What's the conceptual difference between Apple charging 30% for Patreon subcribers vs. charging 30% for purchases on Temu or the Amazon app? This distinction seems completely arbitrary to me. I suspect the only reason it exists is that adding a 30% Apple surcharge to every Amazon purchase would cause too much outrage.
Disclaimer:
I've never used Temu or the Amazon app, but I'm assuming they don't apply a 30% surcharge on physical goods on iOS.
App Store policy (written or otherwise? It's hard to say.) only levies the 30% on digital goods delivered in the app. Uber, for example, doesn't pay 30% of rider fees to Apple.
Patreon is in this weird gray area because you kinda-sorta are getting digital goods delivered via the Patreon app, depending on how you look at it. And obviously if there's a way that Apple can squint and say it falls under their purview, they will...
Playing the devil's advocate here,
I believe the rational to take 30% cut for only digital goods is that, usually digital goods have zero marginal cost. To 'manufacture' an additional digital asset, the company doesn't need to spend anything extra.
This assumption starts breaking as internet becomes more ubiquitous and for anything really outside gaming coins. Example, for every additional Spotify subscriber, Spotify needs to pay music producers as well. The economics is now very close to physical goods being sold in Temu or Amazon.
This doesn't work for Patreon, which often isn't merely about "digital assets": while some people on Patreon might be using it to merely sell access to some digital portfolio, many (I'd even say "most") use it as a form of VIP club system, with direct access to the artist, custom work products, physical swag that you receive in the mail, shoutouts during live shows... Patreon isn't a system that inherently scales with anything close to zero marginal cost, at least for most of the tiers of most of the artists I've seen on the platform.
Digital goods and tips are required to use IAPs and pay the fee. Patreon is either one or the other, or maybe a mix of both. I suspect this has been published more than they anticipated, and they’ll have to allow tips to use external payment systems.
Depending upon how you look at it, there is more than one competitor to Apple. It kinda sucks that most of the competition to iOS runs one operating system, yet that one operating system is supported by multiple hardware vendors and multiple online storefronts.
Yet there is also another competitor to Apple on iOS devices. It is called the web. Patreon in no way owes money to Apple if the end user fires up a web browser on their phone and makes their contribution through the website. Argue all that you want about convenience, and you're probably right on that front, but it is a way to circumvent Apple to have more of your contribution delivered to the intended recipient.
In the end, the decision of iOS users to support Apple's practices are at issue here. Sometimes you just have to say no using whatever means are at your disposal.
Of course, but I don't use shopping apps so I don't know who does or does not have an app. Temu just comes to mind because of their dismal reputation and obnoxious marketing.
While the blog post stresses the 30% fee, I read the Patreon post that it was responding to. I am subscribed to a couple infrequent but high-quality creators on Patreon who charge by deliverable instead of as a monthly subscription that won't make sense since months may go by without a deliverable. This will make monetization via Patreon unviable for them.
So it sounds like someone should make a Patreon page that renders a video of someone ordering what you want on Amazon, that will help Apple get a 30% markup on Amazon purchases.
"Every artist, performer and creator on Patreon is about to get screwed out of 30% of their gross revenue"
Does Apple have access to Patreon creators' gross revenue? I thought they only charged commissions on payments through IAP, which I assumed is only a minority of their overall gross.
I agree with some opinions and the sentiment of this article, but in some parts the author, perhaps unintentionally, makes false or misleading claims to simply provoke outrage and demonize Apple. For example:
> Every artist, performer and creator on Patreon is about to get screwed out of 30% of their gross revenue, which will be diverted to Apple.
This is inaccurate, as not all Patreon subscribers use iOS devices to support creators.
Ok, but then I’ll need another kind of locked-down device provided by a company with enough power to force other strong companies to not be dicks, to do all my actually-important-in-normal-life computer stuff.
This isn't a problem on Linux because instead of force you have a small group of maintainers who the users are able to outsource the decision making to.
There are other ways to do this which work much much better and don't constrain the user's freedom.
That's a good distinction. It doesn't bother me that I can't run arbitrary code on my Xbox, it does a specific function well and I don't need or expect more from it. But with a phone or computer it would never be acceptable to need permission to run given code or be forced to go through a platform middleman.
Well, other people feel the same way about their phones.
The line you are drawing is arbitrary and personal and other people can choose to draw it in different places. Maybe a phone is something they want to just work, let them do their banking apps in a secure ecosystem, while they would love to plug in a mouse+KB and do some spreadsheets or run Linux on their Xbox.
Try to maintain some level of theory of mind here.
There are options for that, Users don't choose them. You can sideload apps very easily on Android, it's 1 toggle in the settings to activate the ability and then you can install apps from F-Droid or anywhere else you want
I don't see the issue here as much as I would like to dunk on the company. All those vendors on Apple's platform can take their wares elsewhere or if they feel so aggrieved they can start a class action motion.
This article reads like an uneducated rant in so, so many ways. Apple rolling over its sleep and squashing Patreon isn't 'enshittification', it's just textbook monopoly abuse. And if you want to rail about the nuance of Apple's business practices you can at least not typo the name of two of their flagship products ("Iphone and Ipad").
> The fact that it's a felony to get your Iphone apps from anyone except Apple means that whatever policies Apple makes for the app store have the force of law.
Readit News
Disclaimer:
I've never used Temu or the Amazon app, but I'm assuming they don't apply a 30% surcharge on physical goods on iOS.
Patreon is in this weird gray area because you kinda-sorta are getting digital goods delivered via the Patreon app, depending on how you look at it. And obviously if there's a way that Apple can squint and say it falls under their purview, they will...
This assumption starts breaking as internet becomes more ubiquitous and for anything really outside gaming coins. Example, for every additional Spotify subscriber, Spotify needs to pay music producers as well. The economics is now very close to physical goods being sold in Temu or Amazon.
I can name more than 1 competitor to Amazon.
Yet there is also another competitor to Apple on iOS devices. It is called the web. Patreon in no way owes money to Apple if the end user fires up a web browser on their phone and makes their contribution through the website. Argue all that you want about convenience, and you're probably right on that front, but it is a way to circumvent Apple to have more of your contribution delivered to the intended recipient.
In the end, the decision of iOS users to support Apple's practices are at issue here. Sometimes you just have to say no using whatever means are at your disposal.
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like the business model predates the personal computer by at least 25 years or so.
Does Apple have access to Patreon creators' gross revenue? I thought they only charged commissions on payments through IAP, which I assumed is only a minority of their overall gross.
> Every artist, performer and creator on Patreon is about to get screwed out of 30% of their gross revenue, which will be diverted to Apple.
This is inaccurate, as not all Patreon subscribers use iOS devices to support creators.
There are other ways to do this which work much much better and don't constrain the user's freedom.
The line you are drawing is arbitrary and personal and other people can choose to draw it in different places. Maybe a phone is something they want to just work, let them do their banking apps in a secure ecosystem, while they would love to plug in a mouse+KB and do some spreadsheets or run Linux on their Xbox.
Try to maintain some level of theory of mind here.
> The fact that it's a felony to get your Iphone apps from anyone except Apple means that whatever policies Apple makes for the app store have the force of law.
The EC and US DOJ would like a word, please.
Why not? Are we all beholden to the Apple marketing department style guide?
He should go the whole hog in this radical stance of civil disobedience and just spell the names entirely wrong!
Aren't they proper nouns?
/s
Isn't it both? Enshittification is a form of monopoly abuse in my mind.
Also note that you're arguing against the person who coined the term "enshittification".