Tim Sweeney: " Now Apple is demanding a 30% cut of all Patreon DONATIONS

https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1823027135784558842

by retskrad • 2 years ago

206 126 2 years ago

DataDive5• 2 years ago

It made me wonder, is supporting an author on Patreon ever a "DONATION"?

If you derive satisfaction from a product, expect someone to produce it, and support that process, then it is a purchase regardless of what someone calls it.

jawns• 2 years ago

You're completely correct. It's a voluntary tip, but it still counts toward a person's income. It's totally different than donating to a 501(c)(3) charity.

dzhiurgis• 2 years ago

Damn. 30% to apple, 30% to patreon, 30% to government that leaves you with 0.7^3 = 0.343 = 34.3%.

warkdarrior• 2 years ago

If you pay after you receive and consume the product in full, I'd call it a donation (unless the creator plans to send your debt to collections.)

high_na_euv• 2 years ago

I dont think it is purchase because there is no guarantee/promise that you will receive anything (usually)

xz18r• 2 years ago

In reality it does often offer perks (seeing creative work before release, exclusive behind the scenes stuff, etc.) so I think you can see that as a purchase, no?

gpm2• 2 years ago

Isn't patreon basically always "pay in order to access (current and future) paywalled content"? And while there may not be (or may be) a promise of future content, there is current content.

ncr1002• 2 years ago

IDK

If you derive satisfaction

Semantically, would The Church also qualify, (if it weren't already legally exempted)? You take yourself to the church, talk to the church people, they tell you things, you think and behave in Their mental framework, you feel better in your life, deriving satisfaction.

adolph2• 2 years ago

Oftentimes a 501(c)3's receipt will include a "fair market" value of whatever benefit the donor got. When religion gets reclassified as 501(c)3, I wonder how they will do receipts.

  Officient salaries / (number of services * average participation) = FMV

akira2501• 2 years ago

is supporting an author on Patreon ever a "DONATION"?

It depends. Is the author giving away content for free or is it paywalled? There are both types of authors using patreon.

then it is a purchase regardless of what someone calls it.

I'm comfortable saying that the authors who give it away for free and ask for donations are, in fact, receiving donations.

DataDive5• 2 years ago

when you donate, you are not the one who personally receives the benefit, right? if you donate a car, you are not also using that car every once in a while.

to me that is the main distinction, who is benefiting from making that monetary contribution

otherwise, it is just an issue of timing, did I pay up front or later after a tried and liked the product

pessimizer• 2 years ago

Using the word "product" is begging the question. You could just as easily say:

"If you derive satisfaction from an series of artistic works, and you know the person who creates those artistic works, and you decide to send money to support that person..."

-----

edit: and this is closer to the reality, because plenty of people subscribe to someone's patreon (or donate to them in other ways) for "products" that they have already consumed, or because they want other people to consume those products.

For an example of the latter: when financing journalists with mostly or completely open newsletters on substack. People generally aren't paying journalists because they want to read exciting stories. They're paying journalists because they want certain stories and types of stories to be investigated and written. They're not people who are paying to consume.

adam_arthur• 2 years ago

The semantics of the word "DONATION" are frankly irrelevant to the discussion.

Conceptually, why should a "donation" be any different than a "payment" in regards to the Apple tax? Regardless of their current legal agreement attempts to disambiguate these, they are conceptually quite the same. In one case you receive a good, in another you receive good-will.

Should Apple be entitled to 30% of these voluntary payments? Some of you will say "yes", but I'd bet pretty strongly the vast majority of the public would say "no".

And legislation will follow eventually, in my opinion, despite the US government/courts moving very slowly here.

Continued acts like these will only move up the timeline and increase the number of lawsuits which will eventually tip against Apple.

wpm2• 2 years ago

Should Apple be entitled to 30% of these voluntary payments?

Apple believes so, because Apple is so arrogant as to think that the payment wouldn't have occurred had it not been for their hard work on the platform.

It's false, of course. It'd be like Bell Telephone asking for a cut of your profits because you negotiated a business deal over the phone. Or the cell phone carriers forcing you to pay them $7 for a 20-second ringtone.

We traded one villain for another.

jobigoud2• 2 years ago

At best Apple is entitled to 30% of whatever Patreon makes on that Donation, not 30% of the donation itself that's ridiculous.

DataDive5• 2 years ago

The semantics of the word "DONATION" are frankly irrelevant to the discussion.

I don't think the word DONATION is irrelevant at all.

Tim Sweeney is using the word "DONATION" deliberately to make Apple look like someone that steals even the "donations".

You know like someone stealing from the church lockbox.

I am not supporting Apple here at all, I am just pointing out the attempt to manipulate public opinion.

efsavage• 2 years ago

It possibly could be, if they were organized as a non-profit that paid them a reasonable salary (which is probably an overambitious goal for most authors). After all, IKEA is a non-profit.

SahAssar• 2 years ago

Comparing almost any corporate structure to IKEA is like comparing a children's alphabet book to the tower of babel. IKEA is a non profit owned by for profits partially owned by non-profits owned by dutch companies that license IP from Irish companies (who license it from IoS (IKEA of Sweden) in a small Swedish village called älmhult) owned by non-physical, non-personal entities that are "legal residents in Switzerland" that might or might not be controlled by certain people named Kamprad (in non-exclusive partnerships with other interested parties that might be controlled by companies owned by said dutch companies). And after that we have the whole ROIG, INKGA, etc. structures.

ncr1002• 2 years ago

More discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41224853

ElevenLathe2• 2 years ago

All I can think of when I read about things like this in the App Store is one of my first jobs: I was a busboy at a country club. Waiters would get tipped (usually pretty generously, as these were wealthy people who were repeat customers and developed relationships with the wait staff over many years), and they would usually in turn tip out the bussers pretty generously too.

Until one day, when tipping was "replaced" by a 15% "service fee" that was tacked onto the bill. This was sold to members as a convenience: rather than need to carry cash to tip the waiter, you can sign for it and take care of it with your monthly bill. This was misleading because the "service fee" did not go to the waiters (or the bussers), but instead was simply kept by the business office.

To make this all legal, we did all get a raise to the actual minimum wage (rather than the "tipped" minimum wage). This was still a big wage cut, and they lost most of their long-time staff, leading to huge churn. I left shortly after this happened for a better job, but the club closed down completely a couple years later (after 80+ years in operation). I suspect but can't prove that these things are related -- most likely they drank the waiters' milkshakes out of desperation, knowing they were eating their seed corn (to mix a metaphor).

somenameforme• 2 years ago

I'm quite curious if there is some tenet of MBAology that essentially comes down to a more sophisticated version of 'ignore the side effects and likely future consequences of your actions.' It's so weird seeing so many companies just implode by carrying out actions that are negative to the point of verging on antagonistic towards their employees and customers.

JohnMakin• 2 years ago

I don't know, but it seems pretty easy to come up with a theory here - a large portion of executive compensation is from company stock, and short term actions that drive up the value of that stock will always be preferred, because as long as they aren't holding the proverbial hot potato when the thing collapses, they'll be fine - (and likely even if they are left holding it, they'll be fine - golden parachutes and all that).

So people making the decisions tend to incentivize the things that will maximize the return for their time.

wpm2• 2 years ago

Line must go up, and only as far as next quarter.

Terr_• 2 years ago

a more sophisticated version of 'ignore the side effects and likely future consequences of your actions.'

That reminds me of an oft-cited study regarding parents being late to pick up their kids from daycare [0]. Once a monetary fine was imposed, late-pickups actually got worse, presumably because parents felt their lateness wasn't shameful anymore since they were justly paying for extra staff-time. That switch in customer viewpoints to proved difficult to undo.

While I do not think that case was an MBA-tier mistake, there's a similar theme: Something looks fine for sociopathic homo economicus but fails in the real-world of social relationships, implicit expectations, and long-term repercussions.

actions that are negative to the point of verging on antagonistic towards their employees and customers

Besides raw greed, some of that may be from a quantitative/"McNamara" fallacy [1], where too much emphasis is put on easy numerical metrics when making decisions, and quarterly revenue is easier to have than measuring "customers resent us and our brand is recognizable but only in a bad way."

[0] https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/468061

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy

gwervc2• 2 years ago

They can't even seems to think a day ahead. Last Friday I got removed from the project I was consulting for, effective in three weeks. On today's daily, the PO who got my head asked me progress about my current ticket and told me "to do my best" during my remaining time on the project.

A second later he was the embodiment of the surprised pikachu face meme when I told him that it won't be happening. Of course he went crying to my boss an hour later.

Even in a country where you can get a sick leave for burn out for weeks, paid 100% of your salary, by speaking 5 minutes to a doctor, the management is treating employees like slaves. This is a really fascinating mindset.

soerxpso• 2 years ago

It's an incentive issue. As the average duration of employment at a single company for a manager has decreased, the time preference of a rational manager has changed to fit. The guy who made that decision will write on his resume that he increased profits by 10%, and the business went under after he left! He must have been vital!

_hcuq• 2 years ago

You are right. This article explains it perfectly.

https://doctorow.medium.com/the-long-bloody-lineage-of-priva...

michaelbuckbee3• 2 years ago

I've a parallel theory that there's a hidden wage decline in service jobs where the move to computerized and card-based payments severely reduced the opportunity for service workers to easily steal from their jobs.

I saw this firsthand with a pizza shop that went to computerized ordering from paper tickets. The drivers could no longer "lose" tickets and pocket the cash payment (resulting in a wage loss of ~$10/hour or more).

I've anecdotally heard similar from lots of folks that used to work fast food and service jobs.

blackbrokkoli• 2 years ago

Finally, we curbed the ability of the most fucked subclass of workers to edge their way towards a livable wage by mildly abusing existing systems of trust. Instead, we can now reduce them to a number and use massive data analyses to squeeze the last penny from every gig worker (or of course just straight up steal, like in the OP).

And they say software isn't a force of good! /s

snotrockets2• 2 years ago

The estimates we have suggests that wage theft by retail employers is greater than retail shrink, so your theory lacks data to back it up.

eweise• 2 years ago

This is the same as what restaurants do now. They started charging a "service fee" or surcharge. You might assume those extra fees are for the workers but it goes to the business.

randomdata11• 2 years ago

And this is why I will never understand why many think tipping is a practice upheld for the benefit of the restaurant. Cash in your hand is always better than cash in someone else's hand.

gigel82• 2 years ago

Yes, but there are a dozen other country clubs within driving distance, so this was ok for the customers, it's capitalism at work.

However with Apple (and Microsoft), we're all serfs on their feudal fiefs, so they can do this and get away with it.

kranke155• 2 years ago

I find that Varoufakis idea of Technofeudalism is not exactly right, but it's right in the overall picture.

ChrisArchitect• 2 years ago

[dupe]

Discussion on official post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41224853

crazygringo• 2 years ago

As someone out of the loop -- what changed that they weren't before?

I'm not interested in whether this is good or bad, I just want to know -- why now?

I thought all of these app store policies had been established for many years now.

simlevesque• 2 years ago

There are policies and then there is enforcement.

marcosdumay• 2 years ago

They did change the terms of the app store a few months ago to say they are entitled to a cut. It was a big story.

And they did change their posture now in that they started demanding the payment.

What prompted the change on the term was a decision on one of those monopoly investigations. But I can't remember if it was the US or the EU one.

arghwhat4• 2 years ago

How dare they take creator income! That was Patreon’s job!

Patreon takes 8% fee + 2.5% currency conversion fee + 2.9%-5% and 0.1-0.3 USD transaction fee. That, and everything you create on any platform will need to live up to their requirements to not get kicked off.

Crooks, all of them.

jobigoud2• 2 years ago

But clearly Patreon is the market maker here. Apple should only get 30% of Patreon's 8%.

arghwhat4• 2 years ago

I wouldn’t call Patreon a market maker - it’s closer to PayPal than being a content site. You don’t find creators on Patreon and interact with them there, you find them elsewhere and have them point you to Patreon for one-time or subscription payments.

The issue is not in how the fee is calculated, it is jusy that both Patreon and Apple have far too high fees. Having the EU shake this up at least the Apple side is great.

squigz• 2 years ago

Personally, I've never found Patreon's fees to be unreasonable. Would it be nice if it were less? Sure, but the platform needs to make money too.

arghwhat4• 2 years ago

If you have a 1 USD tier, the fees become 25.5%, 26.5% for non-US paypal. At 3 USD, it's 20%. At 10 USD, it's 17.5%. This is all before VAT and income tax.

How is that not unreasonable for such a simple service, especially as there are alternatives without such fees like Ko-Fi and LiberaPay?

paxys• 2 years ago

If it isn't going to a nonprofit it isn't a donation. Call it tip or "set your own price" or whatever else, but donation is not the word.

jncfhnb9• 2 years ago

So if I give ten dollars to a guy begging for money that’s not a donation because he didn’t register as a non profit?

inerte• 2 years ago

Yes. It's a gift, not a donation. You can't write off $10 to the homeless. In the giver's mind it's a donation but not technically afaik.

chomp• 2 years ago

It’s a gift in your scenario.

stahtops2• 2 years ago

Donation usually implies that it's given to a cause or to a charity. That just isn't what Patreon is. It's people marketing and selling content on the internet.

But saying "donation" brings up feels for people. That's exactly why you see people in here adamant that they've been "donating" to their fave indie artists! It makes them feel philanthropic.

Those same feels are why Tim Sweeney used the word "donation". It makes you think a 30% cut is being taken from non-profit pediatric hospitals for the poor - Sheriff of Nottingham style. It's hyperbole.

Patreon doesn't say the word "donate" anywhere on their website. The closest they come is saying how to "pledge support" for your favorite creators by subscribing for a month and canceling.

tibbydudeza• 2 years ago

All your base are belong to us - play the Apple game and pay the piper.

sureIy• 2 years ago

Don’t forget that this is the same Epic Games guy who recently said that tracking thieves via Find My is creepy.[1]

Dude’s still sour that Apple didn’t let him get away with breaking App Store rules and that judges sided with Apple too.

Note that “donations” are taxable income, so Apple is not out of their element for doing this.

  [1]: https://x.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1818258637413835199

justin66• 2 years ago

Don’t forget that this is the same Epic Games guy who recently said that tracking thieves via Find My is creepy

How... ridiculous? And totally relevant to the subject at hand?

mvdtnz• 2 years ago

There's absolutely no context on the tweet which seems to be a continuation of a conversation non-logged in users can't access. It's impossible for anyone without a twitter account to understand what you're talking about.

blackeyeblitzar• 2 years ago

Break up Apple (and Google and Microsoft and Amazon). Heavily tax all trillion dollar corporations. Regulate their services as utilities.

otterley2• 2 years ago

Keep in mind that Tim Sweeney doesn't care about the public; he cares about Tim Sweeney. At the end of the day, the purpose of this controversy is to get Epic Games the money that Apple is collecting instead. Customers won't win, and are merely pawns in this battle. So, anything he says should be treated with the skepticism it deserves. He's no hero, and shouldn't be treated as one.

lern_too_spel2• 2 years ago

If Sweeney wins here, consumers win. Creators keep more donations, and patrons increase their support for the same cost. I don't think you'll find anybody who says they'll side with Sweeney no matter what, so your point doesn't seem relevant.

HDThoreaun• 2 years ago

No one cares about the public. Everyone is looking out for themselves. Life is about finding people whose interests align with your own.

otterley2• 2 years ago

There are a lot of people who care about the public, from social workers to teachers to city planners to the Dalai Lama. Let’s not be overly cynical here.

DoreenMichele• 2 years ago

Sort of a dupe.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41224853

Dowwie• 2 years ago

so just use a browser rather than an app

smsm42• 2 years ago

So why would anybody use patreon as app at all? Normal website still works, doesn't it?

kgbcia• 2 years ago

Time for that breakup

htk• 2 years ago

The discussion on Apple's cut is important, but calling Patreon charges as "donations" is just disingenuous by Sweeney, as always.

braza• 2 years ago

As someone who saw the DoJ and some European regulation authorities in the 90s it is bonkers to see how Apple operates ruthlessly in their ecosystem and how the regulators are sleeping in the wheel about how harmful this company is to the creativity industry (e.g. indie games, creators, etc).

Tim Sweeney: " Now Apple is demanding a 30% cut of all Patreon DONATIONS

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