transactions on iOS over time.

It would start slowly, with a minor value-add (e.g., making it easier to put/use CC info in the secure enclave, or whatever incremental step they choose), and an announcement that in exchange for "easing payments and making them more secure", Apple will be charging X% of transactions with their system.

Is it allowed to put a notice that Android and web users are given a 30% discount on the normal prices, which accidentally are only for iOS users.

Or just add a clickbait title: "See here to find out if you are eligible to discounted prices!" to a link to the web site.

Of course buyer has to be able to disable the 30% discount on the web site, to make it plausible that the normal prices are the ones on iOS. And all billing lines in the invoice always have to include a 30% discount line on Android and web purchases.

As far as I've seen, this isn't any sort of exclusive on Apple's App Store or Google's Play Store.

Free apps that allow users to access paid subscription content aren't required to accept payments for the subscription through the app.

Offer subscriptions through your own website or app rather than the app stores. This allows you to process payments directly and avoid the 30% fees. However, you'll need to provide your own payment processing and customer support.

https://www.quora.com/Is-it-possible-to-avoid-paying-a-30-co...

What makes a normal CC better?

One doesn't need a phone or battery to use it, just a bank account and the plastic. Google and Apple now want to become Visa. Yes, their system is more secure.

Even if the web developed effective single sign-on payment solutions, it would make utterly no difference for iOS, since Safari would never support the same. You can easily bet your life, that Apple would reject this or only maliciously comply.

https://httptoolkit.com/blog/safari-is-killing-the-web/

In the OP Patreon leads with a pretty strong assertion that they would not be making these changes to their subscription model on merit alone. “Do this or you’ll lose X% of your users” is not Patreon making a value judgement on 30% margin, it’s post facto extortion.

Nothing is answering the question, “would Patreon itself take a 30% hit to margin just to operate natively iOS”? I am pretty dubious.

My point still stands that none of this is fair first principles representation of the value the platform provides. I’m sure the product conversation and user research inside Patreon HQ is much more along the lines of “fuck you Apple you’re making me choose my 10% iOS user base over the 7% of global users that happily use per-creation billing”. Not “oh Apple was right subscriptions are a more consistent payment model for users why didn't we realize that before thanks Apple here’s your 30% rev share for the idea let’s just pass that cost on to our iOS users they won’t mind”. LOL

You and I may not want notifications, but a lot of people do.

Does the subscriber content get delivered through Patreon?

Yes. Many of creators deliver media content through Patreon.

Announcements, updates, Q&As, early access to regular content, bonus behind-the-scenes content, and sometimes exclusive content. It all depends on the creator.

If you're suggesting that Steam doesn't have an effective monopoly on the PC market, I have bad news for you. One of the biggest differences between Steam and Apple is that Steam does a better job of hiding the effects from users who will lash out at creators who talk about problems on the platform.

An indie creator I follow recently implored fans to buy their next game on Steam and not other platforms... because in order to be profitable they absolutely needed to get their game to be ranked on Steam above a certain review threshold, and reviews of the game would only count towards their ranking if matched with specifically a Steam purchase. And once again, I get this weird feeling. I'm struck that at the point where a creator is begging users to reinforce the most dominant PC gaming platform because if those users buy the game somewhere else that has better creator terms and fees, the platform will (in effect) punish their store listing, something might be going wrong with the market.

Sometimes Apple advocates will point at similarly bad situations in other markets and say, "what, are you going to regulate that too?"

Don't threaten me with a good time.

Your "nobody" is doing all the work. Steam distributes to Windows, but you aren't required to use Steam to distribute to Windows, and then many people don't. Adobe isn't paying Valve to distribute their suite. Epic doesn't use it for Fortnite. Random enterprise software developers have nothing to do with it.

It's like pointing to the existence of people who willingly buy a BMW as a justification for forcing everyone to buy a BMW whether they want it or not.

Wait, Steam charges more?

Yes, and no? It's funny because steam works the opposite way. They charge 30% but reduce the cut if the publishers makes over $X million a year (I think it's 25, but I can be wrong). Apple charges 15% if you're under 1m/year or 30% otherwise.

but yes, Steam was another early adopter of digital commerce and is leveraging its (slightly illogical, IMO) network effects.

What a cluster fuck that would become.

I can see it now: needing to have 15 different stores with subscriptions to get apps who all have different deals with different apps for exclusivity.

No thanks.

Although I agree in principle, the counter-argument to this is that Apple would ultimately be blamed in the minds of consumers for not keeping those devices protected from bad software. They could say I told you so, but that doesn’t help them after the golden goose of the App Store has already been cooked.

I don't think it's possible to break them up without immense value destruction.

This is a very strange analogy.

I didn't buy my credit card. I don't own it. The credit card is just a little piece of plastic, totally useless without the line of credit, i.e, the service provided by the credit card company, in stark contrast with my computers, which can be used quite extensively without the App Store.

The credit card company is not gatekeeping "access" to me. I can pay for things with cash, a debit card, a check, etc. If I choose to pay with a credit card, it's because I wish to take advantage of the specific features of the credit card, the primary one of which is the ability to pay for the product later rather than at the moment of purchase.

This comment makes no sense to me and contradicts itself. First sentence:

"you" does not even come into the equation

Second sentence:

Patreon is accessing their customer base ( You )

Of course I come into the equation. Apple does not and cannot subscribe me to a Patreon without my initiative and consent.

I don't think it's up for debate either, but it doesn't change that a lot of people I've interacted with, online, at work and even at conferences don't like talking about the... differences in monetizing on the two major phone platforms.

So Patreon will need to become a reader app like Spotify/Kindle then that can do all this offline but you cannot subscribe or pay in the app.

That's really a solved problem. As an example, Google manages to have a web version of Youtube that works on iOS mobile Safari adequately. (It's not perfect but it works.)

There doesn't seem to be anything snowflake special the Patreon iOS app needs to do that a web app cannot handle.

Isn’t the whole point of the 30% apple tax to make sure their App Store isn’t full of garbage?

Your gas bill is probably charged and billed directly by the gas supplier.

People get confused very easily when small digital subscriptions are charged through third parties on behalf of sellers whose name is often different from the app or service.

I'm not sure a shop app fixes that though. Better communication and better choice of names seems far more important.

You are wildly overthinking it. The average apple customer spends money on the apple app store because there is no alternative. Simple as.

It is still competition even in this context, it just happens on a slightly slower cadence. The Apple customers, by and large, are paying good money to avoid Google's app store because they believe Apple is a better steward on net.

You're looking at a different market. The customer in this context is Patreon and the product is app distribution. Patreon needs a way to distribute their app to all of their customers. Many of their customers have iOS, so Patreon needs app distribution to customers with iOS, and there is only one supplier of that.

If a big record label strikes an international distribution deal with a small label, the big label brings more value to the artist than the small label does. Is that necessarily antitrust?

it ultimately comes down to what they are doing with that money in my eyes. Are they actually distributing as a presence inernationally, helping you gather talent, helping you to navigate the industry outside your area, introducing contacts and deals to you, and overall being pivotal to your small label? Sure, they get a bigger cut. They are actively growing you as a company.

Or are they saying "yeah I'll put you on our Spotify", pay you 10% of ad revenue, claiming exclusivity on your portfolio, and calling it a day? No, there's no value there that couldn't be done yourself. But you're paying for the "platform" they have. That is very much using their presence to exploit you. The key isn't necessarily "are they a monopoly" here, it's "are they abusing their position as a monopoly".

Though it's hard for me to fault "forcing" devs to own the hardware they are developing for.

It's a tech specific sitution, but the main point wasn't the target platform, but development platforms. I can setup a Linux server rack with android emulators and use my Windows device to develop and deploy to said rack. I am forced to use mac as a development platform and they disconinued Mac's server OS. So I can't even scale up a test suite for IOS, I need to buy multiple iPhones or beefy desktop Macs to run a few emulators each.

iOS software have enough quality issues without letting developers ship stuff that has never been tested on real HW.

great use of my subscription fee to maintain crappy emulators. They don't even have platform excuses like Android does.

Again, what am I really paying for here?

And since we live in a democracy with laws where Apple's current arrangement can be voted to be made illegal, we can also decide to force Apple to open their device ecosystem (which may already be illegal).

You know that's not what the OP meant.

"Apple users should be able to decide what software and stores run on the device that they own."

It should be able to be decided while owning it, not before. The point is that a phone that doesn't give the user the same level of control over the software that the manufacturer has simply should not exist. It should not be left to market forces.

under the assumption that users jailbreak their devices

if that didn't void warranty, I'd accept it as a reasonable workaround. But on top of that I'm pretty sure Apple acively fights with jailbreaking and jailbreakers in particular.

In my mind Apple has zero obligation to enable it maximum leeway to obstruct it.

They might soon, given DMA. In my mind, Microsoft got dinged for antitrust decades ago and Apple has gone so beyond that line that I'm surprised Europe had to step in before the US. Even Mac OS isn't locked down this hard (helps that it started fundamentally as a BSD fork) so it just tells me this is exploiting its monopoly.

The people don't want they locked down single function phone, they shouldn't buy one.

opposite argument works as well. An open world does not stop you from staying in the walled garden. If you really don't want to use anything other than the App store, that's fine. You just miss out on a few apps like you have for 16 years with Android stuff that Apple banned.

But the dev agreed to basically pay Apple an origination fee to publish an iOS app in their store.

This is its own can of worms, but doesn't really change much about what I said above.

That might be exactly your point though? That Apple has multiple tools to leverage to make sure that it's impossible to compete with their payment processor if you're building an app? Sometimes I misjudge the intent of a comment.

Apple's restrictions on origination in places like the EU reinforce that Apple does not see these price increases as a tradeoff for quality that customers are willingly going along with, and does believe that if customers were able to be informed about alternative payment methods that already exist that are cheaper, they would take them. In instances where it can't hide alternatives from users, it imposes fees at the point where users are informed about those alternatives: fees that make it impossible for alternatives to be cheaper than Apple's own inflated cost.

Apple's origination fees are a lot less about compensation and a lot more about making sure that on iOS, a less expensive payment option will never be offered. This is not the action of a company that believe that it is adding value to the purchasing experience, it is the action of a company that believes that its purchasing systems would not be chosen by many customers if they were fairly stacked up against existing alternatives.

Youtube already has this through channel membership subscriptions [1]. Billing is through web only.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/intl/en_uk/join/

Because not everything is distributed on YouTube. I support writers and artists on patreon. That's the bulk of what I support. Even if we say Google, youtube creators already complain about youtube and how it squeezes them so is it really better? Youtube even has a patreon like thing, but creators prefer to diversify the platforms they are on. Especially if, as is common, what they are selling on patreon are things that aren't allowed on youtube.

:shrug: It would be nice to have alternatives, like you say, it's not like Patreon is particularly good at this. I understand that payment processing is kind of hellish to deal with, but that wouldn't be a barrier to a company the size of Apple/Google.

Internet payments/subscription platforms are in desperate need of more competition, even partial competition.

I thought for a while that Youtube was experimenting with paid subscribers? But it's possible that I misunderstood or that Google just got bored and abandoned it.

I think ethics is not applicable here. Corps are for profit enterprises, and seek every chance to bring gain to shareholders.

Sure, but the act of charging money for a service isn't inherently unethical. I just want to know where and what lines you draw.

Regulators goal is to support competitive market and healthy business environment, they totally can go after monopolists who abuse network effect and/or put limit on rent amount (say 5-15% from transaction) to support value creators.

They could, but I'm not optimistic. I think many regulators are out of touch and don't realize how much upkeep digital commerce is saying. They see 30%, assossiate it to the days of brick and mortar which charged much more than that and say "well that's reasonable, Apple needs the money". All while ignoring the different landscape of how much people need to survive these days and how utterly hand over fist the middleman make.

There's just not a lot of empathy these days, and if all these Apple/Google lawsuits as is hasn't changed much, we need that empathy to make change.

Only on HN would I see someone argue that depreciating or stagnant assets are the same thing as a 30% transaction fee. This community is smart enough to be able to tell the difference between a tax on revenue and a tax on profit.

Apple is imposing a tax on revenue that is higher than the revenue that Patreon pulls in from each transaction fee.

There is no equivalent situation in a realtor market. In no world would a realtor sell your house for $500k and then tell you that they deserve a higher cut of the revenue than you do.

Surely the realtor shouldn't work for $0 just because your investment didn't pan out, though?

I’ve never had a realtor suggest an offer price or apply the slightest bit of pressure to offer more. Maybe you should find a new realtor.

Fairness at its most objective is merely a process.

so basically, you don't care about moral fairness and are fine letting monopolies rule markets and societies. The extreme side of "equal opportunity".

I won't make a moral argument here, but merely a logistical one: country governments have a lot of incentive to not let this happen. For the sake of technological progress, for the sake of ensuring the non-upper class economy (aka, taxable income that won't play Matrix with them in terms of evasion) is healthy enough, and for the sake of minimizing risks of a hostile takeover (be it from the monopoly or foreign powers).

So a truly "free market" only works in a vacuum with benevolant dictators and a united world government. That may take a while.

The "average person" does not exist

hence why we have multiple fields dedicated to approximating such a person. Because averages are still valuable for many things. From government policy, to targeted marketing, to identifying societal biases.

So... they would give Patreon money by going to their website?

Is this a niche market that would never have been available to Patreon that Apple is helping Patreon access, or is this Apple needing to en-mass protect its users from themselves as a result of them being too.. I don't know, weak willed(?) not to pay for Patreon using another method?

It's not both.

and likely have been advised they need to enforce it uniformly due to regulatory scrutiny.

I'm not certain what the category difference is between Patreon subscriptions and Youtube/Amazon/Spotify subscriptions, all of which don't allow payment through the app.

This is actually something I would really genuinely love Apple to clarify because Patreon's statements on it are surprising; why is Patreon not allowed to stop offering payment options at all in the app. Are they lying about that? Why wouldn't they be allowed to turn it off when other companies clearly are?

as written,

That being said: if their policy as written has these terms in it, then that doesn't make me feel better about Apple. I would still question why Apple is so scared of consumers being notified about payment options across the board.

An abusive policy designed to give customers less information about their purchases is still abusive even if it's applied uniformly. It still speaks a lot to Apple's priorities and about whether they are genuine when they say that they believe customers prefer their pricing schemes. You don't have to hide things from customers that they prefer.

Not infinite value, just any value versus 0 value.

I'm not a fan of Patreon by any means, but it seems pretty silly to me to argue that Patreon offers literally zero value to consumers. Patreon's interface is still better than using Paypal to subscribe to a creator. Patreon still offers me as a user a modicum of privacy, I don't have to give my billing address to every creator that I support.

You don't have to like the platform, but zero value? Do you really believe that?

but you personally can’t force creators to drop Patron which is why they can be so toxic.

I also want to push back on this a little bit. I know creators on Patreon, and most of them don't like the platform. You know why they use Patreon? Because it's the only place anybody goes to subscribe to content. If you set up a Ko-Fi account as a creator, you will receive a fraction of the subscriber-base that you'll receive on Patreon.

I'm not saying this to say that Patreon is somehow justified in its abusive behavior, but it's kinda silly to argue that the only reason Patreon is popular is because creators prefer it. Subscriber preferences play a huge role in this, and the fact is that most subscribers refuse to use alternatives.

If creators felt confident that they could move to platforms like Ko-Fi, Gumroad, Subscribestar, Librepay, etc without permanently losing all of their subscribers, they would. They'd leave in a heartbeat. Fewer fees, better websites, less VC-weirdness: creators don't really like Patreon. And many of would be able to move if it was worth their while; Patreon doesn't (as far as I know) have any restrictions on joining parallel donation platforms. But every time I've seen a creator do that, the majority of their revenue continues to come through Patreon. Subscribers refuse to leave the platform even when other options are being advertised to them.

There is a little bit of a chicken-and-egg problem in that some creators end up only using Patreon because it's the only platform that brings in enough revenue to make it worth their while, which in turn means it's the only place to subscribe to them -- and yes, that can help reinforce network effects as well. But the biggest thing keeping creators on Patreon is consumers themselves.

If you want creators to leave Patreon, you do actually have at least a small amount of agency over that: find the creators you follow that are on multiple subscription platforms, and subscribe to them on those alternative platforms. By and large, most consumers are not willing to do that.

Yeah, I hear people repeat that a lot, but it doesn't entirely align with my experience. A lot of the grocery stores I shop at (mostly Kroger and other national chains,) have a cooler right up front with the most popular dairy/refrigerated items for the people that are just there to pick those up.

Fair enough, we might be aggressively agreeing with each other. Apologies if I misunderstood you.

Ah, alright.

There's nothing actually stopping you from doing this — it requires two things:

1. either a third-party licensing server (and thus some SSO auth system — but just require Apple's own SSO for it and it'll still be a clean-ish workflow) to share/sync the transaction status from one app to the other; or a local Group Container plus logic in each app to write the transaction statuses fetched for the given app into the group container for the other app to read

2. never charging for the app as a whole, but instead breaking your app's pricing down into a set of IAP-purchased feature entitlements (whether charged for individually, or as a bundle, the important part is that each entitlement has its own price.) Then, making the new version just a superset of the features of the old version — and so, when you're buying the old version, you're buying features A+B+C; and then when you're buying the new version (with the app being able to see whether or not you've bought the old version), new customers are buying A+B+C+D+E, while existing customers are buying D+E.

---

Note that there's an even easier way to do this (and I think this is the way Apple would prefer you do this): don't release V2 as a separate app from V1.

Instead, have V1 auto-update to a v2.0.0 release — which converts the V1 app into a launcher with an "edition" (major version) selector. Either compile in both the V1 and V2 codebase into this app, or better yet (for download/on-disk size), package separate V1 and V2 "engines" as executable DLC packages, submitted to Apple for review along with the app, downloaded on-demand when the app needs to run them.

With this approach, the app would either start up the first time still within V1, and allow/offer people the option of "seamlessly upgrading" the app to V2; or the app would start up with an "edition launcher" UI that allows people a choice. (And either way, you could offer the ability at any time to freely switch between V2 and V1, re-launching the app with the other engine enabled. Like dual-booting Operating Systems, but at the app level.)

Here, you could charge for the V2 "upgrade" ahead-of-time, before allowing the user to switch over to the V2 engine; or you could allow the user to switch between V1-fully-licensed and V2-demo modes (or even between V1-demo and V2-demo modes), where purchasing for each edition is separately available within that edition's UX.

The expectation here is that all the user's existing feature entitlements would keep working as long as they continue to use the V1 engine — as you said, the V1 engine was a one-time purchase, and so even with this edition-launcher abstraction introduced in v2.0.0 of the app, V1 itself should still keep working for them forever.

The benefit of doing this multi-editioned-shared-app approach, together with IAP feature entitlements, is that V2 can inherit some of the V1 entitlements, and then simply charge for the V2-novel entitlements. So V2 gets discounted for V1 purchasers inherently, by the fact that by buying V1, they've already bought half of the components of the V2 purchase-bundle.

Bundles can be used for upgrade pricing, you put the new version up for full price (ie. $20) and and a bundle with the new and old version (ie $30, for a 50% discount on it) for those who own the old version. When you buy a bundle you don't pay for the one you own.

FL Studio (fka FruityLoops) is an outstanding exponent of this old method (but once, free upgrades for life)

I don’t exactly remember how it went but ~5 years ago Goodnotes 5 came out and they offered a “bundle” of Goodnotes 4 and 5 together at the same price of Goodnotes 5. Maybe owners of version 4 had some kind of discount on the bundle because they already owned half of it?

There are several vendors who do this, for instance 1Password and the Omni Group both do. You have an in-app purchase option that is unlocked by a previous receipt. The challenge is that Apple does not provide tools to help or guidance. They do indeed think e.g. requiring users to buy an upgrade to keep the app working on a new annual iOS version or macOS version is a bad model for users.

Panic even had an upgrade for MAS users when they released their new version of the now defunct Coda outside the MAS (for sandboxing reasons).

They added "in app purchases" indicators in the store for this. I use it all the time. "In app purchases" on something that claims it's free is not free.

In the days of the ipod every single user of it I encountered had apple's UX wipe their music collection.

But maybe that was by design as they decided to call their music shop by the same name as their ipod management software. That is the essence of Apple's UX. Shiny destruction of your property. It remains so.

The UX everyone wanted was copying files onto and off the device presented as storage on any computer it was plugged in to.

Does apple allow that?

I think there are rules about telling people not to use IOS method.

Not sure if that would extend to content displayed in the app too from creators?

Apple forbids even mentioning alternative payment methods within the app.

You are aware that you cannot purchase ebooks through the Amazon apps on Android, right?

What you say may be true today, but tomorrow is unknown territory as far as these sorts of agreements go.

At least until 2025 when Google implements the exact same policy change. Every questionable hardware choice Apple does is something Android vendors or Google Play copies within a year.

Remember when Samsung made fun of Apple for removing the headphone jack?

following this to its logical conclusion you would never install an app if they offered a web version which also means if you get a DM from a creator on pateron you have to load the website instead of easy access to your app drawer.

See OnlyFans

i bet they would do even better as a native app.

also let's remember that apple goes out of their way to not support PWA in an effort to maintain control https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/15/apple-confirms-its-breakin...

This is speculation: for younger people, apps are the web. I think there is some age/line where on one side, your first instinct is to open the browser on your phone and navigate to a website, and on the other side of the line, you open the app store and navigate to an app.

Personally, I agree. I want better/first class mobile websites over an app. I don't want apps for most things. That said, I didn't grow up in a mobile first/mobile only era.

It's 2024, if you want a viable business that caters to mobile users, you need an app. There are users who don't care or even prefer the web version, but we're a minority.

Hard to say. Audible, Netflix, and Spotify have a lot more weight to throw around. Enough that even Apple can't ignore it. I can see these being backdoor deals for them specifically.

Patreon from its very model does not. A very sad exploitation of the little guy, even if this is one of the biggest little guys.

Apps in certain categories (ebooks, music, video, news) can choose to not support purchasing at all in apps, or to use in-app purchases.

Outside these categories (eg a email account as a service, group classes) you are expected to always have in app purchasing.

There have been interesting ways people have explored getting around this, but obviously Apple thinks they should be paid what they are contractually obligated.

Having control of distribution means it is easy on Apple’s side to solve disagreements. You only see it brought to lawsuit by the other side (e.g. Epic’s lost case in the US)

For what reason? iOS fees? I'm not sure they're related. Patreon has been pushing away the per-creation model for many years now.

You're aggregate-charged monthly, not individually when the work is created.

It's not p2p. 2 transactions happen: you pay patreon, patreon pays them.

how amazing would it be if someone who was about to embark on yet another decentralized protocol fiasco instead just released a Patreon-like template

they probably exist already (minus payment processing). Network effects take hold as usual, though. Patrons are more willing than average to jump, but I can see hesitation signing up and adding payment for a new/unknown website

and honestly all payment providers suck in some unique way. Though most of the fault lies in Visa/Mastercard. That's a monopoly we need to tackle one day.

managing so many fronts with such different medium (you can host all media on patreon, only really videos on YT but also more limited videos than patreon. then you can't host at all on ko-fi), sounds like a pain both logistically and financially.

ultimate-guitar.com is a big offender. The mobile site jams lots of things in your face to and get you to download the app (including an entire fake tab page that you can't interact with but can scroll past on iOS devices). Then on the mobile site you can't tap on any of the chords to see the fingerings (very important!).

You can if you choose to request the desktop site, but then you get an obnoxious bar going across the middle of the page blocking some of the tab.

If you fold and finally download the app, you're greeted with a 10+ page unskippable questionnaire that after you're done ends with a paid subscription call to action. If you then force close the app, and open a tab link from the browser into the app, you are finally allowed to view a tab.

Tiktok and Instagram don't force you to, but remind you that you really should be using the App.

There was an Australian low-cost airline (Bonza) that only allowed bookings via their app. It went under very quickly (I wonder why...).

absolutely dreadful. It is quite literally unusable to use the mobile site. I don't even know why they bother hosting it.

Only site where I simply toggle desktop. And now FF mobile can even install RES so that helps mitigate the otherwise clunky navigation (though, I have been unable to enable cloud backup. I can restore local copies though).

It's slow with tons of loading spinners.

Yep, and don't forget the deep analytics that they gather as well. That's a huge motivator

I wonder why Patreon isn't hammering this point more if that's the case. This seems to me to be an almost bigger problem than the loss of the per-creation billing.

Not that losing per-creation billing is good, but Patreon has been threatening it for a while, and there are ways it could in theory be simulated. But this makes it effectively impossible for creators to go on vacations, take a sabbatical, whatever... without continuing to charge patrons. It's a really commonly used mechanism from what I've seen, this would be a loss of a really important flexible tool for creators.

I'm not distrusting you, I just feel like I'd like to see some confirmation from Patreon before I start making accusations about it. Maybe they have some deal or know something about a future unreleased API that I don't know?

But losing the ability to pause a Patreon page would be a very, very big deal. Arguably even a bigger deal than the 30% tax, since I assume this change would affect everyone regardless of where they subscribe from. That's something that people should be talking about if it's the case.

iOS market share is near 60% in the US and a bit over 25% worldwide. They can't afford to leave that on the table.

Patreon doesn't have a choice. Apple is too large to give up having an iOS app - too many customers will just walk away instead of using the alternative (or so they think - but I don't blame them for not being willing to experiment - if they are right it will cost a lot of customers)

Well there is a choice, but it is questionable if suing will or will not result in any change. Even if they win in court it will be several years and millions of dollars in legal fees, and it isn't clear they will win.

Is it really a problem? Right now I am skint so every time I sub I unsub from someone else. Patreon makes it super easy. It shows how much I spend on who and I can see who was inactive for years.

while they are giving "gifts" and "gratuities" to the relevant judges

There is a lot of corruption in the US. So yes, at times, they will allow that too. But in this case, the commenter was correct.

We can't be going into courts of law making poop up. Going into a court of law and saying that a company with 27% market share in phones and 13% market share in PCs is a "monopoly" is almost on the level of being insulting to the justices. Judges and attorneys are not being corrupt bribe-takers when they laugh us out of court for making that argument. They are just following the law. There's not corruption involved.

People seem loathe to accept the fact that it's time to go the other route, where you just change the laws. Apple is not now, and realistically, probably never will be, a monopoly. Antitrust and monopoly laws do not address what Apple is, and it's time to either make laws that do address what Apple is, or just be honest and say we don't, as a legal system, have any issue with what Apple is.

But this political theater where you make an issue of what Apple is, and then try to address it in court knowing that it won't work is getting really old. We need some leaders who will actually write some new laws and put them up for a vote.

*The US will let corporations do whatever they want while they are giving "gifts" and "gratuities" to the relevant judges.

Cite please? IIRC, the present day antitrust precedents were set in the 70s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_antitrust_law#Ri....

gifts to judges aren't applicable to tech yet, at least not as far as I know.

Antitrust doesn't care about the market share, it cares about actions taken to restrain competition.

Yes, but "only when it harms both allocative efficiency and raises the prices of goods above competitive levels or diminishes their quality."[1]

[1] https://law.stanford.edu/press/congress-hears-challenges-to-...

Antitrust doesn't care about the market share, it cares about actions taken to restrain competition.

Not sure how this myth keeps getting perpetuated. The antitrust laws that are relevant to the lawsuits against Apple (specifically Epic's and the DOJ's) absolutely care about market share for the purposes of proving monopolization or attempted monopolization under the Sherman Act.

(Yes, technically it is true that some antitrust violations can occur with low levels of market share, such as price fixing, but those are not really relevant to the lawsuits against Apple.)

27% of phones is still high enough to have some market power.

27% Worldwide

And that's a single company vs 70% of all the Android device makers.

In the US thats 60% for apple, it is basically a monopoly when your closest competitor is at 24%.

And, to add, 87% of teens in the US has an iphone.

80 fucking 7 %

To add again: the 70/30 worldwide market share is perfectly rappresented in europe (67% and 32%).

You mean the guy that literally had to be fired from his very own company because he refused to change course

Kind of a ridiculous complaint because we all know what happened to the company afterwards. He was more right than they were.

guy that most probably died earlier than necessary because he did not change his stance on pharmaceutical medicine

Hilariously irrelevant.

both out of spite and out of arrogance for "his" Apple

I don't see it. He cared about developers - the 30% rate, when he introduced it, was better than any other rate in the industry and was seen as a screaming deal. Before he died, it would have been unfair for Amazon to be getting around the rate while small developers had to pay it. Nobody, in 2011, was calling the rate exorbitant. At the time, your competition (publishing on PC) basically required calling a publisher and agreeing to a 50%-60% fee. Same for Verizon and "dumb" phones - every carrier had their own app store and they all charged 50% or more.

The bigger we let companies get, the bigger the government has to get in order to enforce the law.

I don't see that at all. A very small government that is willing to jail execs for infractions would go very far. It's just that the will is not there.

In Patreon's case, I don't think the user found the content "through Apple". The customer found the creator, and the creator said "Pay me through Patreon". The user, only having an iOS based device is now trapped by Apple's restrictions on the transaction, which brings dubious benifits to the table.

When was the last time you bought any large item from a physical store that didn't come with advertisements in the packaging for direct services?

If you buy a Disney DVD from Walmart, there will be advertisements inside the DVD case for direct services (heck, last time I checked there were ads on the outside of the case). If you buy a Roomba from Walmart, there will be advertisements for direct parts and addons from the manufacturer. If you buy a hecking Apple Ipad from Walmart, Apple will include advertisements for its direct services once you start using the product.

People bring up this comparison all the time and it's very simply not true. You can advertise direct services inside physical products you sell at stores. What Apple is saying is not that you can't advertise prices in the store page, Apple is saying that you can't advertise alternative platforms in the app itself.

There is no physical equivalent to this for storefronts like Walmart. Home Depot does not have a restriction on whether a physical product you buy from them can have an advertisement for direct manufacturer services inside the box or software that comes with it.

If we want to be consistent about this, Apple really should be paying Walmart a fee for any app-store purchases made on devices that were bought from Walmart. After all, the user got the device from Walmart, right? Shouldn't they get their cut of app store purchases? That's how Apple sees the world.

I have been using patreon for 5 years, and I "found" it via the artists I like who use it as a platform. If I buy my first iPhone tomorrow and download the patreon app, that's not because apple helped me discover anything.

You should be able to list the individual components of the final price which might then include "30% Apple app store fee" for having your customers be more informed about what they spend their money on.

So if I see an app on TV, go to the app store and download it, somehow I found it through Apple?

No, I very obviously saw it on TV and got it from Apple because that's the only way to install native apps on iOS.

It's arguably unreasonable in a physical space but this is virtual space we're talking about.

In more open ecosystems like the web browser, you can literally install extensions that tell you where you can buy something for cheaper. I'm sure Amazon, Walmart, and friends would love for that to be impossible.

The virtual space only "belongs" to Apple because they've deliberately walled it off.

... the user found your app through apple.

Not necessarily. They may have heard about it on the internet and then looked in the app store for it.

Hot topic of discussion where? Amongst developers, right? How many non-developer Apple users are aware of Apple’s shenanigans? I doubt not many.

Even if the end users are aware and accept it, that doesn’t make Apple right.

We as a society accept a lot of things - from the security theatre at airports (last week, I saw photos of passengers taken, for domestic flights) to Amazon workers peeing in bottles. As long as we get our crap the same day, we’re good with some unfortunate souls peeing in bottles. If it bothered us, we’d stop shopping at Amazon, for example.

All this to say, we’ve been trained very well to tolerate and even accept a lot of bad behavior if it helps with our laziness. Doesn’t mean it is right though

Nobody is discussing this outside of tech and nerd spaces

Good question. But reading this thread and every one of these has multiple people saying "Apple users know and choose to have this experience, we've opted in."

While that's all very true, I find it notable to point out that the company stopped making butterfly keyboards 5 years ago. The folks out there that are still bitter about this really need to find something else to occupy their mindspace.

In related news, I just got my keyboard settlement check!

Yes, how much time do you think a redesign takes?

First, please show me where exactly in the user agreement having two different accounts in different countries is a violation. I've looked and I can't find it. Don't go inventing violations of user agreements...

Second, what I've described is a problem that a lot of people have because seemingly no one at Apple understands that if you move between countries for work and need to have access to banking (or any other apps that are specific to that country) in those countries, the only way is to have different IOS account per country.

And it's even somewhat supported in ios, if she needs to redownload an app that was deleted due to lack of space, ios prompts her for that specific account's password (not the one I'm currently logged in). So it's somewhat shoddily supported. Nowhere near as good as android, where you can be logged in to multiple accounts and just click on a a menu and chose which account to use.

Customers leave when prices rise above their willingness to pay. Some customers will realize on their own that they can bypass Apple's fee by subscribing through the browser, but most won't (since Apple forbids even mentioning this trick).

Patreon's take will not be the same. Apple's fee is charged first. So for all the creators that don't raise prices, Patreon is also getting 30% less, because they charge flat fees. And every creator that does raise prices will probably end up with fewer patrons, or patrons donating less, and will probably have a similar effect.

It also just kinda harshes everyone's vibe when they eventually realize they're being gypped and paying a lot more than others for the same thing, and that can cause people to just unsubscribe.

But patreon earns off of those purchases, right? And since a 30% price increase deincentivizes purchases for customers, they'll have less purchases.

Or, of course, eating the 30% fee yourself deincentivizes you to use the platform (or upload content as regularly) if you opt for that one

I'd say it's a loss for everyone involved except for Apple. Since Apple now gets a cut from all transactions its hard for me to see this as anything else except hostile and arrogant

Right but just because they said it doesn’t mean they’re not playing fast and loose with the messaging. I’ve never heard of a single app where the off-app billing affected the inclusion of the app in the store. I mean maybe it’s true but that seems like it would be breaking new ground in App Store rules. I suspect Patreon is playing semantics here but would be happy to see evidence otherwise. To be clear, I’m taking about the case where Patreon could decide to show no billing details or links at all in the App Store, just like eg Audible. I think the problem is that Patreon still wants to offer billing options in the app.

IIRC, Patreon now passes along full transaction costs to every creator, even if behind the scenes they may be consolidating transactions.

Maybe. Or they could just keep doing the thing that earns them the most money, which is what they're doing now.

Also, I don't think sellers have to deal with chargebacks, although Apple might have their own version of a chargeback, but I am not sure.

They absolutely do, just through Apple, "Disputes".

Apple will refund the user the full purchase price (that's fun, $10 app, you get $7 after the Apple cut, and on refund, you have to refund $10, so you're actually out money).

And too many disputes will get your developer privileges restricted or revoked.

You act as if all the iPhone Patreon donations would've rolled in regardless of the app / app store, but also that Apple is somehow going to kill it. It's logically inconsistent.

1. If Apple plays a key part in getting those donations, then the 30% is not a problem: the content creator is not getting 70c on the dollar; the content creator is getting 70c instead of 0c. Apple gets people to donate that wouldn't otherwise have done it. There's a ton of money flowing through the Apple ecosystem purely because Apple made it a premium experience.

2. If Apple does not play a key part in getting those donations, then the 30% is still not a problem: the content creators / app makers / Patreon can simply switch to some other platform and get the same results.

The beauty of capitalism is that we used to have horses and shoes only, then black cars became an option, and now you can buy any color you like. I guess some people think they appear to be clever, thoughtful, and fair-minded finding an issue with every step forward.

Patreon built their organization partly on how easy it is to get donations from Apple users through the app ecosystem. As an Apple user, I personally spend a lot more on apps every month than in my pre-Apple days because it feels secure, easy, and premium.

So even as a non-Apple user, you benefited from Apple's system. The same is true for Patreon, and for the content creators.

As for your complaints about the dearth of ecosystems, I guess the rest of the world can only apologize to you for not pouring even more hundreds of billions of dollars into developing an ecosystem that fits your requirements * just so *. (By the way, I was talking about phone brands, nice work shifting the goalposts)

Anyway, any time someone suggests "don't have a smartphone at all" as an alternative, my respect for their opinion drops to zero.

Well, I am devastated. But "no smartphone" is indeed one of the options, as is "Apple smartphone", "Samsung smartphone", "flip-phone", and many others. Can't find one that is perfect in every way? Welcome to the real world.

Do you know the markup at any retailer? Maybe in aggregate if I look at the financial statements or some specialty retailers like car dealers?

Seeing the content you paid for when using a non mobile device?

This is confusing to me, does this mean Amazon, Netflix, and Spotify will be in violation as well? None of these companies allow subscription or digital goods transactions in their iOS apps.

I’m not sure why Patreon couldn’t replace the “subscribe” button with a “wishlist” button within the iOS app. They could add a link that opens your wishlist in the browser too. It turns what should be 1 click into 3, but it seems far more sensible than accepting the 30% fee.

One could create a web app based Pateron and use the web based push notifications. https://imgur.com/a/JccxAIs for the process for how to do this on an iPhone.

The challenge (as always) is accessibility and discoverability. The functionality is all there.

This is part of Apple's argument why they think they are owed 30%. They have built and nurture the most affluent set of mobile users with a CC ready to charge. A company leaving Android is ho hum, but leaving iOS is business ending. How valuable then is it to be on iOS? 30%?

I'm not making a judgement on right or wrong, but I see many people just thinking about infrastructure and not realizing Apple sees iOS user base as one that would not exist without them. And, they want to get paid for access.

If they drop the app, then they are free to send users directly to the web site.

There's a decent chance they are about to watch the same thing

Let's not forget that if Apple created something called "Apple Creators", they would instantly gain 100% of the market share because there would be no fee (assuming feature parity)

This forcing apps to use your payment platform through extortion is anti-competitive. Full stop.

That's not really a choice. That's "either do what we say, or your business will be destroyed".

This wouldn't work, unless you actually have some legitimate way to obtain the grain of sand.

So Patreon would have to actually staff a location somewhere that distributes the sand.

This is the old eBay shipping trick. Ebay charged vendors a percentage of the product sale price, but nothing on shipping. So I'd often buy posters for $0.99 with $14.99 shipping (US Media Mail shipping was a lot lower than that).

Its funny, because this is the exact opposite of how some cannabis dispensaries operate in Washington DC. It is illegal to sell cannabis there, but not to posses or to gift it. So you buy a $50 QR code that lets you access "digital art", and they give you a free 1/8 of cannabis with your purchase as a "gift".

It's always been 30% for virtual goods; definition hasn't broadened.

You use your bank's app? Guess what, Apple gets 30% of your account balance. Look at your 401k balance? Believe it or not, Apple owns 30% of that.

It's not a Google-specific attitude - it's the value proposition of all middlemen everywhere.

Facilitation of transactions and assuming the risk.

It's worth it to many. I gladly pay Apple the extra 30% or whatever because it adds up to <$10 per month for me and I don't have to jump through hoops to cancel subs.