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

https://news.patreon.com/articles/understanding-apple-requirements-for-patreon

by miiiiiike • 2 years ago

1168 995 2 years ago

news.patreon.com

philipov• 2 years ago

Is this going to affect people who don't use patreon through the apple app store?

jasonlotito• 2 years ago

From my understanding: no.

If you have not switched to subscription billing by this November, your fans will not be able to purchase new memberships in the iOS app.

Basically, you just won't be able to make purchases via the iOS app. Which is just really not great for creators.

The per-creation billing is where this really stinks. I much prefer to have this all managed in Patreon rather than Apple. I'll be able to manage just fine, but this is going to cause confusion. Honestly, this is why the web is so important. At least you can still use the website to get around paying for this.

jprete3• 2 years ago

It sounds like they're outright killing per-creation patronage, so...yes? This seems to affect all their users?

throwaway98797• 2 years ago

where’s the line between buying something on amazon, ordering a ride on uber, and patreon?

why do some purchases get exempt and not others?

htrp• 2 years ago

Subscriptions I expect....

Hamuko2• 2 years ago

Whatever you get as a Patreon patron isn't typically a physical product, unlike something you buy on Amazon (generally speaking) or a physical car ride. It's closer to a Netflix or a newspaper subscription, and Apple wants 30% of those too.

kalleboo3• 2 years ago

Some Patreons I subscribe to do include stuff like postcards, signed posters or prints, so it's not quite as black and white

akmarinov• 2 years ago

That's the reason why Kindle doesn't sell ebooks on iOS

mintplant• 2 years ago

Apple is threatening to remove the Patreon app if they do the same.

lovethevoid5• 2 years ago

Whether Apple believes it can strongarm the related companies.

goosedragons2• 2 years ago

Arbitrary Apple rules. Apple decided that "physical" goods & services in app purchases don't get taxed (e.g., clothes, uber rides). Digital goods do because they feel like they can get away with it which is why you can't buy eBooks from Kobo or Amazon on iOS, can't buy or rent movies from Google on iOS. People will tell you this is for "safety" and to keep you from getting scammed but there's nothing stopping malicious actors from creating apps that promise to ship physical goods and just don't. At least with digital goods you should get whatever you pay for immediately after purchase.

crazygringo3• 2 years ago

But Apple doesn't take a share of Venmo or PayPal or Zelle either.

And Patreon sure feels a lot more like those -- you're sending money to a creator.

Sometimes you get extra content, but sometimes you don't.

wpm4• 2 years ago

The line is wherever Phil Schiller fucking says it is.

proxxie_desu• 2 years ago

In many cases, it isn’t even a “purchase“ in any reasonable sense of the word - it’s a donation. Supporters don’t get anything other than knowing they’re helping a creator keep making something they like. This is akin to Apple wanting a 30% cut when you send your buddy $5 through Apple Pay. With this, Apple isn’t just interfering in business relationships, they’re interfering in personal relationships.

I’ve been pretty sympathetic to Apple in their tangles with the EU - I want my phone to be a locked-down appliance. But this is too far- it’s clear that Apple both has a lot of power and is abusing it.

delecti• 2 years ago

The line is "can you use the purchase solely in the app distributed through Apple's infrastructure". I think their fee is outrageous, but that does seem like a defensible line.

rondini• 2 years ago

Except they're stepping far over that line! You can use a Patreon subscription on all platforms, same as a Spotify or Netflix or Kobo... and yet they want a cut even when they have no part in the payment processing. Totally indefensible imo.

jjcm2• 2 years ago

I do wonder if a workaround here is buying a physical postcard from a patreon creator that comes with a free monthly subscription. A 50c mailed card would be cheaper for any subscription above $2.

hellcow• 2 years ago

I'm not sure you'd need to ship it. You're buying a 1/100,000 share of a physical postcard that exists at the Patreon offices. You can visit the office and see the postcard displayed out front under glass. It just so happens that buying such a postcard includes a free month's subscription to a Patreon creator.

Hamuko2• 2 years ago

Is there a reason why Patreon doesn't just pull out of the App Store? Whenever I got Patreon rewards, I'd just get them in an email notification and the link there took me to the website. Worked great without having to download an app.

xenospn2• 2 years ago

The 30% fee is steep, but conversion rates using in-app purchase are astronomical compared to regular webpages with a credit card form. Everyone hates it (developers, I mean), but it works very well.

rafavento• 2 years ago

This isn't going to hit developers.

yunwal2• 2 years ago

In case anyone wants to know why this is: it's because 1) I don't have to enter credit card information 2) Apple allows me to cancel subscriptions in a central location as soon as I sign up

If your service forces me to auto-renew my subscription, I'm probably not gonna buy it.

pavel_lishin• 2 years ago

Patreon has been pushing an app-based approach for awhile now; every email I get from them has callouts to open the notification in their app.

I don't know why they badly want this - presumably for more user tracking, or because studies show that people engage more, or whatever - but pulling out of the app store would be at odds with this desire to push everyone into their app.

daemin• 2 years ago

My assumption would be that if you have a company's app installed it allows them to spam you with marketing notifications for different things. Much harder to do when you can only use emails, because too many emails can get you put into spam.

Zak• 2 years ago

Sources seem to be pretty consistent in saying that on average, native app users are significantly more profitable for companies than web users. While I'm sure that's partially because the most dedicated users of a given service are the most likely to install the native app, an app does afford more opportunity to collect data about the user and to attempt to grab the user's attention.

As a user, I strongly prefer websites for this sort of thing. I'll pay attention when it suits me, not when the service wants me to. It does explain why Patreon wants to have an app though.

_aavaa_3• 2 years ago

Absurd. What next, they want a 30% cut from me when I set up automatic payments for my credit card through the banks iOS app?

polotics• 2 years ago

No! They want 30% of your net worth each time you connect to your bank over the internet using an Apple device.

_aavaa_3• 2 years ago

30% of a negative number, I'll take that deal in a heartbeat.

grecy2• 2 years ago

Interesting that is exactly what investment specialists do…

add-sub-mul-div2• 2 years ago

Yeah I can't understand why people think that inviting new middlemen into their transactions is acceptable. It's time to stop prostrating ourselves to these companies.

macintux• 2 years ago

It's complicated.

Apple has given me a simple way to manage many of my subscriptions, a single pane of glass, which I appreciate. I'm fine paying a little extra for that.

It would be more valuable to me if Apple didn't charge too much, which turns away service providers.

JumpCrisscross• 2 years ago

can't understand why people think that inviting new middlemen into their transactions is acceptable

Same reason people use credit cards or Gmail or hell Patreon. It reduces the number of counterparties you have to deal with and trust.

datavirtue3• 2 years ago

Because the people who truly value freedom are outliers, seen as weirdos.

Despegar• 2 years ago

It's fine for App Store developers to complain about their costs of doing business like any other business. I'm not sure what the point of bringing up nonsensical hypotheticals like bank payments is.

talldayo9• 2 years ago

Until 3 days ago, demanding a cut from sales generated over outbound hyperlinks was considered a nonsense hypothetical too.

_aavaa_3• 2 years ago

Except this is a clear racket and not a regular cost of doing business. Imagine Microsoft tomorrow deciding to require 30% of even a fraction of things happing on windows. Imagine Apple trying to do this on the Mac. It's laughably anti-competitive and the only reason they're not doing it on the Mac is because it would expose the absurdity of the situation on iOS.

tiborsaas• 2 years ago

Think bigger, Apple Intelligence will now detect that you are ordering a new TV over the phone and they will want their cut.

Hnrobert42• 2 years ago

Apple doesn't charge 30% for physical good sold through apps on ios.

xyst6• 2 years ago

At Apple, that will take at least 5-10 years before they get to that state. Siri is barely usable beyond simple “create reminder” or “set timer” queries/commands.

Hope by then, we see government intervention and break up big tech

kmeisthax11• 2 years ago

Close. They already get a % whenever you use Apple Pay. In fact, it's part of why the EU demanded Apple provide NFC APIs to allow third-party replacements of the built-in Wallet app.

lotsofpulp3• 2 years ago

https://paymentdepot.com/blog/apple-pay-fees-for-merchants/

Q: What fees does Apple charge merchants for using Apple Pay?
Apple does not charge merchants any fees for accepting Apple Pay payments. However, merchants may still be subject to fees from their payment processor or bank. Remember, credit cards and debit cards are behind each Apple customer purchase.
Apple Pay fees are generally lower than traditional credit card processing. Credit card issuers charge small businesses substantially more. As such, many SMBs ask employees to encourage Apple Pay transactions.
Merchants, on the other hand, aren’t charged at all to use Apple Pay on physical and eCommerce transactions.

Looks like Apple Pay is cheaper for everyone except banks:

Major banks such as Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and Capital One are unhappy with their cut from Apple. So much so that they’ve formally requested that Visa, “change the way that it processes certain Apple Pay transactions.” In other words, pay Apple less in transaction fees.

This website has a better breakdown of costs under the "What are the fees" section, but no firm figures, and the only estimate is from 10 years ago:

https://www.applemust.com/how-apple-pay-makes-money-merchant...

fiatpandas• 2 years ago

30% cut of digital sales top line revenue of every physical business you enter with your iPhone turned on.

jprete3• 2 years ago

I remember reading that per-creation billing is a very important feature for Patreon creators, because it removes the moral obligation to produce content just to justify a subscription.

If Patreon really doesn't want to kill the feature itself, but is just responding to Apple's enforcement, then it seems like a really clear illustration of monopoly power - pushing unrelated markets to change their own structure and products just to fit Apple's preferred billing flow.

balozi• 2 years ago

Patreon also stands to gain from this change. Come think of it, the new arrangement is a win for everyone involved - except the actual patrons ofcourse.

voiceblue• 2 years ago

Is there any evidence that Apple has actually made this "threat"? I'm not seeing anything other than what Patreon has claimed (and it seems that they are only recently going to begin to allow iOS purchases, which might mean they are bringing this upon themselves).

I am suspicious, because the specific change to per-creation billing is overwhelmingly positive for Patreon (and, as you pointed out, not for its users), from a business economics perspective (assuming they don't lose too many users over this). It also seems odd for Apple to press that point specifically.

xmprt• 2 years ago

Not really. There are a lot of creators I watch who only make content once a year. Sometimes they'll have 2 videos a year if they're lucky. With the per creation model, I have no problems supporting them but if it's billed monthly then the price becomes a lot steeper. Alternatively they could reduce the cost to support them but then the fees becomes much higher for both the creator and patreon (29c + 5% IIRC).

tdb7893• 2 years ago

Taking away the options is not a win for the creators

Jeff_Brown• 2 years ago

How can they gain after losing 30% to Apple?

mitthrowaway2• 2 years ago

Fewer patrons is a likely consequence, which would not be a win.

darknavi2• 2 years ago

Maybe I am missing something but Apple supports consumable purchases. Think any game with purchasable virtual currency.

Can't Patreon support a ton of different-priced SKUs and let creators use those SKUs for one-off purchases?

Volundr• 2 years ago

I think what your missing is that these aren't one-off user initiated purchases. I back a couple of patterns that are a per-video model, so if the content creator produces 2 videos I'm charged 2x $amount that month. If they produce nothing I'm charged nothing. Apple doesn't provide a way of doing this. In the scenario you described I'd have to monthly count up how many videos said content creator produced and manually submit an order through the app... And users aren't going to do that. Hell, I'm not going to do that.

mattstir• 2 years ago

That's distinct from the existing per-creation billing in a few ways, with the most obvious being that the existing method is automated while consumable purchases require user input. Trying to create a SKU for every possible per-creation price is also just incredibly janky and hacky in a fundamental way that would never scale and would probably make accounting next to impossible.

meagher• 2 years ago

Where did you read that? I worked at Patreon from 2018-2021 and per creation was a much smaller group than recurring during that time at least. (Think per creation was even disabled as an option for new sign-ups for a while.)

burkaman• 2 years ago

I'm surprised to hear this, I thought it was the main selling point of Patreon. I have per-creation subscriptions to a few people on Patreon who produce very high-quality stuff very infrequently, and I will probably cancel if they are forced to switch to monthly billing. Their stuff is great, but not so great that I'm willing to sign up for a monthly fee that I forget about and then realize 3 years later that they've stopped making stuff.

jprete3• 2 years ago

I don't have the source anymore, but it was an article about why Patreon is successful and other similar platforms/systems aren't. The per-creation billing option was described as a way for creators to create on their own schedule without having a moral or business requirement to produce enough content every month to justify a subscription. (The business requirement coming from the problem of one-month paying subscribers getting much more value than the creator can afford to give away at that price.)

trollied• 2 years ago

The thing most aren’t thinking about is that per-creation billing is an absolute nightmare, and I don’t blame Apple for not supporting it. Can’t even begin to imagine the support nightmare/chargebacks etc.

It’s not all about the 30% cut.

If it was easy and trouble free, they would support it.

Imagine what a great time apps would have if Apple let them charge you an amount whenever they wanted, without user authorisation?

makeitdouble2• 2 years ago

charge you an amount whenever they wanted, without user authorisation?

It's a simple matter of user communication: you make it clear from the start that the billing will be unpredictable, and potentially provide a ceiling for monthly bills to let the user stop if it goes out of hand.

I follow per creation billing creators and it's fine. Amazon also offers an option to auto buy new volumes of a series.

The customer not knowing in advance how much they'll be billed isn't common, but it's not complex in itself.

egypturnash5• 2 years ago

Patreon has been trying to kill it for like half the time I've been using Patreon. They haven't offered it as an option for new campaigns for years, and their last redesign completely removed what little data was available in the web UI - you wanna know how much money you can expect? Download a CSV and do it yourself, we can't be bothered to give you even the simplest data of "your next three posts will be worth $x, $y, and $z" any more.

I am pretty sure there were people at Patreon who said "Oh god finally we have an excuse to kick everyone off this damn thing". The writing's on the wall for this model, no Patreon clone ever offers it, and I sure do not want to cobble together my own version out of Wordpress plugins, or get involved in making a Patreon-like that does offer it and recapitulating the whole growth cycle of "oh god nazis are using my platform, what do I do about it" to "oh god now I have to make enough money to pay all these moderators" to "oh god we're big enough for the payment processors to notice how much porn we have and tell us to stop", and finally to "oh sweet fuck we're big enough for Apple to inform us that we must pay their tithe or leave iOS, are we big enough to hook up with Epic Games's suits".

Although if anyone on HN looks at that last paragraph of Growth Problems and says "sign me right the fuck up, convincing a bunch of VC money that they want to support the arts by running a Patreon-like at a loss for a decade and taking a couple tenths of a percent off of the top of the money flowing from fans to creators through my pipe sounds like a great way to spend a few years of my life", hey, I'll gladly give you input on your MVC, maybe even draw some art for your site or something.

sa-code• 2 years ago

Off topic: this was really entertaining to read, thanks

mvdtnz3• 2 years ago

We can't know if they wanted to kill it because of Apple or for some other reason. I don't see why they would want to kill it if it weren't for Apple.

Dylan168073• 2 years ago

Patreon really hates their good features.

Like the best one they've had, bundling every charge for the month into a single transaction so that $1 payments aren't wasting a huge percent.

whywhywhywhy3• 2 years ago

The world where Apple is just completely fine with Apple users paying $13 instead of $10 for a subscription if they do it through an app is an interesting one.

Obviously this makes a lot of money for them but when you think about it they must think very little of their customers treating them with disrespect like this. This is how 'Tim Cook's Apple' should be remembered.

Rinzler892• 2 years ago

Apple users (I'm not one of them) seem fine with that arrangement.

GaggiX• 2 years ago

Apple is making sure that it is not easy for Apple users to find out about this fee.

HDThoreaun4• 2 years ago

Apple users mostly don’t know about the fee and almost all of them didn’t know about it when they joined the apple ecosystem.

FireBeyond3• 2 years ago

In a survey of my non-technical friends, only a very small minority seemed to know that Apple took any cut whatsoever.

talldayo9• 2 years ago

We have to go further than that. Naming and shaming Tim Cook hasn't changed anything from Butterfly keyboards to cringeworthy "mother earth" interviews to exploitative Chinese manufacturing schemes. Apple doesn't speak your language, you can only communicate to them by showing them a world where they hurt.

So outlaw this. Follow the EU's lead and fix this decade-old problem that has damaged the progress of personal computing irreparably. Apple's legacy should be the least of their concerns when they're forced to pay the piper for what they've done. If their recompense was proportional to the money they've stolen from creators and developers then I doubt Apple would even be solvent.

nsxwolf• 2 years ago

Butterfly keyboards are gone.

sebazzz• 2 years ago

Usually schemes like this have terms like “you’re not allowed to offer a cheaper price outside the ecosystem”.

neongreen• 2 years ago

My understanding from reading the Apple v Epic court documents is that Apple is unique in that it doesn’t force cheaper prices outside the ecosystem. I might be wrong though.

lovethevoid5• 2 years ago

In Apples case they changed that several years ago so you can definitely charge your Apple users more.

However you will get the app rejected if you show any sign of showing users that you can buy it cheaper elsewhere than the Apple system. You can potentially get away with it by keeping things vague, but even then you might get rejected for “discouraging the in-app purchase system”. This doesnt apply to the EU in which these specific rules were changed very recently.

kmeisthax11• 2 years ago

The App Store model was specifically implemented and approved by Steve Jobs. There's old internal e-mails from him complaining about Amazon's reader app making it too easy to buy books without paying the (increasingly literal) Apple Tax.

In fact, the reason why antitrust lawsuits seem to never stick to Apple is because all the mens rea was stored in the mind of a guy who tried to cure his pancreatic cancer with fruit juice[0]. Everything Cook does as a businessman is just the "maximally extended" version of what Jobs either already did on a smaller scale, or had been planning on doing before dying.

The failings of any organization are more often than not the fault of the people who were in charge during the good times.

[0] Fructose speeds the growth of pancreatic cancer.

dangus4• 2 years ago

I'm going to guess that the antitrust lawsuits don't stick because iOS has a 27% global marketshare, and because Apple has a very well-paid legal department.

The difference between iOS and a game console in terms of antitrust law is "not a whole lot."

The EU has been able to get further with restricting Apple's policies because their laws and courts work a lot differently than the US courts. The EU is all about preserving an equal single market economy in every aspect of their economy. The US will let corproations do whatever they want until they are 1990s Microsoft-level dominant.

ReptileMan• 2 years ago

In fact, the reason why antitrust lawsuits seem to never stick to Apple is because all the mens rea was stored in the mind of a guy who tried to cure his pancreatic cancer with fruit juice[0]

You don't need antitrust. Just consumer rights.

karaterobot• 2 years ago

Not that I think Steve Jobs was a super nice guy, but he clearly cared about Apple's brand, including the part of about users and developers not thinking of them rapacious and hostile, which is sort of how I (and many others) view their pricing model today. I like to think he'd have seen how bad this choice has played out for Apple's brand and changed his position by now, if he were still around.

0cf8612b2e1e2• 2 years ago

  …him complaining about Amazon's reader app making it too easy to buy books without paying the (increasingly literal) Apple Tax.

Heh. Attempting to buy a book from the Kindle app was how I first became aware of these policies. Was fruitlessly searching for a buy button, but could not find anything. Did a web search to figure out why I was an idiot who could not spend my money. Only to discover that I was purposely getting a worse user experience because some mega corporations all wanted a taste of my transaction.

whywhywhywhy3• 2 years ago

Under Steve Jobs the company ate the fees not the users. You were not allowed to charge more in the app than via your site.

This is the difference I'm getting at: "We want a cut but our users shouldn't have to pay more" vs "We want a cut and our users can pay for it"

Which is why it's specifically the approach of Tim Cook's Apple to it's customers.

xnorswap• 2 years ago

Wouldn't Apple users have to pay $14.29 for there to be $10 left after a 30% cut?

NekkoDroid4• 2 years ago

Yes: https://twitter.com/KenneyNL/status/1822996361551184290

wmf2• 2 years ago

From Apple's perspective they say they are helping their customers with things like making subscriptions easy to cancel and Apple thinks that's genuinely worth 30%. The fact that Apple doesn't want their customers to know they are paying more is an interesting wrinkle though.

nicolas_t2• 2 years ago

That's funny, I actually hate Apple's subscriptions because they are a pain to cancel. My wife has an iphone, she travels regularly to different countries for work. Because apps on apple store regularly have country restrictions (apps are not available in different countries), she has multiple apple accounts to deal with that.

Now this is also a problem with Android (and it's the fault of the app developers), but Android make switching to a different account easy. Apple, doesn't. So, when you have 3-4 apple accounts and want to cancel subscriptions, it's a pita since you need to logout and login to whichever account has the subscription.

Now, you might think that's not a typical use case, but I can assure you that in South East Asia, a lot of iphone users have multiple accounts. One recurring thing about Apple products is that they are designed by people who are not internationally minded (see for example the fact that you can't change the currency when using apple pay in a website and recalculate the totals without stopping the entire flow, or the fact that dual sim in iphones is an after thought and badly designed)

nozzlegear3• 2 years ago

I mean, this is exactly why I go out of my way to pay for subscriptions via the App Store whenever I have a choice. I don't want to go through some rinkydink "please don't cancel bro" cancelation process on somebody's website, I'd rather just open the App Store and cancel it in one tap. Not to mention the subscriptions and purchases are automatically shared with my wife.

Andrew_nenakhov2• 2 years ago

Previously, Apple specifically prohibited charging more though AppStore for services that are available to be purchased elsewhere. I'm not in the mood to sift though current version of Apple's legalese, but I'd be surprised if they dropped this requirement, that'd be very uncharacteristic of them.

perfectstorm• 2 years ago

they didn't prohibit charging more for App Store purchases, they prohibited mentioning it in the app. i.e, you cannot mention something like 'purchase this in-app product for $3 cheaper on our website'.

zchrykng3• 2 years ago

It is actually 14.29. To give Apple 30% of the new payment, have to increase your original price by 42.9% or so.

jp572• 2 years ago

Why does Patreon need an app?

saurik• 2 years ago

If nothing else, to get consistent notifications from the creators you are a patron of, as Apple dragged their feet on web app notifications for many years, and they are still crippled and unreliable.

4ad• 2 years ago

So for nothing then.

wheybags• 2 years ago

Email works just fine? Seriously, absolutely hate the trend of making apps out of websites.

miiiiiike2• 2 years ago

I love Apple stuff. I'm all in, iPads, iPhones, AirPods, Apple TVs, HomePods various *Books everywhere.

I wish Patreon had more apps. It's a pain to watch videos on my TV. I have to mirror my iPad and keep tapping the screen to keep it from locking and ending the session.

But they're being forced to use a payment platform that they don't want to use and have to alter/drop one of their best features to do it.

Feels like getting a dry cleaning bill from the guy who stabbed you.

anonymoushn• 2 years ago

It sounds like the problem is that you're using a combination of devices that makes it unusually hard to just play a video from not-your-TV on your TV.

blue_dragon• 2 years ago

I agree with your sentiment. I tried the app a few years ago and found it offered nothing of value. Most content you can get by supporting an artist is best enjoyed outside the app anyway, like goodies they send in the mail or high-res art that looks better on a bigger screen.

The only use cases I can think of for an app are 1) Socializing with other supporters who support the same artist, and 2) Searching other creators on Patreon and discovering similar artists you could support.

But Patreon's social features were (still are?) terrible, which is why all the creators took their social communities to Discord instead. And ever since the beginning, Patreon has opposed adding search. So their app, to me, is totally worthless. I'm astonished they're still in business.

deegles• 2 years ago

I think it's fair to take a fee for payments through Apple's infrastructure... but 30% is egregious.

kllrnohj3• 2 years ago

Patreon doesn't currently and doesn't want to us Apple's infrastructure. They're being "forced" to do so, hence this post.

dirtsoc• 2 years ago

they should have just gone the same route as amazon with ebooks and removed the ability to subscribe in the app.

raverbashing2• 2 years ago

Or drop the app. And explain to everybody why you're doing this

Patreon works fine in a web browser.

Izkata• 2 years ago

Putting it in quotes is misleading, they are actually being forced:

Apple has also made clear that if creators on Patreon continue to use unsupported billing models or disable transactions in the iOS app, we will be at risk of having the entire app removed from their App Store.

RIMR• 2 years ago

Patreon should just remove the ability to subscribe from the app, and just offload the process to Safari. Let Patreon users purchase their memberships using Apple's own browser app. Let Apple decide if they want to try to take 30% of all transactions made using their browser and see how that works out for them.

vinceguidry• 2 years ago

If they tried that, Apple will just remove the app from the App Store.

moribvndvs• 2 years ago

Yes. If you have a link to a site that has the ability or even another link to another place where you can buy something, Apple will block publishing of your app. They pulled this on us earlier this year after three years of publishing with no problems. All we had was a link to our support site, which had a link to our main site (where you could buy a subscription), the latter we had to remove or they refused. In fact, if we even try to give users materials on subscription details or talk about (not even providing a link) how to find those details, Apple blocks it. They need to get smashed with the antitrust bat hard.

storafrid• 2 years ago

I hope the automatic price offset is separated out and labeled in the cart/checkout as "Apple's user fee".

lovethevoid5• 2 years ago

This isn’t allowed in the US, not sure about the new EU rules regarding this specifically. Best they can do is show a “deduction” only on web/other platforms that shows they’re getting it cheaper than iOS iirc.

inetknght2• 2 years ago

This isn’t allowed in the US

Can you cite the US law for it?

I think it's specifically Apple that doesn't want it because it would give more visibility to Apple's abusive behavior.

HDThoreaun4• 2 years ago

Apple doesn’t allow this

orangesite2• 2 years ago

That would be golden!

jmclnx• 2 years ago

Apple will be applying their 30% App Store fee to all new memberships purchased in the Patreon iOS app, in addition to anything bought in your Patreon shop.
remember, Apple’s fees are only in the iOS app. Your prices on the web and the Android app will remain completely unaffected.

If this means Apple will take 30% of funds I send to Patreon, then time to dump Apple Pay.

Yet another reason I avoid Apple, seems they are in a race with Microsoft to be the biggest abusers to their users.

mensetmanusman3• 2 years ago

I like being able to cancel subscriptions from the App Store, it’s a huge advantage because companies will usually try to make it difficult to cancel.

pornel• 2 years ago

Apple could add an API for 3rd party subscriptions to integrate with that screen.

But Apple prefers to insinuate that you either pay them 30% or get scammed, and there is absolutely no option in between.

mensetmanusman3• 2 years ago

30% is too high. Charge whatever Visa charges.

lenerdenator7• 2 years ago

Apple could add an API for 3rd party subscriptions to integrate with that screen.

They could. And the third parties would absolutely ignore it or make it a front door to their own subscription management, which could mean anything from something as simple as the current iOS subscription management (highly unlikely) or a link that opens a browser page that tells you to call a given phone number to cancel your subscription that is always "experiencing high call volumes" and "thanks you for your patience" after half-an-hour on the phone.

A service that is effectively un-cancelable really is the dream product: the person doesn't want it, so they don't actively use it (meaning you have no expense in providing it), but also don't want the hassle of putting up with your "are you sure?" tactics to cancel. Businesses make hundreds of millions of dollars annually on hard-to-cancel subscriptions in the US.

vehemenz• 2 years ago

I'll bet if you polled most people, even non-Apple customers, they'd be okay with paying a little extra for the convenience of an app store. The problem is that it's 30%.

atommclain• 2 years ago

I thought it was 15% for the first million in revenue, then 30%.

gumby2712• 2 years ago

The problem is that it's the only option across the OS. There's no reason this option couldn't exist with other options, built by the app developer so it cost Apple nothing.

orangesite2• 2 years ago

Will you still like it enough that you're willing to pay a 30% premium as more and more services start passing the Apple Tax on to the consumer?

This is why I love capitalism!

stalfosknight2• 2 years ago

Unequivocally, yes. I already do so.

FredPret6• 2 years ago

The beauty of capitalism is that you can choose.

You don't even have to have a smartphone at all and if you decide to have one, you don't HAVE to have an Apple device.

There are countless other brands to pick.

If you truly hate the 30% thing, then don't buy an iPhone.

wccrawford3• 2 years ago

While I agree that the peace of mind for subscribing through a service like Apple or Google is nice (or any other service that you know will be easy ahead of time), Patreon's model is the same. It's really easy to subscribe and unsubscribe from individual creators. There's no benefit to the user from adding Apple into the mix.

bogwog• 2 years ago

Fun fact: governments can solve both problems! They can break up monopolies AND regulate dark patterns.

gigel82• 2 years ago

Then you should get the option to pay a 30% surcharge for that privilege.

Others can choose to use virtual credit cards that come for free (or cheap) from their bank or privacy.com for that purpose.

mvdtnz3• 2 years ago

If you find this much value in it then you'd be happy to be shown the alternatives at -30% the cost and you'd still use it. But Apple doesn't allow users to see this information.

Kim_Bruning• 2 years ago

Does this scheme also apply in Europe?

stavros3• 2 years ago

I guess it must, unless you're using an alternative app store.

isodev• 2 years ago

Yes but the EC is busy fighting Apple on it. Until now the conversation was mostly focused around app developers, but of course it has implications for the actual activity behind every app (like the creators using Patreon and alike)

cf. https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/commission-sends-pr...

Rebuff5007• 2 years ago

If apple was a young startup, struggling to get market share, or struggling to turn a profit, I can understand why they might want a cut of profits here.

But they literally have more cash than anyone in the world... why bother with this?!

dosinga• 2 years ago

Ah, but isn't it the other way around? If you are a young startup without market share (but well funded), you don't care about the extra margin. Uber was cheap before it killed the taxis.

Mistletoe• 2 years ago

They have to make more and more money or their stock goes down. This is the gross world we live in now. There’s a reason Warren Buffett sold half of his Apple holdings. They’ve squeezed blood from the turnip about as much as you can.

bkraz3• 2 years ago

As a longtime YouTube creator who uses Patreon for financial support, the news is terrible: Patreon informed me that all creators must switch to a monthly subscription schedule instead of the per-creation schedule that I and many other currently use. The whole point of per-creation is that it allows me to take time off, and only charge people when I release something, thus incentivizing me, and being fair to my supporters. I'm really annoyed by this change, and will start pushing back, but if it happens as planned, I may be forced to switch to another platform, or come up with some other solution.

ThrowawayTestr• 2 years ago

If you're able, my artist friend has had a lot of success running their own site and doing their own payments through PayPal.

ncr1004• 2 years ago

Am I misunderstanding, that PayPal can workaround Apple's payment rules which Patreon is complying with?

ryan292• 2 years ago

How do they deal with the taxes?

yjftsjthsd-h• 2 years ago

1. Building and running your own site is a lot more work than using Patreon.

2. Now you're at PayPal's tender mercies, which... well, you do you, but I wouldn't advise it.

bluescrn3• 2 years ago

Everyone's heard horror stories about Paypal, though. Doesn't seem like a platform that you want to become too reliant on.

renewiltord• 2 years ago

How can another platform be better about this? Wouldn’t they be subject to the same thing? Or is there some component here that is not tied to the Apple demand?

bkraz3• 2 years ago

That's a great question! How far does Apple's control extend into markets that are unrelated to their core business? I always prefer using mobile websites on my own android phone instead of downloading apps because of security concerns and general notification spamming, ads, and annoyances, and it seems to me this would be a great solution ie just replacing "apps" with bookmarks. For the current situation, I may look into services like Nebula, doing PayPal directly, YouTube subscriptions and donations, or setting up an online store. Or even.... sponsored videos!! (just kidding)

jkaplowitz• 2 years ago

It’s bad, yes. It would be good if Patreon allowed sticking with the billing systems which Apple is forbidding, but I do understand that they may no longer be able to justify the business expense of maintaining them given the anticipated changes in usage patterns.

Practical suggestion:

Maybe you can project a certain number of releases per year, reduce that projection slightly to give yourself a margin of flexibility, announce that target to your supporters, be explicit wit them that the rate of output throughout the year will be uneven, and then charge a monthly subscription price of 1/12 of the total price for your annual target output?

Assuning a good projection would smoothly have approximately the same financial outcome for everyone as the status quo in most cases. I can think of ways in which this could be gamed, but most of those who would want to bother gaming it are probably cash-poor enough that you may not mind, or if too many people do this to preserve your financial objectives I can also think of workarounds for most of the potential abuses.

bkraz3• 2 years ago

Yes, it's a reasonable workaround. I believe Patreon also allows creators to "pause" their account, suspending payments for an indefinite amount of time. So, I could just keep the account paused, then unpause for a month when I make a video. Although, I believe that Patreon doesn't want the per-creation model themselves, since charging the same amount each month is simpler, and easier to project revenue, etc, so they are probably just bundling this unpopular change with the Apple announcement.

cesarb• 2 years ago

I've seen some creators on Patreon "pause" their monthly subscription when they have nothing to release on a given month, so that patrons won't be billed for that month. That could be a workaround for your use case.

danShumway42• 2 years ago

Do we know whether or not iOS's subscription model supports pausing?

I guess I assume Patreon would mention if it didn't.

stavros3• 2 years ago

I think the platform you should switch to here is Android. This is Apple's fault, Patreon doesn't seem like it likes the changes any more than you do.

spullara• 2 years ago

do you think that they can switch their customers platform? this comment doesn't make any sense at all.

heavyset_go3• 2 years ago

Google forces apps on the Play Store to use Google's payment methods and give them a 15% to 30% cut of revenue, as well.

You can sideload, but the duopoly exists and they're shaking 99.9% of users down for every dime they can get out of them.

inetknght2• 2 years ago

As a longtime YouTube creator who uses Patreon for financial support

How long until YouTube (Google) demand "their" cut of your Patreon income? What will you do then?

dvngnt_3• 2 years ago

pateron can upload an apk and bypass google's play store

johnnyanmac36• 2 years ago

I know what you are trying to do, but this is he host of an 800k channel. They already generate millions for youtube. Google will at best try to steer that channel to use Youtube's recent-ish dontation and memberships features.

No reason to disrupt money directly from someone they are paying; if they want to do it sneakily they simply change their payout rates and argue over that instead.

dannyobrien• 2 years ago

I don't understand why Patreon has to drop the per-creation model. Can they not just not offer that on iOS, and continue it on other platforms? (Perhaps with a "convert from susbcription to per-creation" feature online?)

rk06• 2 years ago

Most likely because this feature existed on iOS before

Uvix• 2 years ago

User confusion - if they block users from subscribing to those creators on iOS they will inevitably have support tickets to deal with it. Hence their 16-month project to remove non-iOS-compatible plans.

kmeisthax11• 2 years ago

From the article:

Apple has also made clear that if creators on Patreon continue to use unsupported billing models or disable transactions in the iOS app, we will be at risk of having the entire app removed from their App Store.

In other words, every Patreon creator has to be billable through iOS App Store or you get kicked off.

Someone should get the FTC or EU involved. This is beyond the pale.

kragen• 2 years ago

hey, i answered your email about aleph last wednesday; no stress if you're answering slowly, i just wanted to check to see if it had fallen into your spam filter

unfortunately i don't think i have any other way to contact you other than email and hn comments

squigz2• 2 years ago

The per-creation model isn't even offered to new Patreon accounts, or those that have switched away from it. I'm not sure why

AlexandrB• 2 years ago

Apple has quietly been one of the biggest culprits in the proliferation of subscription software. They still don't support upgrades/upgrade pricing. Subscriptions are also the easiest way to implement a software demo or trial in the App Store. Finally they use their control of the App Store to coerce anyone doing something different than monthly/yearly subscriptions into that model (as we see here).

It sucks big time.

derefr4• 2 years ago

They still don't support upgrades/upgrade pricing.

What would this mean, exactly?

You can sell people a demo→full-version permanent unlock as a one-time purchase, same as you can sell DLC in a game.

And you can also have subscription tiers, where you get more features out of the higher tiers of subscriptions.

And you can, in theory, freely mix these — e.g. charging someone a subscription for the base version, and then charging them a one-time fee to unlock a specific feature.

If you want, you could even charge for app features as consumables (just like F2P games do) — where you pay to have a block of credits that you use up, or you pay for one month and then have to buy it again when it runs out.

What's the missing revenue model here?

baby• 2 years ago

I really hate how the current pattern is

1. Download seemingly cool app on iOS (free with potential payments)

2. Go through a 30min quizz

3. Required to subscribe for $150/year to start using the app

It’s not free, it’s false advertising

daniel_reetz• 2 years ago

Don't forget censorship/banning of nude images. The tumblr fiasco (among others) was their doing.

api• 2 years ago

They've certainly encouraged subscriptions but the big driver is the drive for recurring revenue, which can be valued up to 20X what one-time revenue is valued. In some cases companies with investors are instructed to not even care about non-recurring revenue since it doesn't matter. Revenue is recurring or it doesn't exist.

Recurring revenue has always been highly valued. What changed is that the Internet and modern automated payment networks have made it so much easier to implement recurring revenue models. Now everything can be a subscription and now companies that don't have subscriptions are at a massive valuation and fund raising disadvantage. The more companies figure out how to add recurring revenue, the more companies have to figure out how to add recurring revenue.

This is why your car company, appliance company, etc. is trying to get you to subscribe to something.

jonny_eh• 2 years ago

Apple also takes a smaller share via subscriptions after a year (30% -> 15%).

AmVess• 2 years ago

It has basically made their app store completely unusable. I am not going to manage a bunch of subs for what amounts to zero effort crapware.

david_allison• 2 years ago

Not being able to set custom price points for subscriptions is also painful

giancarlostoro2• 2 years ago

The only way to put an end to this is if more people stop installing apps that are just website skins, and just use the open web instead.

xelamonster• 2 years ago

Yeah, though the problem with this is that from my experience with Android, the web version of Patreon is practically unusable. Not that the app is much better, they seem determined to come up with the most horrific UX anyone could imagine across all platforms, but it at least can somewhat consistently handle playing the podcasts I subscribe to without cutting out every five minutes.

kjkjadksj2• 2 years ago

Apps are now forcing you to use their website skin even though its damn easy to offer a mobile web alternative that doesn't squander ever precious local storage.

imzadi• 2 years ago

I don't think this is up to the consumer. The companies should just pull their apps from the Apple marketplace. If something can be a website, just be a website. Why even mess with an app at all? It's not like consumers are clamoring for these apps. Everyone I know hates that you have to have an app for everything these days.

maxglute• 2 years ago

Applied Science in the wild! Your videos look expensive, does per video patreons tend to cover them?

trainyperson• 2 years ago

Does Patreon let you see what percentage of your subscribers signed up through the iOS app?

kevin_thibedeau• 2 years ago

Write to your Representative and Senator Wyden before you switch.

egypturnash5• 2 years ago

Oh you too. Glad to know I'm not the only one who's really liked per-creation for years. "I pay my rent if I can do eight posts of comics pages/art/etc a month" was a good kick in the ass to keep working.

Patreon's been trying to kick everyone off of per-creation for like half the time I've been using it, so I'm sure they're pretty delighted to have this excuse to nuke that mode. I don't think I've seen a single Patreon-like that has it and I don't want it badly enough to try and cobble up something out of a few Wordpress plugins.

throwaway2906• 2 years ago

OG Patreon is monthly. The whole point is to support creator in tough times, not buy her stuff on discount.

tetrisgm• 2 years ago

Any chance we could chat about how per creation works? I'm working on a competitor. @shokuonproduct / "shokunin." On discord

RockRobotRock• 2 years ago

You are my favorite youtuber by a mile! I appreciate that you always prioritize quality over quantity in your videos.

neilv• 2 years ago

Since at least the 1980s, IT had the concepts of "open systems" and "interoperation", to support market competition and innovation. And we later did things like the Web and other open standards.

Then Apple comes along, and uses its market position as a hardware and OS vendor, to make a nonstandard software download thing that could've been a Web site.

In parallel, Apple also made open-standards Web apps unattractive on their hardware in various ways. (Often through foot-dragging when other vendors were trying to make Web apps a smooth experience, but sometimes also going out of their way to make Web work worse.) (See also: making kids look like losers to their peers in chat, if they don't have iPhones.)

Apple then imposes predatory rates and terms on other businesses who are pretty much forced to use the Apple proprietary app store, due not to the merits of the app store so much as Apple's dominance of hardware and conflict of interest when implementing open standards.

I assume many consumers don't understand the situation, and how much of an overbearing abuser of its market position Apple can be. Or they have some idea, but pragmatically have to accept it. Also, this affords Apple a lot of money for really first-rate PR.

What I don't understand is why regulators haven't smacked the snot out of the Apple app store, with finality. For example: Apple may only charge a few-percent administration and payment processing fee, and that's it; and they have to permit other app stores with first-class access to the system, as a compromise given the proprietary lock-in mess they've made. (Making them support other open standards better, even to the exclusion of prorietary ones, is more complicated.)

ncr1004• 2 years ago

I assume many consumers don't understand the situation, and how much of an overbearing abuser of its market position Apple can be.

Here is an awesome graph (scroll down 1 page) charting out the 3 options -- 1 web, and 2 overtly expensive for iOS.

https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/27991664769677...

reaperducer• 2 years ago

Since at least the 1980s, IT had the concepts of "open systems" and "interoperation", to support market competition and innovation. And we later did things like the Web and other open standards. Then Apple comes along,

Wow. I don't know if that's selective memory, or revisionist history, but you've got a huge dose of the stuff.

No, interoperability isn't perfect now, but it's a heck of a lot better than it was in the 80's.

pyrale5• 2 years ago

No, interoperability isn't perfect now, but it's a heck of a lot better than it was in the 80's.

It was much worse, but, surprisingly, the desire to improve it was much more widespread. Lots of hard work got done to make it, in your words, "a heck of a lot better". As a consequence, the design philosophy held by the people that had done that work then was that an open standard was a good thing (e.g. RSS).

Nowadays, though, it seems like the dominant philosophy is that creating walled gardens is better, and while interop is much better than it used to be in some aspects, the direction we're taking for new infrastructure isn't so good (e.g. messaging and the way the mainstream messaging apps disregard open standards).

RangerScience• 2 years ago

AFAICT, all the best things on the internet came from people giving things away; although usually with some kind of way to send them money later.

Open core, Royal Road / Patreon pipeline, Linux itself…

__loam3• 2 years ago

Apple is currently facing anti-trust action so it's not like regulators are sleeping on it.

underlipton2• 2 years ago

What I don't understand is why regulators haven't smacked the snot out of the Apple app store, with finality.

I imagine that part of it is that Apple's stock backstops a lot of activity in the financial markets. No one wants to kill the golden goose to protect "a bunch of Millennial and Zoomer phone addicts"; you have to remember, we're the cows everyone else is happy to milk dry for their own needs.

talldayo9• 2 years ago

Bingo - give this guy a cigar.

The EU had a tenuous relation with Apple from the start. Apple spent the past 20-odd years manipulating Irish subsidiaries to avoid paying a dime in taxes on any of their European operations. Despite being called out on it and partially settling the back-taxes in some jurisdictions, they still owe billions to multiple EU members they haven't payed back. There's no history of love, between Apple and Europe. They conspire against Apple because Apple conspires against them.

Then Apple had to kick the hornets nest and piss off the Dutch regulators with the Tinder case. Apple forfeit quickly but it set the stage for everyone else joining in on the fines. This was the perfect catalyst for the DMA and the DSA, which would be copied in other countries like Japan (which coincidentally also has tax feuds with Apple).

Good luck to the shareholders They won't take kindly to the news that the Apple of their eye is a big fruit-shaped bubble.

Rudism• 2 years ago

Due to their app store monopoly, Apple is probably one of the few companies whose version of enshittification often involves enshittifying the products and services of other companies.

advael2• 2 years ago

We need to kill the phone duopoly

A big part of it is restrictive and onerous standards on cellular firmware that act as a compliance moat for Apple and Google (and seem designed to enable surveillance more than anything), but if we fail to get open-source alternatives via commonsense regulatory reform the antitrust guns need to come out. When smartphones are often the only authentication mechanism accepted by major payment providers, workplaces, and other contexts that most people can't opt out of, a (fairly cozy, collaborating as often as they compete) duopoly on viable operating systems is unacceptable

bluescrn3• 2 years ago

We need to kill the phone duopoly

We also need to save the world wide web. Most of these 'apps' have no need to exist.

advael2• 2 years ago

Strongly agree, but the existence of platform-integrated DRM is a moral hazard that current incentives don't seem to have a mechanism for overcoming, and the only mechanisms that seem to work require open or at least regulated platforms

ensignavenger2• 2 years ago

What advantage does the Patreon app offer to iOS users that the Patreon website is unable to offer? Why does Patreon even need an app?

diebeforei4852• 2 years ago

Being able to consume Patron-exclusive content on the go, probably.

diebeforei4852• 2 years ago

iOS is the most-used platform for Patreon, according to the CEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-LoTH3PzgM (0:57)

TheDong• 2 years ago

There's a few things:

1. Some iOS users don't realize there even is a web browser, and only look for apps. If there's not an app, they give up.

2. The patreon app has features like playing music and video (patreon rewards), notifications (new posts and messages and such), etc.... and while those features would work for a webpage on android, they either don't work on iOS, or are more difficult to implement, buggy, and feel "non-native" for the user.

Notice how the other two replies assumed "web page" didn't mean "using safari on iOS". If hacker news commenters have trouble with the concept of "using a webpage, not an app, on iOS", what hope does the general populace have?

albertopv• 2 years ago

I think one of the reasons Apple feels entitled to do this is almost monopolistic US market share. People should stop buying iPhones for this, but it's not hard to foreseen it won't happen.

lenerdenator7• 2 years ago

Apple has a far from monopolistic US market share for mobile devices. They might be one of the largest single vendors, but if I want to go buy a new smartphone that has decent app and service support from the marketplace, I can absolutely do that without giving so much as a penny to Apple.

standardUser• 2 years ago

Apple has just over 60% of the US market share and employee a whole arsenal of tactics to create artificial friction with other platforms in order to increase that market share.

kelnos8• 2 years ago

I don't think this simplistic view of "monopoly" is all that useful today. This article, IMO, is proof of that: Apple is forcing an unrelated company to change something fundamental about how they take payments, which (negatively!) affects that company's customers (both patrons and creators), even those who do not use Apple products at all.

If that's not abuse of market power, I'm not sure what is, then.

iandanforth• 2 years ago

No mention of suing Apple, no mention of reducing their cut. Doesn't really seem like Patreon has got creators backs.

bjtitus• 2 years ago

I'm sure Patreon is just itching to take on the wealthiest company's legal department. Even the wealthiest nation states are struggling to reign this in.

intended2• 2 years ago

Their cut is 8%.

Apple's cut is 30%.

If Patreon went to 0%, creators will still be getting 22% less.

What would, according to you, be a good reduction on Patreon's side?

mrgoldenbrown2• 2 years ago

Patreon only takes 5%-12% , even if they gave it all up it wouldn't the Apple Tax.

nhggfu• 2 years ago

never build your house on rented land eh.

_han• 2 years ago

This is the most shocking part to me:

Apple has also made clear that if creators on Patreon […] disable transactions in the iOS app, we will be at risk of having the entire app removed from their App Store.

Absolutely astounding that removing transactions from the platform could result in being removed.

sschueller• 2 years ago

How is the EU going to respond to this since it is literally blackmail with Apple's market dominance?

nabla92• 2 years ago

When they respond Apple changes policy for EU users, not for anyone else.

Already users based in the European Union with an iPhone have the ability to install apps using alternative app marketplaces or web distribution, in addition to the App Store.

ryan292• 2 years ago

I wonder how far those rules from Apple go.

I don't know a ton about Patreon, but what if creators have exclusive content available via the app and use that to encourage fans to subscribe outside of iOS? What if creators start an education campaign on YouTube telling their fans to avoid subscriptions on iOS?

I wonder if Apple is playing with fire on this one. If the creator and influencer markets turn on them, I think it could have a non-trivial impact on Apple's brand, especially with younger generations. Many modern creators are also smart business people and they're not going to see much value in Apple taking 30% of their revenue when Patreon is already providing all the services they need for about 15% at the top end IIRC.

Right now I think the biggest change that could help the average consumer would be for legislators to allow, or maybe even require, app owners to split platform fees into separate line items. For example, something like:

    Donation              $1.00
    Patreon Platform Fee  $1.18
    Apple Platform Fee    $0.50
    ----------------------------
    Total                 $1.68

sunaookami• 2 years ago

WordPress had the same problem: https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/apple-says-wordpress-doesnt...

They had to remove payments completely so that it's a "free standalone app".

jzl5• 2 years ago

I strongly suspect Patreon is playing fast and loose with the wording here. Note they say “if creators on Patreon disable transactions…” but not “if Patreon were to disable all transactions.” I’m pretty sure they could still go the Audible route where they remove all mention and links to billing options off app. But Patreon doesn’t want to go that route across the board, they still want people to be able to sign up for things in app.

bsza• 2 years ago

Easy to fix, give creators an option to make all tiers cost one quadrillion USD on the iOS app (or whatever the upper limit is for in-app purchases). Technically they are complying with Apple's demands while also allowing creators to give Apple the finger.

dnissley• 2 years ago

This is what the world looks like when you give up the ability to download and install an app from anywhere.

jlarocco• 2 years ago

Why is there even a Patreon app? Should've sent people to the website.

You bought into the platform, so you have to pay by their rules.

trvz• 2 years ago

Why is there even a Patreon app?

Considering its tendency to overheat your phone even when displaying pure text posts, it's there so you can warm your hands in winter.

mrweasel2• 2 years ago

The Patreon website is equally shitty, at least it was when I last used it last year. Haven't tried the app though. So you hands should remain toasty.

But I do agree, why not just send Apple a big "fuck you" and create a really good mobile website?

Apple is still really pushing it with the 30%. I do agree that they should get cut, or straight up charge app developers a yearly fee for being in the App Store (which they already do with the developer licens), perhaps a smaller fee per update and a fee for using their subscriptions feature (which I do like as a consumer).

Patreon need to tread really carefully, because what Apple does not that different from Patreons own business model. Creators are similarly complaining about Patreons fees.

Still 30% is a lot, but I don't know what the actual cost of running the App Store is.

stalfosknight2• 2 years ago

As a user, I welcome this change if it means it becomes possible to easily cancel Patreon subscriptions with a single click in my device settings instead of having to go through Patreon’s cancellation process. Patreon makes it a completely unnecessary pain in the ass to cancel multiple subscriptions.

It seems like only Apple gives a shit about making things easy to cancel and I find it hard to have any empathy for companies / developers that make canceling things painful.

sersi• 2 years ago

I dislike Patreon because they keep making their UI worse over time but that said, I'm furious at apple for this. I like Patreon to allow creators to do per-creation schedule and I hate that Apple has enough power to impact me despite being an Android user (specifically because of these kind of behaviors).

So, to people who say that with only 27% of global marketshare there's no case for an antitrust lawsuit, well if they can impact users outside of their ecosystem, there's a clear case for antitrust.

__loam3• 2 years ago

DoJ agrees with you lol.

dinobones• 2 years ago

Not a fan of Apple's policy, but I am a fan of consistency.

It was unfair that Patreon was able to operate on the App Store without paying this 30% cut, it basically gave them a monopoly that no similar Patreon-like platform could compete with.

summerlight• 2 years ago

Even if we have to accept all the BS from Apple, at least customers should be aware of the information at the purchase time that they're paying 30% more money compared to other alternative options. This asymmetricity of information is playing good only for Apple at the cost of all the app creators and their customers.

neves• 2 years ago

Non North-American here. I've read that Biden passed a "Hidden costs" bill. Wouldn't this Apple charges account as a hidden cost?

wccrawford3• 2 years ago

You are presented the final cost up-front. There is no "hidden cost" here.

When you sign up for a hotel room and they add on room cleaning charges at the end of your stay, that's a hidden cost, especially since the charge is the same no matter what you do while you are there.

Ironically, "sales tax" feels like a hidden cost to me. Yes, everyone knows it exists, but not everyone knows what the local value is wherever they are, especially on vacation. It should be on the sign. I guess it's not surprising that the government exempts themselves from this law.

FredPret6• 2 years ago

The reason sales prices are quoted without tax in North America is because there's a million different permutations governing what the sales tax is going to be in different situations (who's buying what, from whom, where, when), and this changes all the time.

Local governments can shift their taxes at any time to encourage or discourage certain things. I'd argue this flexibility is very good, but the downside is calculating sales tax in the US is complex enough that there are companies dedicated to it.

So everyone quotes pre-tax pricing.

mandeepj• 2 years ago

Any reason why Patreon can't go Netflix/Spotify way? they charge their customers via the web thus bypassing Apple paywall.

jjcm2• 2 years ago

In my eyes the most egregious aspect of this is it’s a financial transaction between two people that they’re taking a 30% cut of. I see 30% as fine for things like IAP for digital games and such, but somehow in this lens it feels wrong.

One proposal for a compromise that would feel fair: Apple gets 30% of the app creator’s take rate.

IE if patreon’s take rate is 8%, Apple should get 30% of that, not 30% of the full transaction. This could generalize to physical goods as well. It would require more reporting, but would feel more fair in the eyes of the creators and the users.

I run a similar service to patreon where I charge a flat $1 fee on subscriptions, regardless of the size of the subscription. A $50 sub suddenly getting only $34 after my $1 fee and apple’s $15 fee feels wrong. There’s no amount I can reduce my take rate to cover Apple’s take. But I’m entirely ok giving them $0.30 on my $1 take.

Basically - I’m entirely OK having 30% of my net profits taken by Apple. I’m not ok with 30% of my gross.

0cf8612b2e1e2• 2 years ago

I expect Apple and platforms would not be happy with this model. Apple now has to trust that platforms are properly reporting their gross take. Platforms now have to give detailed financial records to a (potential) competitor.

The current situation with Apple as the middleman lets them ensure they get every dollar without any accounting shenanigans.

adamomada• 2 years ago

If it was a financial transaction between two people, then Apple couldn’t possibly take any cut of it.

0x6862• 2 years ago

They force you to use their billing system exclusively

stahtops2• 2 years ago

Developer + Guitarist makes an iOS app and sells $10/mo subscriptions to their guitar tabs in it.

Guitarist sells $10/mo subscriptions to their guitar tabs through the Patreon app.

Why should these be considered any different?

rbits• 2 years ago

What if it isn't an app, though. They're still taking a cut of it, even though they're not paying for anything related to apple. The only thing apple is doing is hosting the patreon app, not the thing being bought.

And if you think that it should be different when buying something that runs on an apple device, logically that should also apply when buying it from a computer.

verisimi• 2 years ago

Apple are really such filth. Imagine thinking it's ok to take 30% of every transaction like this, and like they already do on their app store. I don't know how anyone thinks this is ok. It's worse than credit card rates.

stahtops2• 2 years ago

Gotta be honest, I don't get the vitriol.

Patreon wants to advertise and publish content in an iOS app. Apple says you must allow in-app-purchases. Either there is value in being on the platform or there isn't. Patreon seems to think there is.

To creators there is no cost, by default the price of their subscription offerings will be bumped up so they get the same revenue. Patreon will also increase revenue by taking the same % of the higher overall price.

Users will have the choice of subscribing through iOS or through the website. If the higher cost from within the app isn't worth it to them, they will go to the website.

Who cares?

slaymaker1907• 2 years ago

This is so shitty, imagine taking 30% from donations to creators. It should only be 30% from the money that Patreon itself makes off of subscriptions.

inglor_cz• 2 years ago

Next step: if you do any transaction in your smart banking app, 30 per cent go to Apple.

dboreham• 2 years ago

Did I miss something? Did Apple acquire Patreon?

aftbit6• 2 years ago

As a Patreon user who primarily subscribes on a per-creation basis, I will be ending all of my affected subscriptions if they make this change. That was kinda the whole point of Patreon for me. I can support my creators but only if they actually produce some content. If they take a long break, they don't get any money from me, but they will also get paid automatically if and when they come back.

jobigoud2• 2 years ago

I use this model as a creator and I just hope/assume that my users will use the website instead of an app. It doesn't remove the per-creation model, it just makes it absent from the iOS app.

aftbit6• 2 years ago

Ah okay, that's fine then. I'll just keep using the per-creation model. I don't use Apple hardware so I won't even notice the change.

ed_voc• 2 years ago

I wonder what would happen if a third-party made an app for viewing Patreon content.

Would Apple accept that the third-party client cannot accept payments on Patreon’s behalf and not require the Apple tax?

tomcam• 2 years ago

Can’t Patreon just use a link to a website?

theturtle322• 2 years ago

Yay. More Enshittification and Chickenization due to monopsony power in a walled garden.

I hate it here.

bluescrn3• 2 years ago

Patreon shouldn't need an 'app' to begin with.

We have very capable web browsers on mobile these days.

sureIy2• 2 years ago

I don’t understand one part: why can’t a creator just decide to not appear in the app?

Are they changing the donation structure for everyone regardless of their interest of the Apple platform? Why should YouTubers be bothered by this change, for example.

ajdude• 2 years ago

They said that if they offer different options for people who are not in the app, Apple threatened to remove them from the App Store.

sureIy2• 2 years ago

I smell lawsuit. Apple should not force a company to change their ways outside the Apple ecosystem for a chance to publish an app. I bet the EU won’t like this one.

Havoc• 2 years ago

I can see a fee for facilitating...but that in my mind is 1% not 30%.

bangaladore5• 2 years ago

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.

popcalc• 2 years ago

would be no fee

Because fraud doesn't exist?

bangaladore5• 2 years ago

Why would Apple charge itself a platform fee? They are the platform.

Unless you are talking about CC fees, which are like 2% compared to the 30% that Apple is extorting you for.

Can you explain your comment?

Gud2• 2 years ago

What a total dick move by Apple. 30% of the money donated to independent creators will now go to Apple, the richest corporation in the world. How is this legal?

satellitemx• 2 years ago

According to App Review Guideline:

3.2.1 (vii) Apps may enable individual users to give a monetary gift to another individual without using in-app purchase, provided that (a) the gift is a completely optional choice by the giver, and (b) 100% of the funds go to the receiver of the gift. However, a gift that is connected to or associated at any point in time with receiving digital content or services must use in-app purchase.

Many years ago in China where WeChat said Apple was about to collect fees on reader's donation to writer's article (whether paywalled or not). WeChat was taking a cut on such donation. Later WeChat agreed to not taking such cut on donations and the payment not fullfilled by in-app purchase but rather WeChat Pay (as a means of fund transfer).

However, in the case of Patreon, often people are not donating to the creator, they are paying money to gain access to the creators' work (early access, exclusive membership content, etc.), thus Patreon is selling the product produced by creators.

Edit: I want to add that there should be a cut for Apple in this case, but not 30% or 15% (via subscription).

Gud2• 2 years ago

I don’t give a shit what’s written in Apples TOS. If they wrote they were entitled to a 10000% processing fee, would that be OK?

Apple are using their status as software/hardware vendor to force their users to use their App Store. This is obviously illegal. There is no excuse for this.

knallfrosch2• 2 years ago

30% of the money donated to independent creators will now go to Apple, the richest corporation in the world.

Can you guess how they became the richest corporation in the world? ;)

drewg1233• 2 years ago

The only reason I'd want to use a Patreon app over their website would be to play creator's videos on a large screen. As far as I can tell, they don't have an AppleTV app.

This, TBH, is why I've never supported a creator via Patreon, as I have no idea how I'd access a creator's supporter-only content in a way that was convenient for me.

crazygringo3• 2 years ago

Can't you just play a video from their website full-screen, and AirPlay that to your Apple TV?

AirPlay is the general way to get anything from your phone or Mac to your Apple TV.

drewg1233• 2 years ago

Airplay doesn't qualify as "convenient" for me. First is the frustration of even getting it to work, and second if I have a phone or mac open, I'll ignore the TV and get sucked into work instead of relaxing.

DrBenCarson• 2 years ago

I’m a huge Apple fan in general, but this isn’t right. Feels like a leader is getting ambitious, trying to squeeze revenue in a couple quarters instead of building new stuff that would generate new revenue

Maybe they have data suggesting people were using Patreon as an easy way around in-app payments?

Can’t imagine this generates enough revenue to offset the long-term reputation cost among creators (what I would imagine is disproportionately an Apple user base)

dzonga• 2 years ago

just use the web. porn companies do this and they're still in business.

uber / lyft etc i'm 98% certain don't pay apple tax.

xyst6• 2 years ago

It’s odd how Apple picks and chooses where to enforce this requirement.

Netflix has been using their own billing system for years, yet I can still download Netflix on iOS, tvOS app stores.

Makes me wonder if there is an under the table deal between Netflix and Apple.

On the topic of Patreon vs Apple. I am not a lawyer but this seems to have the same basis as the Epic Games vs Apple litigation.

shreddit• 2 years ago

AFAIK this is because you can not make changes to your subscription within the app. You have to visit the Netflix homepage. There is no “pay” button in Netflix, so they do not have to use apple’s payment system…

xyst6• 2 years ago

If this is the case, I don’t understand why Patreon and other sites cannot adopt the same approach. Very easy to remove buy buttons in apps, and redirect users to patreon.com to manage subscriptions for content creators and “per content” payments.

iOS and Google apps just used to view content.

Patreon is a relatively small company so velocity to complete this effort even amongst multiple teams should be at most a few weeks. If this was a Fortune 500, I would probably estimate it at 2-3 months.

matwood7• 2 years ago

I know for awhile Netflix had this weird thing where you called a phone number and they would direct you to the Netflix website to sign up.

It's not having their own billing system, but allowing purchases to be made in-app that triggers the requirement. Which as far as I can tell, Netflix does not allow. I just checked and I can't change my plan in the app.

xyst6• 2 years ago

Maybe Patreon could leverage this loop hole as well.

You can view content from creators in app. But only patreon.com can be used to manage subscriptions to each creator. No in-app purchases on Google or Apple App Stores.

UX takes a small hit, but better than giving up 27-30% to Apple or Google.

zombiwoof2• 2 years ago

Apple used to create products for creators. Now it creates revenue streams for investors

curious_cat_163• 2 years ago

Where is Lina Khan when you need her, eh?

timmytokyo• 2 years ago

I suspect we'll be hearing from her soon. She's not been shy about taking on anti-consumer monopoly behavior.

kelnos8• 2 years ago

And yet so many people here seem to think that Apple doesn't have monopoly power, and doesn't abuse their market position.

Go figure.

mcguire6• 2 years ago

I don't know Google's Android policy for Patreon, but I expect it is or will soon be similar, if the inability to buy ebooks from the Android apps is any precedent.

Walled gardens suck.

jocaal• 2 years ago

Walled gardens suck.

Let me fix that for you. uhuhm. Duopolies suck.

danShumway42• 2 years ago

Another point that Patreon isn't really emphasizing here that seems relevant to any conversations about "fairness" is that Apple's fees on Patreon subscriptions in-app are now higher than Patreon's fees.

It's important to recognize any time that we're talking about the market that services charge what they can, not what is fair. The market does not have a concept of fairness, only competition. This is why there is no such thing as a benevolent monopoly that charges fair prices - because fairness does not exist in the market, only competition.

BUT... since fairness gets so often brought into conversations about Apple's fees, often with the implicit suggestion that Apple "deserves" to be compensated for all of the work they're putting into hosting and curating apps and for (in heavy quotes) "creating" a market that they supposedly also don't have duopoly control over: does anybody want to argue that Apple hosting the Patreon app on iOS provides more value to Patreon subscribers and creators than the existence of Patreon itself does?

Like, if we're going to talk about what's egregious and what's not egregious, charging higher fees per-transaction than the platforms you are hosting seems like it might be a good indicator that things have gotten out of control.

queuebert2• 2 years ago

Kind of like how realtors make more money on a house transaction than the closing attorneys who draw up all the paperwork and execute it legally.

danShumway42• 2 years ago

Or, I would argue, like if a realtor made more money off of the sale than the person selling the house made.

frumper3• 2 years ago

I don't know if that is a good comparison. Our realtor has spent a lot of hours over the past few years showing us homes and writing up more than a few losing bids. It's not constant attention, but so far it's all unpaid.

Y_Y• 2 years ago

It's important to recognize any time that we're talking about the market that services charge what they can, not what is fair. The market does not have a concept of fairness, only competition. This is why there is no such thing as a benevolent monopoly that charges fair prices - because fairness does not exist in the market, only competition.

I agree with you that the reality of markets is quite different to the "common sense" model. Unfortunately I rarely find either in the press or just talking to people myself, that anyone gets beyond this kind of price=cost(1+a little incentive) thinking.

AmericanChopper• 2 years ago

I don't like this action form Apple, but I don't agree with your assessment of market economics here.

The problem with "fairness" is that there is no objective measure of it. Everybody evaluates fairness according to how it aligns with their own personal interests.

This is one of the key problems a free market economy solves. Price discovery is the intersection of what somebody's willing to sell something for, and what somebody else is willing to pay for it. Both of these parties will have a completely different idea of what's fair. That's why fairness is not a valid price discovery mechanism, and I don't think any free market economist has ever advocated for it.

Waterluvian• 2 years ago

Would this view conclude that there should never be regulation of any sort? Or is there possibly a level of “fairness” that’s evident to the average person?

frereubu• 2 years ago

I don't think the parent comment's main point was about using fairness to judge anything - the two main good I questions I got from it are (a) does Apple provide more utility in hosting the apps than the entire Patreon service? and (b) if not, doesn't the fact that it costs more show that something, somewhere is very wrong with the economic model?

I'm a mild advocate of the Apple ecosystem in that I really like the fact it all works together pretty flawlessly for me, with many security headaches taken off my plate. (I'm always reminded of this when every ten years or so I think about trying to save money with a Windows laptop and come running back). But I think the parent comment's suggestion that this isn't about fairness as such, but whether that kind of arrangement is egregiously wrong hits home, and it does make me feel that this is the kind of weird economics that can only come from an unhealthy duopoly of iOS and Android.

What to do about it? I'm not sure the parent or I have any particularly good answers...

danShumway42• 2 years ago

The problem with "fairness" is that there is no objective measure of it. Everybody evaluates fairness according to how it aligns with their own personal interests.

With respect, this sounds a little bit like you're agreeing with me?

Another way of phrasing "fairness is not a valid price discovery mechanism" might be to say that fairness as a concept "doesn't exist" in the market, only competition: ie, what people are willing to pay to acquire a service from the available options they have before them, ideally within an environment where low barrier-of-entry to the market allows prices to fall if a service can be legitimately offered cheaper elsewhere, and where regulation sets the (occasional) market cap on how exploitative businesses are able to be. Fairness as a concept is not applicable to market prices: they don't get set because they are "fair", they get set because businesses calculate the maximum amount that people are willing to pay for products before going to a competitor (assuming there is a competitor to go to).

BUT, if people on HN insist on bringing fairness into discussions about anti-competitive behavior (which very often happens in discussions about the app-store), I think that Apple's fees in this case, and the impacts they will have on small-market creators, are unlikely to line up with most people's personal evaluation of "fair".

A sibling comment phrased this in a really good way, I think this is a situation where regardless of how you feel about fairness, you can look at the market outcome and think, "wait a second, something is not right here."

AnthonyMouse6• 2 years ago

This is one of the key problems a free market economy solves.

This is one of the key problems a competitive free market economy solves. The distinction is particularly relevant in this case.

riku_iki3• 2 years ago

Another point that Patreon isn't really emphasizing here that seems relevant to any conversations about "fairness" is that Apple's fees on Patreon subscriptions in-app are now higher than Patreon's fees.

they are both rent seeking middle-men who abuse network effect, its just one has more power than another.

danShumway42• 2 years ago

This gets brought up a lot in conversations about Apple.

In one sense, I agree with it. Patreon is a rent-seeking middleman who abuses network effects. 100%.

But the creators on Patreon who's income are going to be most affected by this don't care about which side of the debate is more likeable to you, and I'm kind of sick of pretending that policies that affect a huge swath of people (often people with limited options, virtually no power, and few backup resources) can be treated like popularity contests.

The video essayists, programmers, artists, authors, and indies doing weird, wonderful work supported through Patreon get their revenue squeezed even tighter, being forced to either bleed revenue or subscribers due to new fees, being forced to abandon revenue models and subscription models that Apple doesn't like.. and, I mean, honestly, "I hate both companies" just is not a valid or acceptable response to that situation.

The solution to rent-seeking middlemen is not to make more of them.

johnnyanmac36• 2 years ago

I am curious, do you think there is an ethical way to be a middleman like this? Would making some one-time fee of maybe $1000 be more or less limiting to potential content creators on Patreon? Would a subscription to keep the Patreon page up be better?

Ultimately, Patreon isn't fundamentally doing something that even a non-tech user can't whip up for their own website. May need to resort to a payment processor (another middleman) to get donations going, but it's possible. I can take my ball home.

Current factors on IOS make it impossible to do the same on IOS, even post DMA they want to rent-seek outside of the App Store. I think that's what makes IOS worse in my eyes.

brookst2• 2 years ago

does anybody want to argue that Apple hosting the Patreon app on iOS provides more value to Patreon subscribers and creators than the existence of Patreon itself does?

I'll bite, kind of. People get emotional about particular companies so let's abstract them away: is it possible for a second-tier distributor to bring more value to a first-tier distributor than the first-tier brings to suppliers?

Looking at it that way, sure. It seems obvious. If a local distributor picks up a local product, and then a national distributor buys from the local distributor, it's pretty obvious that the national distributor brings more value.

Looping back to the specifics, if Apple was the primary means that people discover Patreon and the creators on it, sure, it would make sense. But for Patreon specifically that's not the case (I think). The economics would suggest that Patreon should do away with their iOS app, focus iOS users on the web, and everyone would be ahead.

baby_souffle2• 2 years ago

The economics would suggest that Patreon should do away with their iOS app, focus iOS users on the web, and everyone would be ahead.

Apple doesn’t let web apps do everything that native apps can do. Their App Store is the only way people get apps on their device and if a search for ‘patreon’ in the App Store returns nothing, that’s a lot of confused or angry people that are going to wonder what their monthly bill is for. Maybe some very low double digit percentage of these people will try to load a pwa from patreon.com

AnthonyMouse6• 2 years ago

Looking at it that way, sure. It seems obvious. If a local distributor picks up a local product, and then a national distributor buys from the local distributor, it's pretty obvious that the national distributor brings more value.

That isn't obvious at all. In both cases the distributor's margin will reflect how much competition they have. If there is only one distributor, their margin will be large. If there are a thousand, competition will force their margins down. Whether they're local or national.

Moreover, in this context Patreon is the national distributor who needs to distribute content to everyone whether they have iOS, Android, web or something else, and each of the platforms is a local subcontractor for a subset of the customers. Which leads to exactly the problem. The notion that Google and Apple are in competition with one another in this context is false, because to distribute to Android customers you need Google and to distribute to iOS customers you need Apple. You can't switch from one to the other because Google can't distribute to iOS customers. They're each a different market serving different customers, and then they collect a monopoly rent.

What the usual trope that analogizes this to Walmart or Target is missing is that "Walmart customers" are also customers of Target or Amazon, but the large majority of iOS customers are not also customers of Google Play or any other app store.

johnnyanmac36• 2 years ago

is it possible for a second-tier distributor to bring more value to a first-tier distributor than the first-tier brings to suppliers?

In the sense that [bigger company] can make more money and reach more people than [smaller company], yes. But if all they are doing is sitting there and using that bigger presence, you can see how that roads ends in antitrust.

The economics would suggest that Patreon should do away with their iOS app, focus iOS users on the web, and everyone would be ahead.

two big issues.

1. No one wins. Users lose the convinience of an app, Apple loses money from a potential large customer, Patreon loses views from being visible on the app store. It's just bad buzz all around for no good reason.

2. The underselling point that Apple has actively sabatoged web apps and PWA's which is part of why the DMA is coming down hard on them. We're well past a monopolistic power using its power to stifle competition.

Let's not pretend this trillion dollar company that already forces devs to use IOS hardware to develop (and took down their server OS's to boot), and charges a yearly membership to dev is scaping for cash here.

Spivak• 2 years ago

Does Honda bring more value to customers than your local dealership? The world may never know.

Does Warner Brothers being more value to customers than AMC?

ecjhdnc20252• 2 years ago

Another point that Patreon isn't really emphasizing here that seems relevant to any conversations about "fairness" is that Apple's fees on Patreon subscriptions in-app are now higher than Patreon's fees.

Unfortunately this is in the nature of suppliers and retailers.

Supermarkets make more profit on a litre of milk than farmers. Way way way more. Because they know farmers in practice have to sell _all_ their milk, not just some of it.

And what Apple really has, and knows it, is the only supermarket on the main road out of iBorough. And there are no corner shops.

throwaway484767• 2 years ago

Often milk is a 'loss leader' for supermarkets. They put it as far away from the entrance as possible so you have to walk through the whole store.

xyst6• 2 years ago

It’s time for tech (not just Apple) to be broken up. If only we haven’t defanged the regulatory agencies …

hermitdev• 2 years ago

It’s time for tech (not just Apple) to be broken up. If only we haven’t defanged the regulatory agencies …

I think you mean we should de-FAANG the regulatory agencies.

simonh• 2 years ago

Broken up in what way, and how would it help?

brigadier1324• 2 years ago

Apple doesnt need to be broken up, they just need to be forced to open their devices. No proprietary apis that only they have access to, when you open the phone for the first time you should be able to pick what store to use and they have to allow alternative browsers

lmm• 2 years ago

Nah, just Apple. Whenever any other tech company tries bullshit like this, alternatives pop up and people switch to them. When Apple tries it people make excuses for them.

jasonfarnon• 2 years ago

If only we haven’t defanged the regulatory agencies …

FTC is more active than it's ever been under Liza Khan, particularly in this sphere

s1artibartfast2• 2 years ago

Fair is what two consenting adults agree to in the market place.

does anybody want to argue that Apple hosting the Patreon app on iOS provides more value to Patreon subscribers and creators than the existence of Patreon itself does?

I will. If most apple users refuse to go outside the app store for their content, Than clearly they care more about the ease of access than the content itself.

I agree that the high proportion t of take between the two firms says a lot about the state of the market. It also says a lot about the users, and what they care about.

I think people are shocked by these outcomes because they aren't used to thinking about transaction costs as meaningful. Transfer, trust, and triangulation are critical parts of an exchange, and their costs can be even greater than the good itself.

brigadier1324• 2 years ago

Fair is what two consenting adults agree to in the market place.

This has been known to not be true since capitalism was first conceived. I am the biggest free market capitalism proponent and what apple has on their app store is not free market capitalism, its pure rent seeking.

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

danShumway42• 2 years ago

If most apple users refuse to go outside the app store for their content, Than clearly they care more about the ease of access than the content itself.

Does Apple's refusal to allow apps to tell users about lower prices elsewhere make this claim more likely to be true or less likely to be true? If this is a free choice that consumers are making, why does Apple need to hide it from them?

I'm reminded of the same arguments that Facebook made about privacy before Apple (very much to their credit) made opt-outs a requirement for apps. And it turned out that lots of users did care about privacy when they were able to make an informed choice about it. Facebook's arguments ended up being mostly crap. Users, when educated and when given valid options, stopped making the choice that Facebook wanted them to make.

But now Apple has flipped over to Facebook's line of reasoning and is arguing the opposite.

I think your argument would have more weight if Apple didn't consistently demonstrate aggression and fear over their users being informed about the effects of app store fees. In this case, the vast majority of Patreon subscriptions for most users are going to become 30% more expensive. Apple appears to have an incredibly high vested interest in it not being explained to them why that happened.

That doesn't sound to me like Apple itself is confident that users value their app store enough to pay that fee willingly.

hamandcheese• 2 years ago

If most apple users refuse to go outside the app store for their content, Than clearly they care more about the ease of access than the content itself.

You can't really argue that it's a fair choice when Apple does everything in their power to make going outside their walls a worse experience.

Case in point, they hobble WebKit, but also forbid any alternative to WebKit. Are users choosing WebKit? Nope.

DataDive2• 2 years ago

does anybody want to argue that Apple hosting the Patreon app on iOS provides more value to Patreon subscribers and creators than the existence of Patreon itself does?

There is a video link on the page from the original post where the Patreon CEO explains and reiterates the issues.

Notably, at one point, he says that Apple Platform brings in the most money to Patreon.

So there, looks like Apple brings in the money for Patreon. Apple seems to want a cut of that.

ToucanLoucan2• 2 years ago

Importantly at one point he says that Apple lpatform brings in the most money to Patreon.

I'm not surprised.

The dirty little secret people won't talk about is that monetizing anything is so much easier on iOS because Apple users have, in some combination, more disposable income to offer, and are more willing to spend money.

This has been the elephant in the room for my entire career, almost 11 years working in apps. Monetizing on Apple is easier. Getting Apple users to put down money for good software is easier, and Apple users will pay more for the software they want.

There's a lot of reasons for this, many of them socioeconomic in nature that mark out the differences between your average iPhone user and your average Android user, and I don't want to get into that quagmire and be called elitist: all I'm saying is, when Patreon says the vast majority of patrons are buying from iOS powered devices, between iOS being easier to monetize and the general populace being on their phones far more than their computers; yeah that makes complete fucking sense to me. I believe him.

ZoomerCretin• 2 years ago

American-manufactured automobiles bring in the majority of money to drive-thru restaurants too. Should they get a cut of drive-thru restaurants' revenue?

danShumway42• 2 years ago

"a cut of that" is doing a heck of a lot of work here to handwave the amount they're asking for.

A "cut" in this case means such a high percentage of the transaction that if Patreon didn't pass the extra cost on to consumers/creators, they would make negative dollars on each iOS subscription. That really genuinely does not strike you as odd at all?

It doesn't strike you as weird or maybe like a possibly negative market effect that Patreon as a platform should be more profitable for Apple than it is for Patreon? I think most people would say that's a signal that something might be going wrong.

lapcat9• 2 years ago

So there, looks like Apple brings in the money for Patreon.

Apple users bring in the money for Patreon.

I own an iPhone. I am not Apple, and Apple does not own me. Why should Apple be able to charge money for "access" to me, as if I were a prostitute and Apple my pimp? I'm simply using a computer, which I paid for.

prmoustache• 2 years ago

If you can afford an iphone, you can afford sending money to a number of random strangers without seeing a blip in your monthly budget. That is pretty much the reality.

Terretta7• 2 years ago

Does anybody want to argue that Apple hosting the Patreon app on iOS provides more value to Patreon subscribers and creators than the existence of Patreon itself does?

This isn't a Creators/Patreon/Apple phenomenon, this is a consumers/distributors/(publishers|labels)/creators phenomenon.

See page 12:

https://articles.unesco.org/creativity/sites/default/files/m...

danShumway42• 2 years ago

"Apple isn't being doing anything bad, they're just like the music industry" is a heck of an argument to make. Do you think the average person would argue that the music industry isn't exploitative?

xhkkffbf• 2 years ago

Let's take this to an extreme. Imagine an app that does little except thread together the basic UI components provided by iOS. In other words, something that most people here could write in an afternoon. Now imagine it ends up on the Apple marketplace. Given how much work goes into building iOS, the UX, and the app store, by your argument Apple should get 99.9% of the fees. The person who created the app just spent a few hours and Apple spent bazillions of hours (amortized over many apps).

danShumway42• 2 years ago

by your argument Apple should get 99.9% of the fees

No, by my argument, even if someone believes that Apple is somehow morally entitled to a specific level of compensation for running the app store, it is absurd to argue that the amount of work they're putting into making specifically the Patreon app available is higher than the amount of work that was put into building Patreon.

If you want to argue that they're not morally entitled to a certain percentage of revenue, great! Then let's talk unemotionally about antitrust, customer steering, and effective market competition without falling into the trap of worrying about whether or not Apple is getting "bullied" by that discussion.

The trap that people fall into so often when talking about Apple is trying to set this up like there's a hero and a villain, like people looking at the market are somehow trying to bully Apple out of something it justly deserves. But come on; when you see market effects like this it becomes so much more obvious that if there is any bully here, it's Apple.

"You can't reasonably expect Apple to-" Nah, this market outcome is bad. This is not the outcome that most of us want from an app store market. We should do things to make that market more competitive and to curb anti-competitive app-store policies.

wkat42425• 2 years ago

But the app ecosystem is also a selling point for users to actually buy an iPhone, on which they already make a huge margin compared to the rest of the industry.

bigiain• 2 years ago

I wonder how much of the software you're proposing Apple get paid 99.9% for is open source? (Including the xkcd-famous "one guy in Nebraska" who's been doing his thing for over 20 years)?

How much do all the contributors of these projects get paid?

https://opensource.apple.com/projects/

And all the stuff not listed there too, like OpenSSH, curl, all those little things that pretty much _every_ OS uses?

And the predecessors? BSD, Mach, FreeBSD...

gus_massa2• 2 years ago

One important feature is that in the Apple store the consumer is sure that the unsubscribe button works immediately. Not weird tricks to keep you subscribed forever.

ClumsyPilot2• 2 years ago

This should be a federal law, and if such button does not exist than a email or letter should be a legally mandated fallback.

Taking money after cancellation should be treated as thert

danShumway42• 2 years ago

I hate when companies try to draw out or sidestep attempts to unsubscribe, it's a huge issue with subscription services. I'm really encouraged about recent pushes to ban this kind of behavior.

That being said, I've just checked and Patreon does not appear to block or sidestep attempts to unsubscribe from a creator. It's two clicks, you hit "cancel membership" and then the confirm button.

I'm open to claims that Apple's system might still be marginally more convenient (you do have to go to the actual creator page in order to unsubscribe, which is a little inconvenient, I guess).

But is it so much more convenient that most users would literally pay 30% extra on every one of their subscriptions in order to use it? And even if it is, isn't that something that users should be able to choose as an educated decision instead of it being Apple policy for Patreon to not be allowed to tell users in the app that other payment methods exist?

anomaly_• 2 years ago

Only people who have zero understanding of the value of distribution in business would write this. Apple provides tremendous value to app developers.

danShumway42• 2 years ago

If we were having this conversation in the late 1800s I'm pretty sure that you would be arguing to me right now that the trans-continental railroad provides "tremendous value" to shippers.

It's become an increasingly common argument in discussions about Apple to phrase their value as one of "distribution", or sometimes less subtly as "access." But no one would ever credibly argue that the actual physical distribution costs, hosting, and bandwidth of the Patreon app is more valuable than the entire platform itself. That would be absurd. Instead, what people actually argue is that access to Apple users is the value that Apple quote-unquote "creates"[0].

I think a lot of people look at this and see it for what it is: rent seeking. But it's a marvel of the modern tech landscape that we've trained so many people to not only accept that they are the product for the platforms they use, but taught them to be proud of being a product. We've gotten people to come around to the idea that companies have done such a good job turning them into a product that the companies now somehow deserve some kind of special reward for doing so.

Excessive use of customers as bargaining chips inevitably creates bad incentives for companies, which become increasingly defensive of their "assets" and increasingly more and more hostile to consumer choice and freedom to move from ecosystem to ecosystem. These negative effects play out again and again in multiple industries both inside and outside of tech, to the detriment of both consumers and the overall markets. But when tech companies come up (whether we're talking about Apple, or Steam, or Nintendo, or whatever) -- for some weird reason people suddenly become very defensive about the rights of companies to treat them like cattle.

TLDR, no, access to iPhone users is not Apple providing value to app developers. It's just rent seeking.

----

[0]: As if iPhone users would somehow stop using smartphones now if the iPhone went away.

cortesoft3• 2 years ago

does anybody want to argue that Apple hosting the Patreon app on iOS provides more value to Patreon subscribers and creators than the existence of Patreon itself does?

Well, there is a simple way to test this... just get rid of the Patreon iOS app and just use a web version. Why does patreon need its own app? Why can't it just be web based?

I wish fewer companies had apps. I don't need an app for everything. I don't need every hotel I stay at to have their own app, I don't need an app to order food at a restaurant.

So why do companies make them? Because people spend more money when they can just use the in app purchase functionality. It is CLEARLY worth the 30% to most companies, because they keep pumping out single use apps that would be better as a mobile web page.

Dylan168073• 2 years ago

How many of the apps you're complaining about are paying 30% to Apple? Hotels and restaurants definitely aren't.

Also a lot of companies make apps so they can get more tracking info. That value doesn't come from the Apple Store.

It's things like games that really get an advantage from being native and in the store. And that's largely a red queen's race, they need to stay on top and they'll pay out the nose to be the easiest install. Paying lots of money in a zero-sum situation doesn't mean they're getting much value in a more zoomed-out sense.

rottencupcakes• 2 years ago

When a mobile web page uses apple pay, does it also give 30% to apple?

If not, what’s the difference between it and an app?

beeboobaa32• 2 years ago

Why does patreon need its own app? Why can't it just be web based?

because apple gimps their web browser capabilities & performance to incentivize developers to enter the walled garden

chokma• 2 years ago

Why does patreon need its own app?

Wondering about that, too - I always use the website on my ipad since a browser allows me to enlarge the font size when reading novels on Patreon (a feature that the app does not offer).

soulofmischief• 2 years ago

It's also an issue of onboarding and discoverability. Creators would see a marked reduction in subscriptions if Patreon was not allowed placement in the app store.

petre3• 2 years ago

Why does patreon need its own app? Why can't it just be web based?

Apple & Google Pay is my guess. Which I don't use, just because it's rent seeking and leads to this.

I use the websites. Don't want to install bloody apps which request every permission available. My browser has most of those set to denied. Don't even ask for permission, outright deny.

Nekorosu• 2 years ago

Heh. I didn't even know there was a Patreon app. There is an issue though. A lot of people (not me) use phone as their main computing device. And Apple is well known for keeping web app experience subpar compared to native app experience. Safari is lagging behind all the other browsers regarding modern APIs support. Bugs are not getting patched for years. At the same time other web rendering engines are not allowed on the main official app store. The other app stores are hard to get to and I consider them non-existent for regular users.

So, platform developers have to take iOS support very seriously or miss a lot of profit.

kwanbix2• 2 years ago

30% is deliriously high. Make it 10% and maybe then we can talk.

tonyhart7• 2 years ago

more and more people use mobile phone than ever and less and less people do googling and use "Apps" than bookmarking link to a website

You may not like it but programmer reading news in HN is not common in global scale

plus mobile apps is just value added, same reason you have dekstop app vs webapp

bankcust083856• 2 years ago

Yep. If I were Patreon, I would ditch the iOS app. Apple doesn't deserve a 30% gotcha capitalism mafia extortion fee.

grecy2• 2 years ago

I’m a creator and have many supporters on patreon.

I didn’t know there is an app and I don’t care.

majani• 2 years ago

Actually Patreon has played it perfectly by offering an android app, ios app and a website, and increasing the prices on the ios app to cater for the fees. The next thing should be to provide a clear notice on the ios app that lower prices can be found on the other apps. Then they will be able to objectively tell how many people value the app store's value additions enough to pay extra

raverbashing2• 2 years ago

There's an advantage to using in-app purchases when you doubt the developer, so either you think they're going to overcharge you or make it difficult to cancel. However this is not the case with Patreon

So I don't know what's the case here, but sounds like people who get confused by bubbles of different colors

GeekyBear2• 2 years ago

Why does patreon need its own app? Why can't it just be web based?

There is the simple solution taken by companies like Spotify and Netflix.

Have a free app for users, but only accept payments through your own website.

In which case, Apple doesn't get a dime.

CivBase2• 2 years ago

Why does patreon need its own app?

Notifications. Performance. Responsiveness. Bandwidth. Offline access. And a lot of users simply find apps to be more convenient than browser bookmarks. I use the web interface for Patreon, but I can see why some users would want the app.

Why does Apple themselves have apps for things like maps, news, stocks, weather, video chats, etc? These all rely on web services and could theoretically be handled in the browser. I don't think any of these examples even provide users the ability to buy anything. Clearly Apple recognizes a value in some services being available through native mobile apps.

JKCalhoun• 2 years ago

So why do companies make them? Because people spend more money when they can just use the in app purchase functionality.

I assumed it was so they could skirt around the privacy built more consistently into web browsers. Or that they are still stuck in the "There's an app for that" era that I think we have collectively left behind.

dcow2• 2 years ago

It is CLEARLY worth the 30% to most companies, because they keep pumping out single use apps that would be better as a mobile web page.

Based on the context given in the OP, this conclusion does not follow and is not fair.

1. Patreon is passing the 30% on to customers by default, or allowing creators to pay for it out of their existing income, so Patreon isn’t making any value judgement at all. They are leaving it up to creators and users.

2. Even if they weren’t doing (1), there are other factors in play that don’t make this a fair “experiment”. Most notably that established platforms like Amazon and Spotify _don’t_ find the value here, contradicting your assertion that most companies do.

Note: I didn't think Apple historically allowed (1), which also invalidates the “experiment”, but maybe terms have changed recently.

jms703• 2 years ago

YES. So much this. Patreon doesn't even mention the web version in their blog post.

Stop making apps when a website will suffice.

Reubachi• 2 years ago

Patreon allows creators to for a fee serve additional media content via it's app which is agnostic of media type. (IE music, coding, youtube etc.)

Most people pay for things for convenience and perceived value. There is very little convience or perceived value in having to go to a mobile/safari/ios website, log in, and then download a for example 1gig podcast tothen have to find it in my "downloads" and then play via some media player.

Retric3• 2 years ago

Not all parties to a transaction provide value to everyone in a transaction. A union, lawyer, real estate agent, etc is optimizing value for one party but not both. As long as one side of a transaction has a monopoly you can end up with “middlemen” favoring the side that picks them, thus why Ticketmaster still exists.

Patroon is chosen by content creators not customers as such its goal is creating value for content creators not customers. As a customer it’s providing negative value with their policies to immediately cancel service the instant someone unsubscribes rather than letting the month play out etc. Thus why their website can be so unbelievably terrible for customers and yet they stay in business. So for customers Apple/Google/whatever may provide literally infinite more value not because it’s significant but because they are on their side.

danShumway42• 2 years ago

Does Apple's change do anything at all to help alleviate any of the concerns you have?

You have fewer subscriptions options for creators (1st-of-month billing and per-release billing is going away, despite the fact that creators regularly use them to simplify the experience for subscribers). You're going to pay more (I promise you, creators on Patreon are not rich enough to swallow a 30% transaction fee on iOS subscriptions). You're going to use the same app that you were using before. And this will change nothing about when Patreon cuts off service when you unsubscribe (incidentally, I'm pretty sure this is a creator decision and creators can choose to extend benefits to the end of the month).

What is Apple doing that is making any of this better for you?

Maybe you sort-of marginally have an easier time unsubscribing? But it's not hard to unsubscribe from a Patreon tier, and it's difficult to argue that Apple is providing infinite value by organizing your subscriptions into a list.

What are you actually paying this fee to Apple for? They're "on your side" except in the sense where them being on your side creates any tangible or significant change in your experience using Patreon. Seriously, what about the iOS experience using Patreon is better (or even different) than the experience elsewhere?

johnnyanmac36• 2 years ago

As a customer it’s providing negative value with their policies to immediately cancel service the instant someone unsubscribes rather than letting the month play out etc.

is this recent? I definitely remember my service playing out the month when I cancel subs. Because for most subscriptions period I cancel the moment I subscribe.

I think the caveat here is that you are charged on the first, no matter when you sub. Be it on the 2nd or the 28th. But generally I can still access that month's rewards, so it's still not as bad as it could be.

twodave• 2 years ago

I would probably sooner point out that by far the most money Apple makes off of their platform (and you don’t even have to look this up or have inside knowledge to know it is true) is from a TON of addicts gambling on gacha boxes in pointless video games. They are incentivized by predatory behavior.

Edit: seriously, even the casinos and bars will eventually tell you you’re done.

johnnyanmac36• 2 years ago

and you don’t even have to look this up

It wasn't surprising, but having hard facts always helps. Apple v. Epic revealed Apple makes 70% of app store revenue from mobile games, which is generated by less than 10% of app store users:

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/10/apple-vs-epic-70percent-of-a...

tshaddox5• 2 years ago

does anybody want to argue that Apple hosting the Patreon app on iOS provides more value to Patreon subscribers and creators than the existence of Patreon itself does?

For people who would never give Patreon money by going to Patreon’s website? Sure, why not? That sounds like a niche market that Patreon would be completely unable to participate in without Apple’s help.

danShumway42• 2 years ago

Sounds like a fun experiment. I'd be interested in Apple allowing Patreon to test that theory by disabling purchases within the app. Is this really about access to a niche user group of users who would never sign up elsewhere?

Apple seems to be very invested in forcing Patreon to either not be in the app store at all (and given the limitations of web apps, this is a significant penalty), or offer exclusively Apple payments in the app. Then Apple goes a step further with rules blocking Patreon showing links to other purchase methods in the app. These are not the actions of a company that believes that its users can be trusted not to make a purchase elsewhere.

If these users would never give Patreon money by going to Patreon's website, Apple wouldn't be scared of a link to the website payment options inside of the app. But they are scared of that, because they know that many of their users would choose to pay less online if they were informed about the choice or if Patreon decided not to offer payment options in the app.

I think the fact that Apple is (according to Patreon) not offering a choice of whether or not to accept payments in the app pokes a lot of holes in the idea that iOS users would never use a website to subscribe.

classified• 2 years ago

fairness does not exist in the market, only competition.

The first part is undoubtedly true, but competition doesn't exist here either. That Apple is getting away with their anti-competitive practices is a full-blown scandal.

okeuro49• 2 years ago

The market does not have a concept of fairness, only competition.

The market exists through legal means, which also include mechanisms for fair competition.

judge2020• 2 years ago

for all of the work they're putting into hosting and curating apps and for

More for creating the OS, releasing updates for free to all users, and licensing new and existing developer APIs for free to all iOS developers in perpetuity.

In lieu of their app store fee you get Unreal Engine-style licensing anyways where a percentage of your revenue becomes subject to royalties.

dbenn8• 2 years ago

As a small b2c low cost subscription app provider I was initially taken back by the fees of the app/play stores.

However, after looking at the competitive international payment processing and tax management solutions available, the fees started to make a lot more sense. Just the fact that there's no transaction fee on top of the percentage they take makes charging a low monthly fee much more competitive. Once you add in not having to think at all about how much tax to charge in each local, how to report on it, etc, the cost side became much more reasonable.

And the reduced friction and trust concerns for users when they know it's apple managing their financial data instead of a small business is pretty significant as well as others have pointed out.

Would I like to be charged less for all these benefits? OF COURSE. Is the service they provide to smaller businesses with under $1mil in annual revenue a decent ROI? I think it probably is.

audunw• 2 years ago

I agree that Apple should be pressured to allow alternative modes of payment and/or lower fees in more cases. The duopoly problem you talk about is a real and serious issue.

But on this point:

often with the implicit suggestion that Apple "deserves" to be compensated for all of the work they're putting into hosting and curating apps

This is a huge misunderstanding about what these fees are actually for. I remember a time when major operating system updates cost a fair bit of money. The kind of free significant feature updates we see for phones these days were almost completely unheard of both in the PC and the phone market.

Apple now provides fairly significant feature updates for phones/tablets, going back many years. The App Store business model is what incentivizes this development. Doesn't matter if you don't buy a new phone.. they still make a fair bit of money on you when you use the App Store.

The App Store fees are not to cover hosting/review. It's a way to get a continuous revenue stream from the users of their hardware/software. There is only one realistic alternative to this business model: to use more advertising to extract value out of your users.. which is the path Microsoft and Google seems to be heading in. Neither is ideal. But IMO it's good that there are at least two options with different approaches to this, so we have a bit of choice.

A third alternative would be going back to paying for major OS updates. But I don't think that business model is viable anymore. People expect free updates.

danShumway42• 2 years ago

Currently the majority of Apple's Safari revenue comes from Google search deals.

Do you believe that if Apple got rid of those deals, it would be justified in applying similar restrictions in Safari to support development of the browser? What incentivizes them to build a functioning browser? Is it feasible to have an Open web while incentivizing the massive amount of work required to build browsers and web APIs?

And if so, what is different about native APIs?

putlake• 2 years ago

I don't know why you are getting downvoted except that your opinion is unpopular in this thread. It's a legit counterargument though. However, speaking for myself as an N of 1, the reason I buy an iPhone is because of the assurance that it will receive updates -- especially security updates -- for several years. Android doesn't seem to hold that promise.

My last Android phone was an HTC that came out with this promise of delivering Android updates within 15 days -- a promise they did not keep. https://www.engadget.com/2016-08-25-htc-one-a9-android-updat...

AndyKelley2• 2 years ago

I think we should strive for making all "middle-man" platforms non-profits. App stores should be run by non-profits. Food delivery platforms should be non-profits. Rideshare platforms should be non-profits. I think it's the only way to defend against the natural process of enshittification that occurs when the platform itself is has a conflict of interest from the two parties that it connects.

That goes for Patreon itself by the way - why in the world is a platform for connecting creators to fans itself a for-profit entity? A non-profit would be able to offer significantly less transaction fees - for example, Every.org. There's also the question of what Patreon's "exit strategy" will be...

joemi• 2 years ago

This is an interesting idea. Though I think it'll be tough to differentiate what exactly constitutes a middle man, and therefore hard/impossible to enact. Would marketplaces (such as Amazon) be considered a middle man? If so, good luck making any traction on this plan. If not, then why would app stores be considered middle men if Amazon isn't? It would have to come down to some very particular and very exact legal points, and you can bet every middle man would try very hard to be just barely on the OK side of the law.

AndyKelley2• 2 years ago

Yeah you could try to enforce it with a law, that's one strategy. But there's also the strategy of just getting in there and outcompeting the encumbents! As a consumer, I would certainly favor a new, non-profit player in this space.

bhewes• 2 years ago

I am happy I removed Apple from my business workflow.

duxup• 2 years ago

I only recently started using Patreon (as in giving someone money).

I really never thought of the app and I just went to the website.

Is there some reason to use the app?

fmorel• 2 years ago

If you wanted notifications there instead of email.

But I've been using the website for over a year and don't feel like I'm missing out.

ginko• 2 years ago

Isn't Patreon essentially just a website to pay creators? What added value does the iphone app even provide?

nozzlegear3• 2 years ago

The only reason I installed their iOS app was because their mobile website is essentially hot garbage that made it impossible to navigate through a creator's media playlist, let alone cast it to a television.

fredski42• 2 years ago

Apple creating an ecosystem of mobile apps is causing all this. Just go back to the Internet’s universal UI: the Web

jacobp100• 2 years ago

Obviously Apple will back down here. They have enough issues with regulators. Their rules currently say any form of tipping has to use in app purchases - so I expect this rule to be changed.

CatWChainsaw• 2 years ago

Obviously Apple is testing how much teeth the rules have.

gohwell• 2 years ago

What's the advantage for Patreon to have a native iOS app?

iamleppert• 2 years ago

If any part of your face, voice, or any text that is ever written by you, or any kind of software or code you have written, has ever touched an Apple product, you better be prepared to kiss the ring of Tim Cook & Apple if you want to even THINK about making a dollar of it. Apple gets their cut, and yes, if you don't or can't pay they will shut you down. Not even your business account, they will come for your personal accounts, phones and any devices you own or have owned in the past and shut them down as well.

Let it be a lesson to anyone trying to skirt out of paying their fair share, Apple is due AT LEAST 30% of what you make, plus developer fees. If you don't like it, TOUGH LUCK, PAY UP!

phkahler• 2 years ago

Taken to an extreme, Patreon just drops the app and requires mobile users to use a web interface. Then what? Apple tells browser makers they have to skim a cut of any payments to any sites and give it to Apple or else your browser isn't allowed in the app store?

mensetmanusman3• 2 years ago

They should move to the Epic App Store.

acqbu• 2 years ago

One more reason to stop using Crapple

arresin• 2 years ago

30% is fucking disgusting and the only way they can get away with it is a captured regulator. It’s so despicably greedy and arrogant. It’s like they’re rubbing it in your face that they can do this: “what are you gonna do about it huh?”

Bwass2• 2 years ago

Basic question: does the use of the Patreon iOS app incurs some sort of additional expenses for Apple?

seatac76• 2 years ago

How can this go on? It is a tax on innovation

CodeWriter234• 2 years ago

Already hitting me to the tune of $30/mo. for my family to do laundry.

EugeneOZ• 2 years ago

One more reason to avoid app stores and build/use PWA or just web apps.

wkat42425• 2 years ago

Why does patreon really have to be an app though? It works just fine as a mobile site and it doesn't do anything complex that would require it to be an app.

And this goes for most services with an app, the main reason they have apps (and try to force their users to use those) is to collect more data from the user as an app has more opportunity to do this than a mobile site.

Of course for a supposedly 'noble cause' app like patreon they shouldn't be doing this at all in the first place.

charrondev3• 2 years ago

I’ll note their app actually sucks at least for reading serial fiction from a few people I subscribe to.

What does require an app though is sending notifications. As a result I have their app just to receive notifications of new chapter releases, then go read the post on the website.

If Apple stopped locking this functionality into applications then something like Patreon could just be a website that you pin on your homescreen.

Now another alternative is email notifications but I will tell you email sucks and most people won’t bother with it. If I start allowing notifications from my mail client I’ll get a ton of notifications that I don’t give a crap about. There is a real spam problem there which application based notifications don’t have.

wkat42425• 2 years ago

Notifications don't require an app. I get many website notifications from my browser app. At least on android.

Since Apple now purportedly supports PWA this should also work.

DavidPiper• 2 years ago

I'm a long-time Apple fan and this news just sucks.

Apple have been openly pro-creativity and pro-artist for a long time, and now they're actively hamstringing one of the best online platforms for facilitating that, for... profit reasons?

Maybe the ill-fated "crushing creativity" advert was just the beginning.

umvi• 2 years ago

So wait, if I donate $1000 to a creator via iOS app, Apple takes $300? That can't be right, can it? Seems like literally robbery.

fastest963• 2 years ago

Actually what would happen is that you would pay $1400: $1000 to the creator and $400 to Apple.

thayne• 2 years ago

Do creators have an option to opt out of allowing transactions from the iOS app?

rmbyrro• 2 years ago

Folks that still buy Apple: what are you waiting to boycot this draconian business? Every Apple device you buy feeds this monster.

ok_dad• 2 years ago

I suppose they should stop trying to push me into their app then? Every time I visit their site, I have to ignore several messages about how it would be easier to do this in the Patreon app. It’s a mess they could avoid by sticking to a web based app. It still sucks for the creators who relied on them to avoid issues like this.

ksec5• 2 years ago

611 comments and not a single mentioned yet.

I am not familiar with Patreon on iOS but Why is it Patreon only get charged 30% now, and not previously. After all their competitor also have 30% requirement for a long time, so Patreon had been the special case all these years?

It is unfortunate Google isn't even competing hard. Microsoft doesn't seems to be interested in Mobile any time soon.

failuser• 2 years ago

How much time do we have till Apple blocks addresses of services that provide web apps instead of iOS apps or just crippling web apps altogether even more than they are now?

mvdtnz3• 2 years ago

The app store is not Home Depot or a book shop or Walmart. Apps are not cars or cans of soda or real estate. Can we cut the bad analogies and talk about what is real? These analogies do nothing to clear anything up and lead to insanely stupid irrelevant discussions about entirely different things.

eigenvalue• 2 years ago

This just seems kind of insane to me in that it really burns up a lot of consumer goodwill towards Apple, especially from creator types, who are way more influential than regular customers. And it also seems to invite regulatory scrutiny which could end up killing their golden goose if they are forced to open up their platform and strict limits are placed on what they can charge for facilitating transactions on the platform. That kind of regulatory crackdown is really not unprecedented-- just look what the US did the phone company back in the day, or to banks and credit card companies in terms of interchange fees. This is just extremely silly behavior to engage in from a dominant company.

virtue3• 2 years ago

I don't feel SUPER bad for patreon here. They're been trying to push people to their app super hard instead of their mobile website. And the mobile website is barely usable.

This is kinda what happens when you put yourself into a situation where you can't make your product work WITHOUT apple or google's store.

pcdoodle• 2 years ago

Why the F are we letting apple tax 30% of the hard work of people. They do not deserve it. If they had a platform with organic "discovery", maybe 10% would feel less like rape (including processing fees)

loongloong• 2 years ago

If the App Store is a place where creators can also sell their own content (story apps, etc.).. isn't it a direct competitor to Pateron as a creator's platform, and so should be treated (and maybe regulated) as such? In the manner that Apple need to allow legitimate platforms such as Pateron to survive and compete fairly in the iOS ecosystem?

(A parallel is Netscape Navigator vs Microsoft bundling Internet Explorer)

Lastly, a gentle reminder since I too sometimes slip up and fondly recall the good old six-colored apple... that Apple has been the top 3 largest company by market capitalisation for more than 10 years. They are underdogs no more.

m3kw9• 2 years ago

It’s the same argument for apple, you use our infrastructure host/distrubute/secure/pay, you pay the same.

6510• 2 years ago

Everyone is focused on the money but I'm mostly fascinated by the requirement to not mention there are other ways to pay.

There is also adsense forbidding you from talking about adsense earnings on pages with ads.

Youtube demanding advertisement friendly speech.

Platforms taking a percentage of second hand goods bought and sold by users don't want you to use the chat to take the deal outside their walled garden.

It all seems so reasonable!

Of course there are also tons of topics you should never mention on HN, X or Reddit but their users guide offers very limited guidance. It is, shall we say, not fashionable to be specific.

Maybe they are all wrong? Perhaps there is room for a more rigorous industry that specifically instructs us how to behave.

We are "secretly" already at the internet cult level of things.

It gets more funny if you hold that thought and picture how the controllers are constantly hammering us with spam. People are so nice they cant imagine outlawing advertisement for the annoying troll it is.

Take this bit from the adsense TOS:

A "Sensitive Event" is an unforeseen event or development that creates significant risk to Google's ability to provide high quality, relevant information and ground truth, and reduce insensitive or exploitative content in prominent and monetized features. During a sensitive event, we may take a variety of actions to address these risks.

You see? Telling you straight up how to behave is much easier than to try to make sense from this.

I'm to old of course but for the younglings there is still hope.

https://studentsfororwell.org

asne11• 2 years ago

Why even have an iOS app in the first place over a simple web app? Is there any additional functionality that the iOS app can offer over web?

SlightlyLeftPad• 2 years ago

Shit hits the fans

udev4096• 2 years ago

I'll probably get down voted to oblivion because of all the "apple" supporters but looking at all the moves that apple has made, that should be enough to leave their entire ecosystem. Don't be so stingy, the web was not built for one entity to have this much power

casenmgreen• 2 years ago

403 - can't read it. Patreon blocks Tor network.

jaimex2• 2 years ago

Can creators disable payment or delist from Apple users?

marbartolome• 2 years ago

Not gonna defend Apple here, but I think it's also kinda sucky that Pateon is simply pushing the problem downward to the end users. They should have made a decision to either take the hit themselves or leave the apple store altogether. But of course this is too much to ask from a company who also has a dominant position in the market of creator revenue, so more enshitificacion for everyone.

fishbacon• 2 years ago

Seems like this just validates the idea that Patreon did not need to be an app. The website works just fine and I doubt people are using the app for discovery or content creation?

I know Patreon wants to capture as much of your time as possible, because they are now on the infinite growth destruction trajectory. So the app is going to stay and they will keep pushing it and probably remove features from mobile web because of it.

Imagine if Patreon was just a for-profit company and not a growth monster.

kweingar• 2 years ago

The arguments in HN and elsewhere about monopoly seem to be missing the point imo. My problem isn't even with Apple's 30% take rate!

I use Patreon on the web on a non-Apple desktop computer. Apple is simply not part of the equation in my transaction with Patreon. But because of Apple's App Store policy, Patreon has to remove useful features from the web app. That seems like an abuse of power to me.

If you have Apple goggles on and disagree, I ask you to consider a reverse situation. Imagine that your favorite third-party iPhone apps delete features because some other company in charge of some other platform demands it. Technically the app developer could simply pull out of that other platform, but they do the math and conclude they will lose less revenue by degrading the iPhone app and pissing off iOS users. Doesn't that seem outrageous?

willhackett• 2 years ago

I’m getting extremely annoyed that I have to keep paying ~30% more than other platforms for iOS subscriptions.

I’ve already bought the device. I’m already paying for iCloud. How much money does this business really need to squeeze from me?

If I could download and install apps directly from their makers, I would. Just like I can on my Mac.

We shouldn’t let this business model continue.

ftyhbhyjnjk• 2 years ago

fcking apple... has itself become the IBM of 1984. What a fall!

hoseja• 2 years ago

Why do you need an app. Is this downstream of the awful state of american bank transfers?

pyrale5• 2 years ago

The article is filled with despicable stuff, but this one stands out:

Apple’s in-app purchase system, on the other hand, only supports Patreon’s subscription billing model. Apple has also made clear that if creators on Patreon continue to use unsupported billing models or disable transactions in the iOS app, we will be at risk of having the entire app removed from their App Store.

Apple needs to get the Standard Oil treatment.

gigatexal• 2 years ago

all of this app services stuff and apple can't find a way to stop burning any of its good will, shame really

there's got to a good middle ground where all parties are happy and one where apple's goodwill isn't torched

talldayo9• 2 years ago

There's no middle-ground that makes Apple happy. Their goal is to have their cake and eat it too, which regulators won't allow. It's basically guaranteed at Apple's scale that they will keep pushing new pricing schemes until the threats to their profit are substantial enough. Over the next few months, we're going to watch regulators inch down the guillotine until Apple finally settles in on something reasonable.

Shame indeed, but I'm fine letting Apple get it out of their system. Their public image is long overdue for a reset anyways.

sod• 2 years ago

When ignoring for a sec. the questionable 30% cut and duopoly: In the age of subscriptions, being able to see all your recurring payments on a single page and cancellable with two tabs without questions asked, is a feature worth paying for.

pimterry• 2 years ago

In the age of subscriptions, being able to see all your recurring payments on a single page and cancellable with two tabs without questions asked, is a feature worth paying for.

This is a service the banking system should clearly provide natively though - there's no good reason Apple is the only one capable of this, nor any good reason why they're best placed for this (there's plenty of non-Apple subscriptions where this would be useful).

Your card provider is well aware of what recurring payments are currently authorized, and should be perfectly capable of providing tools to cancel those authorizations (and inform the merchant of this when doing so).

That that doesn't work is a failure on the part of financial firms (who could provide it) and regulators (who imo should oblige card providers to offer this, and oblige companies to treat cancellation notification like this as equivalent to written notice). Recurring payments are an increasingly fundamental part of consumer banking, but banks provide effectively zero tools for consumers to manage them.

The argument against is that some of these payments might have ongoing obligations you can't just cancel without consequence, and you'd be effectively just be refusing to pay your bills - but you could equally well have no balance available or something so the payment fails in existing cases anyway, so this seems like an entirely solveable issue (if a business that you _must_ pay receives a notification that you've cancelled the card billing authorization, they're going to need to get in touch with you about it just as if your monthly charge failed).

Rapzid• 2 years ago

Yeah they should get together and create a standard protocol for managing, transferring, and paying subscriptions.

Imagine if you could manage subs through your bank, but also transfer the sub to a different bank as needed.

Could even have protocols for payees to verify payer sub status. Maybe there could be two "ends" to a sub; payer and payee end. Like a money wormhole.

knallfrosch2• 2 years ago

Would be cool if that was the customer's choice and not forced down your throat from a monopoly.

jaza• 2 years ago

Fuck Apple.

That is all.

welcome_dragon• 2 years ago

You beat me to it. Others will say "but Apple gives us beautiful products and since the app store is theirs they have every right to charge fees like this".

Yes I understand the "overhead" of an app store but since it's required it seems sort of monopolistic practice to me

stubish• 2 years ago

Could this backfire on Apple? Patreon may not be able to point out to users that they will save 30% if they use the web interface, but thousands of creators will, guiding them along with a few choice words about Apple.

dventimi• 2 years ago

If I understand it correctly, if I build an Android app, I can offer in-app payments through a variety of integrations: Google, Stripe, Amazon, etc. If I build an Apple app, in-app payments can only be offered through the Apple payment system. Is that more or less correct?

oglop• 2 years ago

Man I can’t wait to unload this iPhone and finally leave the Apple ecosystem. The watch was the last straw for me. They’ve really nose dived in design and quality. Seeing stuff like this just makes me hate them more. This company went down the tubes years ago and is just running on branding.

SirMaster3• 2 years ago

How does it work when I order food through an iOS app? Apple gets 30% of the food order price?

mmmlinux• 2 years ago

Hot take, Patreon doesn't really care about fighting this because they get more revenue from monthly subscriptions. I'd bet most creators using this model do it because the publish less than once a month and don't want to be charging their patrons for more than they make.

Sloppy• 2 years ago

"Apps" suck. Use a web ui and tell Apple and Google to shove it. If anti-trust and/or our consumer protestors in various US legislatures won't fix the app stores by breaking them up, the app devs can just drop making apps. I've done many apps and would estimate that 90% have no real need for the API toolkits that Apple and Google give you, they can just as easily be done as "web apps" -- if, that is, everyone dropped the apps and used web apis so cooperation of apps would be based on them, not the toolkits. Exceptions do apply but they are in the minority IMHO.

peebeefive• 2 years ago

The solution is so fiendishly simple I am astonished not to see it suggested elsewhere yet.

Back when I were a lad, there was this thing called the world wide web...

Apps as a crappy, less capable front-end for what is just a webpage anyway is not a new trend, but it has gotten crappier and stupider over time. Patreon should just pull their app entirely from platforms that behave as predatory rent-seekers and work on making their mobile web interface top-notch. It's not that hard.

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

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