[HN Gopher] Twitter previews Ticketed Spaces
___________________________________________________________________
Twitter previews Ticketed Spaces
Author : t3rabytes
Score : 92 points
Date : 2021-05-21 15:30 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| singhkays wrote:
| Ben Thompson had a wild take on this
|
| https://twitter.com/benthompson/status/1395766118304780292
|
| > A creator sells a Ticketed Space for $5. The creator, who
| people are willing to pay for, gets $2.80. Twitter, who
| facilitated the connection and created the product, gets $0.70.
| Apple/Google, who leverage OS API control into a tax on all
| activity, do nothing and get $1.50.
|
| > Imagine people arguing in 1998 that Microsoft deserves 30% of
| all software sales with zero alternatives allowed lmao
| jachee wrote:
| "Do nothing"?
|
| No curated/moderated/policed App Store?
|
| No storage/distribution network for applications?
|
| No vetted and trusted secure authentication and payment
| systems?
|
| No meticulously-created hardware in the first place?
|
| Yep, that sounds about right. They're just "doing nothing" and
| don't deserve to be able to run their businesses while other
| people build on top of their platforms.
| dang wrote:
| Can you please not post in the flamewar style to HN? We're
| trying for a different sort of conversation here. Note these
| guidelines:
|
| " _Have curious conversation; don 't cross-examine._"
|
| " _Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation
| of what someone says, not a weaker one that 's easier to
| criticize. Assume good faith._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| nexuist wrote:
| Why not allow other competitors to take over these software
| responsibilities if they want to? Why can't Google Play be on
| iOS too? Do you think Google wouldn't be able to effectively
| curate, distribute, and secure its own app store?
|
| Yes, Apple builds excellent hardware, and deserves to be
| rewarded for it. They are rewarded when I give them money for
| their products. They shouldn't have a say in what I do with
| the product after I receive it. Imagine buying a new Ford or
| Nissan and the dealership sets which highways you're allowed
| to drive on!
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| They could.
|
| BlackBerry, Nokia, they all failed to create an app
| ecosystem.
| bluedevil2k wrote:
| BMW is trying to do this with their cars, every little
| feature is an odd on or subscription. I hope they fail a
| miserable death in this endeavor.
| paulgb wrote:
| I agree that "do nothing" is inaccurate (I think Ben later
| walked it back).
|
| But overall, I'm surprised how common the take is in the
| software industry that this is a fine state of things. How
| much of Apple's cut is because they run a good distribution
| network, vs. how much is because they are the _only_
| distribution channel?
|
| Surely we don't think it's a bad thing that desktop software
| went in the direction of being an open platform (which, it's
| worth noting, may not have gone in that direction without DOJ
| intervention). Why aren't we rooting for the same on mobile
| devices, which have become just as essential?
| cmorgan31 wrote:
| If I want a walled garden should I be allowed to have it? I
| understand individuals want to exercise control over things
| they own. I'm not interested in forcing brands to make
| their products open platform. I don't want an open
| platform. I want a locked down and predictable platform. If
| you would rather argue that the distributor fee is too high
| I'd be inclined to agree.
| nexuist wrote:
| Who is forcing you to leave the walled garden? All we are
| asking for is an option to install unapproved apps. You
| don't have to install them if you don't want to.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| No one would force you to use third party app stores.
| zamadatix wrote:
| To expound on the other comments a bit more clearly: if
| it's the drive of a large portion of consumers that they
| only want to consume apps from the App Store because of
| the ecosystem that provides it should not require forcing
| everyone that has an iPhone to use the App Store, usage
| of the App Store and interest in apps working to get on
| it/pay dues should be a natural results of a large
| percentage of the customer base choosing to force apps to
| do such not a large portion of the customer base being
| forced into it because the hardware picks for them.
| paulgb wrote:
| Sure, I have no problem with there being a walled garden
| as long as users who want to have a way to opt out.
| Curated app stores _do_ have value and I don 't think
| they should disappear. I even think it is fine for niche
| platforms to exclusively have walled gardens.
|
| > I don't want an open platform.
|
| Do you think the state of the world would be better if
| desktops were not open platforms? I'm genuinely curious
| because this is something I just can't relate to.
| Dma54rhs wrote:
| Microsoft pushed personal computers to masses and the
| productivity gains fie society are insane. You really think
| they don't deserve 50% from every excutable for their
| innovation and vision?!
| jachee wrote:
| This isn't a particularly good analogy.
|
| Microsoft didn't _build_ those computers.
|
| Microsoft didn't _sell_ those computers.
|
| Microsoft didn't _ship_ those computers.
|
| They merely licensed their OS to the manufacturers and/or
| end users.
|
| The X Box would be a better analogy, and MS _does_ get a
| 30% cut there.
| gentleman11 wrote:
| Microsoft didn't invent the operating system, they just
| captured the market share with network effects before
| somebody else did. If it wasn't them, it would have been
| apple. If it wasn't apple, somebody else would have raced
| into the void with dump trucks of Vic money. All things
| said, we could have done worse than early days Microsoft,
| although modern Microsoft is all about advertising and
| tracking
| 908B64B197 wrote:
| > they just captured the market share with network
| effects before somebody else did
|
| Ever heard of CP/M? That was an improvement over having
| every manufacturer ship it's own (unmaintained) OS.
| Microsoft's genius was seeing the value in Software, not
| just in shipping physical goods. And people believed they
| were crazy at the time.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > Microsoft didn't invent the operating system
|
| Didn't they? QDOS was bought, but 9x and NT were mostly
| MS with a little bit of IBM AFAIK.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| All of those things can be had for cheaper from other
| vendors. Apple bans competition and overcharges for it on
| iOS.
| jachee wrote:
| Can those things be had cheaper, while being guaranteed
| interoperable and directly integrated into a trusted
| hardware security enclave without any further integration
| headaches?
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| Yes
| bluedevil2k wrote:
| All great arguments for a fixed fee, not a massive % of sales
| (of sales...not profit). Apple has made BILLIONS of dollars
| running their App Store, I'd love to hear arguments why
| setting up an App Store with very minimal overheard deserves
| to reap billions of dollars of profit annually. None of the
| reasons you outline above would do it in my opinion.
| rebelos wrote:
| The real crime is that they prohibit developers from itemizing
| this fee for the consumer. That's what Epic et al should be
| focusing on. Customers would be aghast at the extractive abuse
| of monopoly power after having already paid (in many cases) an
| exorbitant sum for their device. Let the free market deal with
| the problem.
| tantalor wrote:
| Nobody cares about the app store cut.
| belatw wrote:
| Consumers couldn't care less, for sure. It's only
| developers and corporations who cares.
|
| It is a lot like all the furor over patent trolls. It only
| really hurts large companies, but techies decided it was
| somehow victimizing them and screamed about it constantly
| but consumers still didnt care.
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| A friend argued that the App Store cut is justified because
| it's a free market and if consumers don't think the value
| of the store is worth paying the cut, they can go get a
| different phone. Apple banning developers from informing
| consumers about the cut is a problem for this argument.
| babyshake wrote:
| You're correct. It should be illegal to prevent apps from
| breaking down where the fees go. This is truly anti-consumer
| behavior.
| prestigious wrote:
| Imagine in 1998 trying to get distribution for your literal box
| of disks in dozens of stores and thinking it costs you less
| than 30% of retail
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| In this hypothetical universe, Microsoft runs the only store,
| decides what you are allowed to sell, and blocks you from
| selling independently.
|
| In reality you could sell your software by direct mail if you
| thought it was a better cost structure than a store, or if a
| store didn't want to carry your product.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| At least there _were_ dozens of stores to be in.
| mrkramer wrote:
| >Apple/Google, who leverage OS API control into a tax on all
| activity, do nothing and get $1.50.
|
| Except they offer you a channel for distribution,
| discoverability, promotion, rating and monetization of your
| app.
|
| On Android you don't have to serve your app over Google Play
| you can distribute .apk file elsewhere and pay 0% fee but on
| iOS unfortunately you can not do that.
| drannex wrote:
| > Except they offer you a channel for distribution,
| discoverability, promotion, rating and monetization of your
| app.
|
| Only because they don't allow you to do any of that yourself
| or allow for any alternatives.
| orangegreen wrote:
| +1 point for the web. I'd like to see the day mobile web apps
| have as good UX/speed as app store apps.
| mattferderer wrote:
| Is there a very clear explanation of who gets charged & who
| doesn't?
|
| From what I understand places like Amazon don't get charged for
| in app purchases, but Audible (owned by Amazon) would & so they
| don't offer buying books.
|
| I assume finance stock/crypto/etc apps don't get charged.
|
| I've heard that food & drink, taxi services, & house rentals
| don't get charged.
|
| -- I could be mistaken about many of these above.
| treis wrote:
| Physical goods don't get taxed. Digital goods do get taxed.
| revel wrote:
| Wild that Apple/Google take a larger cut than Twitter. That's
| some mighty impressive rent seeking.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| echelon wrote:
| And the DOJ needs to break it up.
|
| If we continue to trend in this direction, Apple and Google
| will own 30% of all commerce in America. It's not okay, and it
| isn't legal. The DOJ hasn't been focused enough to shut them
| down.
|
| The simple fix is to disallow app stores and "pay with
| Apple/Google". But if if it requires that the companies are
| broken into pieces, so be it.
|
| If you're running a startup today, how on earth do you
| rationalize competing with these absurd giants? They're eating
| our lunch, and the only reason they can do so is monopoly
| power.
|
| I realize that Apple and Google employees and stockholders may
| have different views, but this isn't an equitable or healthy
| market.
| enos_feedler wrote:
| You rationalize it by asking: am I competing with Apple or
| building on top of them? Does my business exist to steal
| share from Apple, or does by business exist _because_ of
| Apple.
|
| If its the former, you find ways of not "feeding the beast"
| to serve your growing share. Airbnb turned off Google ads.
| Snap built Spectacles. Facebook built Portal. Spotify built
| Car Thing.
|
| If its the later, you bite the bullet and chalk it up to
| business expenses. You appreciate the wonderful world you do
| business and grow by innovating on top of the platform ie)
| more apps, more app features, etc. This is the path of
| Twitter. Or you can choose to be bitter, which is the path of
| Epic, Match group, etc. In the end these are the losers, IMO
| echelon wrote:
| > You rationalize it by asking: am I competing with Apple
| or building on top of them?
|
| You have no choice _but_ to build on the illegal monopoly
| that is Apple. At least not until the DOJ breaks the
| company up for abusing our industry.
|
| Chip foundries need to start locking hardware if they don't
| start getting subscription revenue. (Isn't that a dumb
| idea?)
|
| Or maybe ISPs should do deep packet inspection and make you
| pay more for Apple traffic. This is what Apple and Google
| have done to freedom of computing!
| enos_feedler wrote:
| How do you know chip foundries aren't being paid
| subscription revenue from companies like Apple already? I
| am pretty sure they are tied up in very large scale
| commitments over time. Effectively the same thing.
|
| Qualcomm charges pretty hefty licensing fees for Apple to
| use its modem technology. And they scale it based on the
| price of the phone, not a fixed amount, just like the App
| Store does.
|
| We act like there is something so wrong here but its just
| business. Everyone needs to take a chill pill
| wayneftw wrote:
| > In the end these are the losers, IMO.
|
| Apple built their business on the capitalist platform of
| this country. If the other businesses and people in this
| country decide that Apple is doing wrong then we will
| basically flip that right on its lid.
|
| It's up to the courts now. Apple is getting attacked from
| many different angles and they'll definitely lose some
| degree of control eventually.
| enos_feedler wrote:
| I actually don't believe any of these attacks will amount
| to much. Even in a scenario where some nudge of change is
| required, Apple probably has about 5 different "next
| moves" to mitigate any effects.
| wayneftw wrote:
| Maybe. We'll see!
|
| The point is that if Apple chooses to do business in our
| country, they'll follow our rules. Nobody is forever in
| debt to Apple for starting an app store. The fight can
| continue infinitely since we can change the rules as we
| see fit to.
| [deleted]
| rebelos wrote:
| What the hell kind of argument is this? This sounds like
| what the mafia would say if they were in control of the
| smartphone ecosystem. The free market isn't setting the
| fees that Apple and Google are charging because consumers
| aren't aware of them (and developers are prohibited from
| making them aware). It's a racket.
| enos_feedler wrote:
| Funny because this is my argument and I have zero control
| of the smartphone ecosystem. I have zero interest or
| investment in backing any kind of mafia. It just makes
| sense to me. If Nintendo can build an ecosystem of hw,
| sw, 1st party games and charge a 30% revenue share, why
| can't Apple?
| Nullabillity wrote:
| Should Nintendo be able to?
| enos_feedler wrote:
| Yes
| bachmeier wrote:
| > You appreciate the wonderful world you do business and
| grow by innovating on top of the platform
|
| And what happens when "the platform" demands 95% of the
| revenue? Just go to one of the hundreds of competing
| platforms? You can debate the empirics of a particular
| market intervention, but your statement makes sense only in
| a world of perfectly competitive platforms.
| enos_feedler wrote:
| Actually it has nothing to do with competitive platforms
| for developers. All that matters is that Android and iOS
| compete with each other, which they do tremendously.
|
| From a developer standpoint, they simply decide to start
| a business or not, knowing the expenses of doing so.
| Whether you are a new company, or any existing one like
| Twitter, you can do the math. Look at the costs and ROI.
| It is worth noting the platform fees have never gone up,
| only down.
| [deleted]
| Traster wrote:
| It's pretty fascinating to see the conversation here. No talk of
| the product at all (not surprising, twitter is about a decade
| behind in product innovation) but it really feel's like this is
| the perfect product to attack Google and Apple. It takes the most
| sympathetic group of people - individual content creators, it
| gives them a tool at a pretty tight margin - 16% and then slams
| the hammer down on you "30% goes to Apple" so that they can
| continue to sell thousand dollar phones.
|
| But... why on earth is Twitter picking this fight. Have they done
| it accidentally? They're not at a scale for this to pay off for
| them, and other companies are already doing the heavy lifting.
| This is a fight Twitter doesn't need.
| [deleted]
| belatw wrote:
| Will facebook, instagram and linkedin follow up with the same
| feature in three weeks?
| asiachick wrote:
| I can't wait for the day the car companies want a cut of every
| business "their car" delivered you to
| newbie578 wrote:
| Great analogy, I just fear the classic answer will popup
| "Imagine if you wish to sell your product inside Walmart"...
| echelon wrote:
| This is the best analogy I have ever read for what big tech is
| doing.
|
| Apple and Google are unreasonable monopolies, and they
| shouldn't have total platform control.
| dogma1138 wrote:
| Uber tried to do that with restaurants you essentially book a
| reservation and ride through uber you can even preorder the
| food through the app.
| whymauri wrote:
| Did Uber lose the self-driving car race yet? Please tell me
| they did.
| 8note wrote:
| Google's still in it, so you could still expect to be
| giving google a cut of everything that happens on one
| judge2020 wrote:
| > Uber sells self-driving unit
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/07/uber-sells-self-driving-
| un...
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25337553
| whymauri wrote:
| thank god
| tracer4201 wrote:
| Everything seems to have a subscription model these days. In my
| personal opinion, I'd rather pay for a service I really want
| instead of this "free" model where it annoys me with ads.
|
| I don't fully understand the value proposition of Ticketed
| Spaces, although to be honest I understand the value
| proposition of social media - it seems to be voyeurism and
| exhibitionism with folks pretending to have a lifestyle that's
| not sustainable or real in the first place.
|
| I cancelled my Prime membership because as a paying Prime
| member, I don't think my search results should be plastered
| with ads. I already paid you for a premium experience. Don't
| insult me with cheap Chinese flea market garbage.
| cvwright wrote:
| Don't think that Twitter will suddenly stop showing you ads
| just because you paid them. They really are fundamentally an
| advertising company. The microblogging thing is just how they
| get eyeballs onto their ads.
|
| We've been here before, with cable TV. And before that, with
| newspapers and magazines.
| 8note wrote:
| A paying customer is a better target for ads, too. They've
| already shown the willingness to pay for something
| kasperni wrote:
| And then you have to pay tax to the government on top. Not much
| left of a 10$ ticket...
| [deleted]
| monkeybutton wrote:
| I really feel like some of the cuts these companies are taking
| should just be a flat fee. A ticket takes the same amount of
| compute and bandwidth to process whether it's $10 or $100. It's
| been a while since I've gone to a show but aren't the much
| reviled TicketMaster's fees still a flat amount?
| V99 wrote:
| They have many fees, some of which used to include paying for
| the convenience of printing your own ticket at home, but the
| majority is a percentage of ticket price.
| akersten wrote:
| I was expecting to open the comments here and see talk about how
| the technical side of this would work - if Twitter is going to
| limit this to the app, enforce some kind of DRM in-browser, to
| keep these spaces private. Speculation on how they'd be
| preventing re-broadcasting, how this could disrupt Clubhouse,
| etc.
|
| Sadly _every single top-level comment_ is about the IAP fees, a
| tired and unproductive line of discussion.
| lgats wrote:
| The company is partnering with Stripe to handle payments, and it
| says users will receive 80 percent of revenue after Apple and
| Google's in-app purchase fees are taken.
|
| if stripe is handling the payments, how is a portion of this
| routed to Apple / Google?
| tdeck wrote:
| Maybe they're only using Stripe to remit the payment to the
| seller.
| nexuist wrote:
| This is my thought as well, Stripe is so creators can
| withdraw their earnings once Twitter has collected them
| through IAP. You can't use a Stripe checkout in app unless
| you sell physical products.
| joshstrange wrote:
| Yeah, that part makes no sense to me. If you use IAP for
| Google/Apple there is no need for Stripe (other than maybe
| payouts to creators?). Or maybe Stripe is for when you pay on
| the web?
| TYPE_FASTER wrote:
| Could be worse, Ticketmaster would probably add a $15 fee on top
| of the $5 ticket. Then, buy them all out themselves, and sell
| them back at highly inflated prices.
| koolba wrote:
| > The company is partnering with Stripe to handle payments, and
| it says users will receive 80 percent of revenue after Apple and
| Google's in-app purchase fees are taken.
|
| Why go with Stripe when their CEO is also the CEO of Square?
| Avoiding self dealing or lost on the merits?
| nexuist wrote:
| My understanding is that Square is solely a payment collector,
| you can't send funds out of Square to other accounts like you
| can with Stripe. If Twitter had went with Square then I think
| every Spaces creator would have to set up their own Square
| account in order to receive payments.
| powerlogic31 wrote:
| The real winner here is Apple and Google they get so much for
| almost doing nothing.
|
| 100% - $10 // 30% - $3 to Apple // 20% of 7 - $1.7 to Twitter
| (+inclusive of stripe fees) // 80% of 7 - $5.6 to host //
|
| Apple and Google makes more money than the product itself. haha
| input_sh wrote:
| > $5.6 to host
|
| Before taxes. I'd be very surprised if the host gets even $4
| afterwards.
| dhritzkiv wrote:
| I was under the impression that the slice going to the creator
| is exempt from Apple's cut. That being said, there's probably
| no way (with Apple's APIs) to specify what %age is going to the
| creator, and what % is going to fees.
|
| Perhaps this exemption only applies when 100% of the proceeds
| go to the creator (as is the case with Twitter's Super Follow)
| dlevine wrote:
| I'm not sure whether most people just care about the 44% cut, but
| ticketed spaces does sound like a pretty interesting experiment.
|
| I have been a bit skeptical about the whole Clubhouse craze, but
| this does seem like a reasonable starting point to build a
| business model around live chat.
| notamy wrote:
| > ticketed spaces does sound like a pretty interesting
| experiment.
|
| > this does seem like a reasonable starting point to build a
| business model around live chat.
|
| Discord is doing something similar with their stage
| channels[0], including paid tickets etc. It makes a lot of
| sense since their whole business model is around text and
| audio/video chat already.
|
| [0] https://support.discord.com/hc/en-
| us/articles/1500005513722-...
| tiernano wrote:
| How the hell does that work?!
|
| >The company is partnering with Stripe to handle payments, and it
| says users will receive 80 percent of revenue after Apple and
| Google's in-app purchase fees are taken
|
| if Stripe take payments, how do Apple/Google get involed at all?!
| thirtyseven wrote:
| Stripe is probably handling the payout to the host.
| tiernano wrote:
| ahhh.... that kind of now makes sense...
| endisneigh wrote:
| It's incredible how much of tech is just scalping.
|
| I'm curious what loopholes exist for this - if you charge for
| coupons on your own site and a hosted space required a coupon but
| was otherwise not possible to use, would you still have to pay
| Apple?
| rchaud wrote:
| It's not strange that tech products are basically just digital
| middlemen today, taking their cut.
|
| What is strange is the people working on such products, when
| speaking in public, always talk about innovation, creativity
| and freedom. Adjectives that are directly at odds with the
| strategic direction of their products.
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| Hah, imagine if someone makes a competitor. Is Twitter going to
| ban me tweeting to my 1000+ followers to come pay to see my
| talk at (some URL)? Or just derank that tweet so that very few
| people see it? (At which point the anti-competitive lawsuit
| should be interesting..)
| rchaud wrote:
| A competitor would be a password-protected Zoom meeting with
| a Ko-fi button.
| echelon wrote:
| I can understand Twitter taking a cut, but Apple and Google
| deserve no part of this.
|
| Hopefully this is more fuel for the rage machine that will shut
| this racket down.
|
| Device manufacturers should not be allowed to do the following:
|
| 1. run monopoly marketplaces on their devices
|
| 2. run any payments gateways on their devices
|
| If Apple Pay and Google Pay continue to be a thing, the DOJ
| needs to force the companies to be broken up into distinct
| business units. Let these organizations compete with Visa,
| PayPal, and the like on equal footing.
| 8note wrote:
| Sure they do. They provide the devices that enable this TSMC
| should get the lion's share of the cut since they make all
| the chips to allow every part of the operation
| echelon wrote:
| AT&T and Verizon should get a 30% cut.
|
| The electric company should get a 50% cut.
|
| UPS, FedEx, and DHL should get a 72% cut.
|
| ...
|
| Oh my god, this is fucking stupid.
|
| In this entire chain, the only innovation and service being
| provided is by the app creator. All the dues to the other
| companies are already paid. The fucking OS vendor has
| nothing to do with anything other than enforcing their
| draconian bloodsucking rules.
| nexuist wrote:
| And they do! Phone contracts, electric bills, shipping
| fees. Everyone gets their cut _when they deliver a
| service to the user._ After I get Twitter from the App
| Store, the service is delivered. The App Store isn 't
| doing anything other than providing free OTA updates
| which they could charge for if they want (not my fault
| they don't). Why should Twitter continue paying the App
| Store once the service is delivered? Would anyone pay
| FedEx every time they use an appliance shipped by FedEx,
| just because FedEx brought it to their house years ago?
| This is the same ask the App Store has whenever a
| developer wants to collect payment from users.
|
| And you can't even collect the payments yourself, even if
| you wanted to. And you can't tell users why payments are
| more expensive (not even through email or any web pages
| reachable through the app - Hey got kicked out for this).
| AND AND - this is truly outrageous mafia-like behavior -
| you _can 't sell your services for less outside of the
| App Store._ That's right, if your monthly photo backup
| service is $9.99/mo on the App Store, you have to sell it
| for $9.99 on your web site, even if you want to sell it
| for $6.99/mo. And if you do sell it for $6.99 in your
| app, you have to accept the fact that 30% of your profits
| are just pissed away even before taxes.
|
| An entire subset of online businesses aren't even
| financially possible because the 30% Apple cut and forced
| pricing model would eat up profit margins that would be
| healthy otherwise. I would happily sell a service for
| $9.99 in app and $6.99 on web, and _give the user a
| choice_ , but of course I can't, because the App Store is
| a racket.
| aparsons wrote:
| I didn't realize they gave the devices away for free
| Cu3PO42 wrote:
| How about ASML who make the EUV lithography machines that
| TSMC uses? How about those companies making parts that ASML
| uses, such as Zeiss and Trumpf?
|
| I'm not actually sure what exactly your point is, so I'm
| not arguing for or against it. I just thought the chain
| could be extended some.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-05-21 23:02 UTC)