[HN Gopher] Apple to soon take up to 30% cut from all Patreon cr...
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Apple to soon take up to 30% cut from all Patreon creators in iOS
app
Author : pier25
Score : 996 points
Date : 2026-01-28 20:59 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.macrumors.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.macrumors.com)
| leoh wrote:
| Sad, mean, and pointless
| advisedwang wrote:
| Apple needs this to stay afloat, you know
| Gualdrapo wrote:
| Knowing there are Apple fanboys around HN (I got downvoted
| for saying the liquid glass thing and the iphone air were
| pointless) I fear they will take your comment seriously
| SchemaLoad wrote:
| Those greedy artists and creators depriving Apple of their
| profits.
| jojobas wrote:
| Poe's law hit me hard.
| legitster wrote:
| This means Apple is literally going to take nearly 3x in fees
| from Patreon's customers than Patreon is taking from their own
| customers.
|
| My understanding is that the reason the number 30% is so magical
| is a historical anomaly. When software was physically distributed
| back in the day, 15% of the MSRP was reserved for the distributor
| and another 15% for the retailer. When these digital marketplaces
| were set up, the companies just said "well, we're the distributor
| and the retailer, so we'll keep both". Forgetting the fact that
| the cost to distribute and retail the software is literally
| pennies on the dollar of what it used to be.
|
| I think the irony in this case is that this is a greed problem of
| their own making. When Steve Jobs announced that apps on the
| original iPhone would only be $1-$3, he set off the first
| enshittification crisis in the software industry. In 2008,
| Bejeweled cost $19.99 if you wanted to buy it on the PC. On the
| iPhone it was $0.99! This artificially low anchor price is what
| kicked off the adoption of ad and subscription driven software
| models in the first place.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| My understanding was that the retailer margin was 50% and the
| distributor margin was 10%. So Apple/Steam/etc went "half of
| 60% is a great deal".
|
| Of course the retailer margin is never actually 50%. That's
| theoretical if 100% of product is sold at MSRP. Actual retail
| margins are about 25% because of sales, write-offs, et cetera.
|
| OTOH when there's a sale in Steam, they still get their full
| cut (of the reduced price).
| legitster wrote:
| From what I could find, it _does_ seem that major retailers
| back in the day (CompUSA, Circuit City, etc) were only making
| 15% margin on software sales. This is much lower than other
| product categories - but also software didn 't take up much
| floor space.
| gdilla wrote:
| its agency model vs retail model. Recall - Amazon hated the
| agency model, where the publisher sets the price (and 30%
| cut goes to app store - Jobs sold this as amazing deal).
| Retail model the retailer sets the price, and the publisher
| is guaranteed the wholesale price. Amazon preferred the
| latter because they competed on dynamic price setting. this
| was so long ago we forget.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| It coupled the small floor space with high prices, and an
| extreme overall easiness of management (low weight,
| resistance to small impacts, possibility of stacking, etc).
|
| So that margin not only had to pay for small management
| costs, and had small opportunity costs on the floor space,
| but it also was divided by a large unitary price.
| tessela wrote:
| I remember writing apps for PalmOS (long time ago)
| distributors like PalmGear took over 60% from international
| developers like me, plus they held your earnings until you
| hit a minimum payout threshold. Add bank fees on top of that,
| and it was basically not worth developing for the platform.
| 30% felt like a godsend in comparison. (I'm not defending the
| Apple / Google tax)
| kccqzy wrote:
| Steve Jobs never announced a price ceiling for apps on the App
| Store. The well-known I Am Rich app for iPhone retailer for
| $999, the actual price ceiling.
| bilekas wrote:
| That's wild I had to look up if anyone bought it. Apperantly
| 8 people did!
|
| > https://www.latimes.com/archives/blogs/technology-
| blog/story...
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| Had no idea about the history and the 15%/15% split but when
| the topic comes up I just remember how good the 30% seemed back
| in, what, 2008?
|
| It made perfect sense that this shiny new iOS platform would
| take 30% of a cheap app to ensure that it matches the high
| quality of iOS. These were little productivity apps and games
| at the time.
|
| This however - I just don't understand what the need is for an
| app at all for Patreon. Isn't this a website/platform kind of
| thing? Wouldn't an app just be an additional window into the
| Patreon platform?
|
| What's next - 30% of my pizza price goes to Apple because I
| ordered it on my phone?
| wat10000 wrote:
| I was working for a small software company at the time and we
| thought it was outrageous. We were selling our software
| online direct through our own web site and the cost was far
| lower. A few percent for credit card processing fees, and the
| server/bandwidth cost was inconsequential.
| pixl97 wrote:
| >What's next - 30% of my pizza price goes to Apple because I
| ordered it on my phone?
|
| I'm pretty sure Apple has discussed things exactly like this.
|
| Their upper management really does tend to think that 30% of
| any monetary transaction on an Apple platform belongs to
| them. Too bad our government is too busy being ran by the
| billionaires to do anything about these abuses from
| billionaires.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Really hope the 2nd wave of Sherman hits these bit tech
| companies hard if/when this regime inevitably falls. I just
| hope there's something left of America when it happens.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >This however - I just don't understand what the need is for
| an app at all for Patreon. Isn't this a website/platform kind
| of thing? Wouldn't an app just be an additional window into
| the Patreon platform?
|
| That's the other part of the surrogate war happening with
| mobile. The web was unregulated and hard to profit off of, so
| Jobs took great strides to push the "there's an app for that"
| mentality that overtook that age. This had the nifty side
| effect of killing off flash, but it's clear the prospects
| didn't stop there. Not to mention all the other web hostile
| actions taken on IOS to make it only do the bare minimum
| required to not piss off customers.
|
| It very much could just be a website with no reliance on IOS
| as a dependency. But Apple clearly doesn't want that.
| nickjj wrote:
| > What's next - 30% of my pizza price goes to Apple because I
| ordered it on my phone?
|
| You joke but this already happens with places like DoorDash.
| They take 30% of the order from the store owner after adding
| their own additional fees to the order that customers pay.
|
| Someone I know owns a pizza store and his prices are 30%
| higher on DoorDash but some people still pay. The big
| difference is it's not a monopoly. He offers regular delivery
| at normal store prices and 95% of his deliveries go through
| that.
| dawnerd wrote:
| It only really makes sense on the one time purchase of a
| product, not the subsequent in app purchases they don't have to
| touch apples infra.
| grishka wrote:
| 30% might be fair when you have a choice of either marketing
| and selling your app yourself, or just using an app store to do
| everything for you. But when you are _forced_ to use the app
| store, things get really stupid really fast.
|
| Apple still insists that the app store "provides value" for
| developers. They simply can't comprehend the harsh reality that
| these days, for most developers, the app store isn't the
| godsend service that helps their app get discovered, but
| instead an asinine bureaucratic obstacle they have to clear,
| and then regularly attend to, to have an iOS app at all.
|
| The Mac app store, being optional for developers, is a good
| example of how much people _actually_ want something like this.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Apple still insists that the app store "provides value" for
| developers. They simply can't comprehend the harsh reality
| that these days, for most developers, the app store isn't the
| godsend service that helps their app get discovered, but
| instead an asinine bureaucratic obstacle they have to clear,
| and then regularly attend to, to have an iOS app at all.
|
| Oh, no, they can comprehend, they just don't care. Apple
| controls access to a valuable pool of business, and they are
| going to extract as much value as possible from people
| wanting access to that pool. And, of course, they are going
| to try to burnish it with marketing speak, but that doesn't
| mean they believe their own marketing.
| jmclnx wrote:
| I thought that already happened :)
|
| But from past threads in a Linux Forum, seems this only applies
| to people using the Apple IOS App for Patreon. Not sure if using
| Apple Laptops.
|
| But if you use Patreon's WEB Site directly, the fee cannot be
| collected by Apple.
|
| That was my take anyways.
| repeekad wrote:
| I can't remember being more enraged than when I learned my
| YouTube premium was more expensive per month than it needed to
| be because I had signed up on iPhone, so many people wasting
| money every month, and YouTube isn't allowed to mention the
| option to pay on web
|
| If they weren't a public company, you'd think they were the
| mob. I'll never trust the Apple ecosystem ever again
| volemo wrote:
| > But from past threads in a Linux Forum, seems this only
| applies to people using the Apple IOS App for Patreon. Not sure
| if using Apple Laptops. But if you use Patreon's WEB Site
| directly, the fee cannot be collected by Apple.
|
| Moreover, the fee only applies to the subscriptions made using
| Apple's payment system. That being said, in most jurisdictions
| their payment system is the only one developers can use in an
| app. IMHO, _this_ is the real problem.
| jajuuka wrote:
| Yep, the tax comes from using the Patreon's in-app purchase
| system. Using a browser on an iPhone/iPad or any other device
| will not be taxed. Seen many creators putting in their bios
| suggesting people use the browser instead of the in app
| purchase.
|
| Patreon fought this for a while but Apple has all the leverage
| unfortunately.
| plorkyeran wrote:
| Per the article it's already happened for 96% of creators and
| this is the deadline for the remaining 4%.
| krzat wrote:
| > But if you use Patreon's WEB Site directly, the fee cannot be
| collected by Apple.
|
| Yet. Apple forces a specific browser engine on all apps, so
| they have the means to block patreon website too.
| joshstrange wrote:
| When the App Store first launched I think 30% was pretty fair fee
| for Apple to collect, but that was a long time ago, and before
| IAP/Subscriptions. Apple might still be entitled to some
| percentage but they've expanded to cover more and more things
| (like this Patreon change or Kindle back in the day) and now we
| have moved far, far beyond the pale.
|
| Apple (perhaps like all corporations but I'm focusing on Apple)
| is a greedy company that has massively lost it's way. Tim Cook
| support fascists and/or anything to improve the bottom line,
| especially if it increases "services" [0]. Alan Dye (thank god he
| is now busy screwing up Meta) shipped the worst UI revamp I've
| seen in a while from a company Apple's size and the
| iOS/iPadOS/visionOS/macOS software is all in dire straits. And
| they managed to do all of this while alienating developers left
| and right and playing chicken with governments around the world
| [0] instead of relaxing their hold on their platforms.
|
| But who cares? The stock price went up. /s
|
| I was overjoyed to see Alan Dye leave (and Jony Ive) and hope
| that we don't have to wait too much longer to bid Tim Cook adieu.
| Whoever takes over next has a lot of work ahead to dig out of the
| hole Tim Cook dug for Apple.
|
| Tim Cook might be the best thing for shareholders but he has been
| horrible for product quality (software and hardware) and for
| democracy.
|
| [0] Pay no attention to how much of services revenue came from
| the Google search deal with the majority of the rest coming from
| casinos for children and adults alike.
|
| [1] Like the EU DMA, which, I have publicly and privately voiced
| my dislike of parts of it but Apple has no one to blame but
| themselves. By keeping a white-knuckle grip on their revenue they
| forced governments across the world to pass laws (often bad IMHO)
| that fragment and confuse the entire iOS market.
| godzillabrennus wrote:
| Tim Cook has been horrible for software, but the hardware under
| his regime has been incredible.
| joshstrange wrote:
| May I introduce you to years he let Jony Ive control that.
| Which brought us things like the butterfly keyboard, thinness
| at all costs (battery life), and loss of ports (in part due
| to thinness) that had to be walked back.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Yeah, I have no love for Ive's anti-bauhaus philosophy of
| form-uber-alles.
|
| Ports hiding on the back so you have to endure the sound of
| USB-tin scraping against anodized aluminum, the round
| mouse, etc.
| bigyabai wrote:
| Incredible is stretching things. Apple had to catch up with
| AMD in efficiency, and they did that. Outside the mobile
| market, Apple is basically a non-entity.
| Miraste wrote:
| Apple doesn't have huge sales volume for Macs because of
| macOS and their astronomical pricing schemes, but it's not
| because of the hardware. Macbooks are easily the best
| laptops you can buy for most purposes, and they have been
| since the M1 came out. That has never been true of Apple
| computers before.
| bigyabai wrote:
| It's because of the hardware. For mobile Apple is
| competitive, for desktop applications they don't even
| show up on most benchmarks next to AMD/Nvidia hardware.
|
| For example, you have to scroll beneath last-gen laptop
| GPUs before you can find any Apple hardware on the OpenCL
| charts: https://browser.geekbench.com/opencl-benchmarks
| Miraste wrote:
| That's also because of software. Apple deprecated OpenCL
| in MacOS eight years ago. In productivity software with
| solid Metal implementations, like Blender, the M4 Max is
| on par with the top of Nvidia's (mobile) 5xxx line,
| except with much more VRAM.
| bigyabai wrote:
| No software fix exists, Apple's GPUs are architecturally
| limited to raster efficiency (and now, matmul ops). It's
| frankly bewildering that a raster-optimized SOC struggles
| to decisively outperform a tensor-optimized CUDA system
| in 2026.
| Miraste wrote:
| I get the feeling you had a specific use case that didn't
| work well with Apple GPUs? I'd be curious what it was.
| The architecture does have some unusual limitations.
|
| By software problem, though, I meant referencing OpenCL
| benchmarks. No one in 2026 should be using OpenCL on
| macOS at all, and the benchmarks aren't representative of
| the hardware.
| jajuuka wrote:
| I agree that the early days when every app was a single
| purchase and the prices were much higher it made more sense. A
| lot of people got rich from the App Store. So 30% wasn't a huge
| piece when you were seeing consistent growth every year in the
| user base.
|
| I think the most annoying thing is how unevenly the policy is
| applied. Some megacorps pay the 30% and others like Amazon get
| sweetheart deals. So it unfortunately comes down to who
| benefits more. If you have something Apple really wants then
| they will cut a deal. But if not then you pay the high tax.
| They've at least cut it down somewhat for smaller devs and
| teams, but the whole industry needs to change.
| IAP/Subscriptions shouldn't just inherit the pricing systems of
| old.
|
| I have a feeling Tim is just going to tank the Trump stuff and
| then peace out next admin so he gets all the blame. Much like
| Ive and Dye have been.
| joshstrange wrote:
| > I think the most annoying thing is how unevenly the policy
| is applied. Some megacorps pay the 30% and others like Amazon
| get sweetheart deals.
|
| I agree, there were deals down to 15% I think (maybe lower)
| but I don't think that's still happening? I mean, Netflix
| finally gave up but only after increasing their IAP fee to
| cover the difference for many years. I might be behind the
| times on this but I didn't think they still had better cuts
| for larger corporations. I do know not all developers are
| treated the same (see Meta still being on the app store after
| all the shenanigans they pulled with enterprise certs, or
| Uber), and that does suck. It means that if you are big
| enough you can break the rules while an indie dev can have
| everything taken due to an automated system or mistake, even
| when it's not their fault.
|
| > I have a feeling Tim is just going to tank the Trump stuff
| and then peace out next admin so he gets all the blame. Much
| like Ive and Dye have been.
|
| I agree that's likely, though the thought of him staying till
| the "end" of that is not attractive.
| pixl97 wrote:
| >but I don't think that's still happening?
|
| Apple and the contracted company are very very unlikely to
| tell you they have a secret contract for lower prices in
| effect unless they are forced to under court disclosure.
| joshstrange wrote:
| Oh, I 100% agree. I was wrong, I thought they got in
| trouble for doing that but I think I am only remembering
| things that came out in discovery for the Epic case,
| which didn't center on that or prevent Apple from having
| such arrangements.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| 30% was always excessive.
|
| I suspect developers are looking for these workaround because
| of the 30%. If Apple had asked for, say, 10%, would there be as
| many developers looking for loopholes?
|
| I don't know. Apple perhaps should ask for compensation for
| "vouching for" the developer's app, hosting the app,
| distributing the app. But Steam shows us another model where
| the developer themselves pay a modest up-front cost to have
| their app hosted ($100) and then Steam steps out of the way.
|
| I wonder if this would go a long way too to thinning the herd
| so to speak from the Apple App Store--perhaps improve the
| overall quality of the apps submitted.
| cyberax wrote:
| I think a lot of developers were willing to let it slide when
| App Store was a luxury market. You could just ignore it and
| make regular webapps and/or desktop software.
|
| But now iOS is the most popular computing platform in the US.
| We no longer _have_ an option to ignore it.
|
| And 30% is just crazy. And it's _on_ _top_ of all other
| expenses: Apple hardware that you need to buy to develop for
| iOS, $100 per year subscription fee, overhead of using
| Apple's shitty tools, etc.
| scottyah wrote:
| To be fair, the fee is really 15%- 30% only comes into play
| only after you've made $1mm USD in the prior year.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| That's the issue, though. These aren't the Patreon devs
| running the app. These are creators using Patreon. It's 2nd
| level rent seeking.
| panstromek wrote:
| Steam takes 30% cut, though?
| bogwog wrote:
| Yes, and that is also excessive.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
| panstromek wrote:
| I'm not judging that, it just seems to contradict the
| "But Steam shows us another model..." sentence, so I'm
| trying to make sense of that.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| You're right, I didn't know it was 30%.
|
| Checking an LLM, it sounds like they more or less all
| charge 30%. That's shit.
| panstromek wrote:
| I have to respond to your point, though. Whether 30% cut
| is excessive depends on whether devs feel like they are
| getting a good deal. As far as I can tell, game
| developers don't seem to complain about Steam cut very
| much, it seems like the value you get is worth it.
|
| For example, this thread https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/c
| omments/10wvgoo/do_you_think... seems like majority is
| positive about it, even though people debate. When Apple
| tax is brought up, there's almost never even a discussion
| there, it's pretty universally hated.
|
| Apple seems to have almost adveserial relationship to its
| developers. I deploy to App Store and I feel like I'm
| getting screwed. Even compared to Google, which takes the
| same cut, but does bahave a lot more nicely to its
| developers.
| metabagel wrote:
| There's little assurance of safety or 'fitness for purpose' for
| apps in the App Store. Apple takes 30% for distribution, and
| you're basically on your own.
|
| https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-betrayed-trust-says-iph...
| viktorcode wrote:
| It was the opposite. US mobile operator stores charged upward
| of 50% to sell stuff on their feature phones, with cherry on
| top in the form of paid submissions.
| bogwog wrote:
| You think that's bad? Grugnar charge 80% to sell rocks in
| front of cave, but Grugnar killed by Bugluk and then cave
| belong to Bugluk. Bugluk eat you and take rocks if you try
| sell in front of cave.
| viktorcode wrote:
| I'm replying to the statement that 30% was always a bad
| deal, by providing an example that shows that it was a
| clear improvement on the market of mobile development (as
| others did the same in this comments section).
|
| In your cavemen logic the closest example would be that
| nobody killed the first guy; he was forced out of business
| because a new cave opened nearby and they were selling
| rocks much cheaper.
| idontwantthis wrote:
| Isn't this what Epic just sued and won over?
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Epic didnt really win. If i recall correctly the ruling ended
| up being that 3rd party payment processors are allowed but 27%
| of app revenue is still owed to apple if that route is taken.
| So you can save 3% by using 3rd party payment processing but
| thats around how much those services cost anyway so no real
| saving
| ceejayoz wrote:
| They _tried_ that. The judge, correctly, went "uh the fuck
| you will".
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games_v._Apple
|
| > While Apple implemented App Store policies to allow
| developers to link to alternative payment options, the
| policies still required the developer to provide a 27%
| revenue share back to Apple, and heavily restricted how they
| could be shown in apps. Epic filed complaints that these
| changes violated the ruling, and in April 2025 Rogers found
| for Epic that Apple had willfully violated her injunction,
| placing further restrictions on Apple including banning them
| from collecting revenue shares from non-Apple payment methods
| or imposing any restrictions on links to such alternative
| payment options. Though Apple is appealing this latest
| ruling, they approved the return of Fortnite with its third-
| party payment system to the App Store in May 2025.
| anonymous908213 wrote:
| That judge's ruling was essentially overturned last month
| on appeal.
|
| > Even though Apple was no longer prohibiting linked-out
| purchases, the district court held that this new approach
| effectively prohibited linked-out purchases, and it
| violated the spirit of the injunction. The district court
| then enjoined Apple from imposing any commission or fee on
| linked-out purchases. However, the Ninth Circuit panel
| found that the complete ban was overbroad and punitive.
| Apple should be permitted to charge a commission based on
| costs that are genuinely and reasonably necessary for its
| coordination of external links and linked-out purchases,
| but not more.
|
| "Genuinely and reasonably necessary", not being defined,
| will naturally be taken by Apple's malicious compliance
| department to mean "26%", I'm sure, and we'll get to enjoy
| a continued round of show trials in court with no
| meaningful effect for years to come.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| I wouldn't describe that as "overturned" but rather
| "clarified a detail or two". They still aren't allowed to
| set arbitrary fees but if they can show receipts then
| they can demand reimbursement.
|
| The idea seems to be that the injunction shouldn't be
| able to force Apple to operate a given account at an
| overall loss. They can bill you for resources of theirs
| that you actually use.
| anonymous908213 wrote:
| However, given we've seen how flagrantly they violated
| the first injunction, it's easy to believe they will take
| the liberty to interpret this one as maliciously as
| possible as well. Sure, if the fees are too high they'll
| end up back in court to attempt to prove costs, and maybe
| something will happen years later after bouncing around
| in appeals and violating new injunctions, or maybe it
| won't.
| viktorcode wrote:
| Epic lost on 9 counts out of 10 in the original lawsuit. The
| one they won is being appealed and in the process Fortnight was
| ordered to be reinstated in the US. I wouldn't bet that this
| arrangement will survive appeals.
| hiprob wrote:
| What are you going to do about it? Use Android?
| esseph wrote:
| GrapheneOS
| tasty_freeze wrote:
| It is more clunky and less polished than android. On the
| other hand, it is far more secure.
|
| I was a user of android for 15+ years, and I had been using a
| pixel 4a when the battery issue came up last year. Google
| handled that so terribly I bought a used pixel 7a and
| installed Graphene.
|
| Installation is quite easy. The lack of native voice-to-text
| was a pain; I installed a 3rd party utility (FUTO) for that,
| but unlike the native one where it translates while you talk,
| FUTO waits for you to finish then translates everything.
|
| The messaging app is less integrated too. Android finally
| fixed things up with Apple such that emoji responses (heart,
| thumbs up, +1, etc) would appear as an annotation after the
| text message I sent, but now I'm back to getting "So and so
| likes your comment <full text of my comment>".
|
| Some of the other pain was because I have tried to cut down
| on other google properties. I use "here we go" for mapping
| instead of google maps. Due to the scale of things, the real
| time traffic updates on google maps is far better than on
| here we go. I use fastmail instead of gmail and I'm 100%
| happy with that solution.
| tcoff91 wrote:
| launch an in-app browser and don't use apple as the payment
| processor.
|
| The Epic v Apple lawsuit verdict makes this allowed now.
| 1v1id wrote:
| My understanding was that you could have a button that could
| take the user outside of the app to pay (i.e. your website).
| So progress, but not this level of freedom yet.
| teejmya wrote:
| Yeah, lol.
|
| Was all Apple since the iBook G4. Bought a Pixel last week.
| It's nice.
| shimman wrote:
| Me? I'm working to help people get elected to Congress to help
| regulate this mess.
| pixl97 wrote:
| At the end of the day Apple is doing their damnedest to force
| the requirement to support other app stores. They want their
| cake, and they want to eat it too. Unfortunately they are
| going to make an epic fuckton of money before they get told
| to stop.
| nout wrote:
| Why would you want to give the government such power? That
| always amazes me... when there is an issue, people jump on
| "let's vote for government to regulate this", but then they
| are surprised when a new government gets to power and uses
| this new regulation/capability against you.
| mattnewton wrote:
| there is little other remedy to monopoly power?
| pessimizer wrote:
| I want them to use antitrust regulation against everyone,
| including me. That's what having values is like.
|
| Markets without competition degenerate. Markets are also
| artificial and always rely on government enforcement to
| exist - Apple _sues_ people who try to get around its
| market manipulation. You just prefer that governments help
| enforce trusts and destroy competition that those trusts
| denote as unfair.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| > Markets are also artificial and always rely on
| government enforcement to exist - Apple sues people who
| try to get around its market manipulation.
|
| Historically, markets are _destroyed_ by government
| interference, not propped up by it. Your own example is a
| case in point: were it not for the government making laws
| in favor of entrenched companies, Apple couldn 't sue the
| people trying to get around its market manipulation.
|
| > You just prefer that governments help enforce trusts
| and destroy competition that those trusts denote as
| unfair.
|
| This is a grossly unfair mischaracterization of the post
| you are replying to. Bad show, old chap.
| cyberax wrote:
| Apple doesn't _need_ to sue people. They can just stop
| distributing their apps.
|
| That's it. No "government monopoly" or anything, just
| regular commercial monopolism.
| leptons wrote:
| https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/media/1344546/dl?inlin
| e
|
| Apple is already getting sued by the DOJ for their abusive
| business practices. They should be regulated.
| cephi wrote:
| I may regret asking but what is your solution, then?
| weberer wrote:
| Use Android
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| That's only a solution until Google does the same. And
| then we're stuck. What do we do when the two largest
| phone platforms perform this stuff? Go off the grid
| instead of talking to our representatives?
| nout wrote:
| What about web app? Or desktop?
| anonymous908213 wrote:
| Android is actively in the process of trying to kill off
| the ability to install your own software that is not
| Google-approved, so this is temporary solution at best.
| johnisgood wrote:
| Well, since everything seems to be getting worse, lots of
| good stuff are a temporary solution. Kinda sucks.
| socalgal2 wrote:
| That is the user's solution. Patreon (the company having
| trouble with Apple) is not in the position to get ~50% of
| it's users to use a different phone.
|
| Apple should not be allowed to be in the middle of
| business and half the users of the world.
|
| And yes, that is very much something that governments
| have regulated for decades. In fact it's basically why
| anti-trust was invented. Train companies and deals with
| Standard Oil meant together they controlled the market
| since if you didn't go through them you couldn't ship
| your product.
| nout wrote:
| My (user) solution would be to use Patreon on the web, or
| on Android. No one is forcing you to use specifically the
| native Apple app.
|
| On top of that Patreon is a closed centralized platform
| that's bound to have issues like this and that's where I
| very much prefer using protocols (vs platforms) that
| enable the same. There are very similar solutions to
| Patreon, but based on nostr and related protocols.
|
| What is your solution to the government that you may not
| like using previously established "regulations" against
| people? My point is that you ask for regulation hoping
| that it will prevent this type of issue, but the
| regulation that you actually get will be barely having
| any effect and it will enforce ID + picture verification,
| it will enforce downloading specific government
| sanctioned keylogger app, it will enforce specific US
| state association, etc. New systems, new complexity,
| harder for newcomers to start business... Things like
| this are always added in the fine print. It will just
| lead to excluding so many people from using the service
| and making the overall space so much worse. That's why
| I'm encouraging people to think twice before immediately
| asking the government to expand its overreach via new
| regulations.
| pipo234 wrote:
| > On top of that Patreon is a closed centralized platform
| that's bound to have issues like this and that's where I
| very much prefer using protocols (vs platforms) that
| enable the same. There are very similar solutions to
| Patreon, but based on nostr and related protocols.
|
| The problem here isn't that Patreon is centralized, but
| that the app store is. Apple could easily require a cut
| from any app using nostr and related protocols. Or simply
| ban them altogether.
|
| Not saying government mandates are ideal, but I don't see
| any other way to force some sense into Apple (or Google).
| App stores should be some sort of independent
| institutions (non-profits) but companies have no
| incentive to cede that revenue. Until that happens, best
| not download from app stores unless absolutely necessary.
| dns_snek wrote:
| > My point is that you ask for regulation hoping that it
| will prevent this type of issue, but the regulation that
| you actually get will be barely having any effect and it
| will enforce ID + picture verification, it will enforce
| downloading specific government sanctioned keylogger app,
|
| This is nonsense. Yes bad regulation is bad regulation,
| that's not an argument against regulation but an argument
| against _bad regulation_. Not all regulation is bad
| regulation - in fact most of it is good regulation. I
| enjoy not drinking feces for example but I 'd love to
| hear your thoughts on how regulation against poopy
| drinking water is going to be turned against me.
|
| > New systems, new complexity, harder for newcomers to
| start business... Things like this are always added in
| the fine print.
|
| Good regulation recognizes that small businesses don't
| have the same ability to comply with complex
| requirements, so it creates exceptions for small business
| or relaxes requirements.
|
| By all means, please advocate for good regulation and
| call out bad regulation, but pretending that regulation
| is unnecessary or inherently harmful only serves the
| interest of capital at everyone else's expense.
| luqtas wrote:
| > I enjoy not drinking feces for example but I'd love to
| hear your thoughts on how regulation against poopy
| drinking water is going to be turned against me.
|
| you can't interfere or comment effectively on the
| policies or processes of your water treatment plant. on
| the Patreon case the user can simply stop using Apple
| hardware or move to the web
|
| throwing every problem down to the goverment feels like:
| i believe in animal rights so instead of going vegan i'll
| protest to the goverment make it illegal to kill sentient
| animals for products.
|
| i know we can do both but OP's anarchy solutions feels
| much more reasonable than expecting the goverment solve
| stuff. creating a culture that uses de-centralized
| approaches is times better than sticking to a centralized
| platform, regulated or not
| dns_snek wrote:
| > you can't interfere or comment effectively on the
| policies or processes of your water treatment plant
|
| Of course you can! You can simply install a well, a water
| filtration/RO system to make poopy water drinkable, or
| move to a different town that better suits your water
| quality needs. You always have the option of taking
| matters into your own hands and the point of having a
| government is so that you don't have to, in the interest
| of boosting quality of life and productivity.
|
| > throwing every problem down to the goverment feels
| like: i believe in animal rights so instead of going
| vegan i'll protest to the goverment make it illegal to
| kill sentient animals for products.
|
| Yes - obviously? That's how "rights" work, what separates
| them from "personal beliefs" is existence of a law that
| prohibits (or stipulates) certain actions from other
| people.
|
| If I say that murder is cruel and harmful to other
| people, is your suggestion that I simply abstain from
| murder instead of demanding legislation that prohibits
| it?
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >Why would you want to give the government such power?
|
| Because the government is the only body equipped to create
| and enforce consumer rights laws. Do you think we'd have
| refund policies if the government didn't regulate them?
|
| >then they are surprised when a new government gets to
| power and uses this new regulation/capability against you.
|
| Okay. How is the act of forbidding platforms from banning
| alternative payment processors going to backfire?
| chuneezy wrote:
| Bravo!
| dyauspitr wrote:
| There is so much stuff that needs to get fixed in congress
| over this issue is even a blip on the radar.
| shimman wrote:
| True but people need to understand there is a wide public
| acceptance on this issue. No one likes big tech fleecing
| both users and businesses alike, people want action. If you
| aren't collectively organizing to exert toward this action
| how do you honestly expect things to get better? Because
| the opposition has no issue throwing hundreds of millions
| behind a super pac to enact the law as they see fit.
|
| It doesn't have to be like this.
|
| Also, contrary to current political environments, Congress
| is more than capable of doing multiple things as once.
| pxoe wrote:
| Tech companies are involved in lobbying, so maybe it's not
| as irrelevant or unconnected as you might think. Fees are
| how they make the money that goes into it.
| hermanzegerman wrote:
| Google is also making Sideloading harder "to protect users"
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| Can we please just have cheap/affordable linux phones at this
| point.
|
| I am so close to having raspberry pi phones but even rasp pi 's
| are getting expensive because of AI dammit
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| What's the big barrier stopping Linux from becoming a viable
| mobile OS? Or at least some completely de-googlefied AOSP?
| fragmede wrote:
| Hardware. Mass manufacturing, plus the deep pockets of a
| corporation, mean that we've come to expect cheap prices
| for inanely powerful hardware. Yes I'm calling an $1,800
| iphone cheap for what you get. That's cheap for what you
| get because if you're a tiny company, you can't get a phone
| of that level manufactured that you can still for anywhere
| near that price, and that's a super high end model. How
| many people are going to shell out $1,000 for a model with
| the specs of a $500 model just because it runs Linux? And
| that's before you even actually deal with the software.
| Specifically, driver support, battery life, and app support
| are the three big show stoppers there. The best option this
| second is a Pixel running GrapheneOS, and that's based on
| Android on Goolge hardware. (They did just announce getting
| off Pixels tho.)
|
| A Linux smartphone has been tried before. That's not too
| say someone shouldn't try again, but just to say there are
| lessons to be learned from those attempts.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Yeah, that makes sense on the hardware end. It's really
| hard to compete and even some large players like LG
| ultimately fell out because of that.
|
| But I was more speaking on the software end. You can
| certainly piss off Google if enough people decided to buy
| an android phone but have it boot up Linux instead. Might
| even piss off Samsung, so that's a plus. I assume the
| infrastructure to get APK support on Linux is a herculean
| task, though (that's the only way I see as a middleground
| until native linux apps work on mobile).
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| There is a way to run waydroid/android applications in
| Linux. I have personally tried it and honestly it does
| work great for the most part.
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| > How many people are going to shell out $1,000 for a
| model with the specs of a $500 model just because it runs
| Linux? And that's before you even actually deal with the
| software
|
| Thanks for writing this comment because that's exactly
| something which I wanted to convey with my original
| comment too
| handedness wrote:
| GrapheneOS is already a viable de-Googled and significantly
| hardened and improved fork of AOSP. It runs on Google
| Pixels at present, with an OEM device planned for release
| in 2027.
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| I guess yeah, Most of my concerns were with Privacy but
| yea looks like grapheneos is a tradeoff I might have to
| make some day
|
| but honestly its also the fact that I love cli tools and
| yea I can and I have used termux in the past but I really
| wish for a more first class for cli tools as well and I
| don't know but I just really wish to support linux tools.
|
| Like I am just not satisfied with the current options we
| have right now and you can look at fragmede's comment as
| to why I mean that. I mean I just want a cheap affordable
| linux phone with just decent specs nothing too fancy. By
| decent I mean that I used to be on a dumb phone for a
| year with 32 mb ram iirc so perhaps my specs can be
| considered to be minimal but I feel like 2-4GB ram might
| be a good start. (prefer the 4gb option as to favour both
| me anad the masses)
|
| Can framework or some other company go ahead and create a
| linux phone too please?
| tootie wrote:
| Use Android or use websites instead of apps. Apple pushes their
| app ecosystem so hard because it's their walled garden. If you
| want to support a creator, go their website and click whatever
| they offer.
| PlatoIsADisease wrote:
| Walled garden is marketing speak.
|
| Its a walled prison
| fblp wrote:
| This is also a political issue. The administration could have
| ftc investigate this under anti-trust, and the government could
| also pass tighter laws preventing this. But this current
| administration is likely too friendly to big corporate
| interests.
| hilti wrote:
| Half of the apps on the app store can easily be replaced by a
| PWA that works on iOS and Android.
| pjerem wrote:
| Well. I own an iPhone, a Macbook, Airpods, Apple Watch. I'm in
| the Apple ecosystem since the last 16 years.
|
| Unfortunately, due to their behavior in the latest years, I'm
| not going to buy anything Apple anymore.
|
| Fortunately for me, I prefer Linux to MacOS so I never have
| been totally tied in the Apple ecosystem and I know how to
| leave the boat without a lot of hassle.
|
| I'm really saddened because they know how to make great
| products when they want to. It's just infuriating that
| everything that is shitty in their products is never due to
| randomness or bugs or whatever, but ALWAYS because they decided
| to fuck you.
| ethanrutherford wrote:
| Always hated apple for their putrid business practices. Add this
| to the pile.
| leokennis wrote:
| Apple making sure to stay in lock step with the US' general
| decline into late stage capitalist decline.
| intothemild wrote:
| The Services version of apple is the worst. Tim Cook might
| actually be the worst ceo apples had
| tclancy wrote:
| The Nineties would like a word.
| vlod wrote:
| I've been trying to find a decent 16'' laptop (to replace my
| thinkpad x1 carbon).
|
| Been running linux (popos) for donkey years and I entertained
| the thought I should go back to Apple and get the MacbookPro-16
| (which is probably the best laptop you can buy imho).
|
| Then I remembered all this crap that Apple does and dismissed
| it.
| jama211 wrote:
| Google play store and steam are the same. This is regulatory.
| Hating a company for maximising profits is really something you
| should aim at legislation to control unchecked capitalism.
| gumby271 wrote:
| Except neither of those two are the exclusive way to install
| software on a computer that you own. All 3 have their issues,
| but Apple is uniquely bad in this way. I don't find myself
| Hating Steam/Valve.
| thisislife2 wrote:
| I call this the Apple "idiot tax" - 'cos you have to be an idiot
| in letting Apple exploit you (the developer and the user) this
| brazenly.
| dymk wrote:
| Victim blaming
| thisislife2 wrote:
| _Every time you spend money, you are casting a vote for the
| kind of world you want._ - Don 't most of you here tell me
| that corporates don't need regulations as smart people "vote
| with their wallet"? If this is what some want to spend money
| on, the term "idiot" sounds justified ... anyway, the point
| was not to offend; just to embarrass some mildly to
| introspect their purchasing decision.
| dpc_01234 wrote:
| Oh, now ios users are an oppressed group. How cute.
| mort96 wrote:
| Being a victim and being an oppressed group are not the
| same thing...
| mort96 wrote:
| This is counterproductive. The only alternative to letting
| Apple exploit you is letting Google exploit you. There are
| differences, Google is somewhat better on this specific point,
| but there's enough things Google is worse at (such as privacy)
| that choosing Google isn't exactly without downsides.
|
| Your mindset results in Apple users thinking "the problem is
| those stupid Android idiots who accept being in an ad tech
| company's spyware garden" and Android users thinking "the
| problem is those stupid Apple idiots who accept that 30% of
| literally everything they do goes to Apple". In reality, we
| have a common enemy in the big tech duopoly and extremely
| lacklustre regulation which lets them keep doing this shit. You
| calling me an idiot for making a different shitty trade-off
| than you helps nobody.
| thisislife2 wrote:
| You do have an alternative to both Google and Apple, which
| gives you the best of both worlds - it's called the Sailfish
| mobile OS - https://sailfishos.org/ . (As for my snarky post,
| read my other comment in this same thread to understand why I
| posted what I posted.)
| mort96 wrote:
| I don't think I can send or receive money to and from my
| friends or pay my public transport fare from Sailfish.
| thisislife2 wrote:
| If there's an Android app for it, it should run on
| Sailfish OS too. They are working hard to make more and
| more apps compatible with it as this old discussion
| highlights - https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/banking-apps-
| on-sailfish-os/1...
| mort96 wrote:
| These days, Google has foolproof ways for an app to query
| and check if it's running on a "genuine" (read: Google-
| controlled, locked down) system.
|
| I'm not switching to Sailfish.
| thisislife2 wrote:
| Who am I to tell you how to spend your money? The point
| is, there are alternative unlike what you claimed. There
| is currently no foolproof way yet for Google to block
| apps. Also, it doesn't matter, in the long run - once the
| adoption of Sailfish OS picks up and it reaches critical
| mass, developers will switch to building apps for it. The
| "digital sovereignty movement" also helps. Russia has
| already bought and forked the source code of Sailfish OS
| and adopted it as its "national" state-sanctioned mobile
| operating system. This has had a ripple effect where many
| Russian apps have now been ported to it. China too has
| already forked Android to create its own "official" OS
| and most Chinese apps now also work on it. Similar
| attempts are going on with other countries too, who don't
| wish to be trapped in the duopoly that is Apple and
| Google in the mobile phone industry.
| mort96 wrote:
| I would like nothing more than for a third viable
| competitor to show up.
|
| I don't think you calling me an idiot will make that
| happen faster, is the point.
| epolanski wrote:
| > This is counterproductive. The only alternative to letting
| Apple exploit you is letting Google exploit you.
|
| Or allowing users to control their hardware and software and
| give them the freedom to install the hell they want on it?
|
| We've been using computers for eternities where we still have
| the possibility, yet, as soon as it is about phones then "no
| way, we protecting you from bad actors".
|
| Give me a break, you want to help protect me from bad actors
| implement proper software/hardware jails/containers for third
| party software and that's it.
| mort96 wrote:
| As a user, I can not allow users to control their hardware.
| It is not up to me. I get to choose between Apple and
| Google, and neither is in the business of allowing users to
| control their hardware.
| frizlab wrote:
| I think it's not that simple. These are not my words and I cannot
| only post the link [0] as the author uses the referrer to hide
| his articles from HN, but here's the text:
|
| Once again, Patreon is going to strong-arm all of us into "charge
| at the moment of sign-up" instead of "charge on the first of the
| month." They have wanted this for years, and once again they are
| saying that Apple has given them cover to demand it. Here's what
| I wrote when they tried to pull this shit a year and a half ago
| and then chickened out:
|
| Patreon has two billing models, monthly (bills on the first of
| the month, or whenever they get around to it) and daily (charges
| you the moment you sign up.)
|
| For several years now, they have been trying really hard to get
| creators to switch to daily billing whether they like it or not,
| with a series of intrusive nags and dark patterns. E.g., the
| "Settings" tab always has an "unread" alert on it reminding me
| that I have not made the "recommended" change.
|
| Now they're going to force everyone to switch, and they're
| blaming Apple for it. And, to be clear, fuck Apple, but also fuck
| Patreon, this is their choice and it's going to mean that I can
| no longer use their service.
|
| Here's a support request I just sent them, again, after clicking
| 15 levels deep into their FAQ before finding the thing that might
| contact a human. Since the email alerting me of this change came
| from a "noreply" address because of course it did.
|
| Feel free to send your own:
|
| ---
|
| Subject: Subscription billing is unacceptable
|
| You recently sent mail saying that you're going to force me to
| switch from monthly billing to subscription billing.
|
| Subscription billing is unacceptable for my Patreon. It does not
| work.
|
| I sell monthly memberships to a physical nightclub. The
| memberships begin on the first of the month. I fulfill and mail
| the physical membership cards on the first of the month. If you
| make me switch to daily billing, that means I will have to do
| merch fulfillment on a daily basis instead, and I simply cannot
| do that.
|
| If you force me to switch from a monthly cycle to a daily cycle I
| will have no choice but to stop using Patreon.
|
| To be clear: I do not give a shit about the iOS app. Not one
| fractional fuck is given. If the solution to this problem is that
| people cannot sign up for, or access, my Patreon from the iOS
| app, that is 100% acceptable to me.
|
| I know for a fact that none -- zero, 0% -- of my patrons have
| signed up using the iOS app. I know this because I had to warn
| them away from it, due to the 30% Apple Tax, and all of them
| complied. All of them. The iOS app is utterly meaningless to me
| and to my patrons.
|
| (Also you are blaming this on Apple's bullying, which is simply
| not credible. You've been nagging me to change to subscription
| billing for years, with the little red error icon appearing
| everywhere. This is your decision. You are transparently using
| Apple as an excuse.)
|
| ---
|
| I said this same thing to you a year and a half ago, the last
| time you tried to pull this nonsense. Second verse, same as the
| first. Last time, support replied that they "completely get why
| this change would be upsetting" and "will bring my feedback to
| the team." Uh huh.
|
| Patreon's absolutely awful level of service and support has been
| a huge problem for quite some time, but I am really not looking
| forward to having to figure out how to implement recurring
| monthly billing on my own.
|
| Patreon, YOU HAD ONE JOB.
|
| [0] https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/01/patreon-is-lying-again-
| and-...
| chongli wrote:
| Why do you have to do merch fulfillment on a daily basis? Just
| inform people before signup that you only send out membership
| cards on the first of the month and if they sign up at any
| other time they'll have to wait until the first of the next
| month to get their card sent in the mail.
|
| Alternatively, they could show up at the nightclub in person
| and bring their phone with proof of purchase and the bouncer
| could hand them a membership card and cross their name off a
| list.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| > Why do you have to do merch fulfillment on a daily basis?
|
| Because the "daily" billing model is prorated IIUC. Seems a
| bit unfair not to be given access to something you've paid
| for.
|
| > bring their phone with proof of purchase
|
| One does wonder.
| kalleboo wrote:
| Patreon's whole shift away from the bulk billing never made
| sense to me.
|
| I subscribe to like 10 patrons each at $1-$3/month. Right now
| they can just charge me once, $20/mo, pay 3%+30c card fee on
| that, they pay a buck in fees, get $19, great.
|
| Instead they want to charge me $1, 10 times a month, hit with a
| 30c fee every time, instead paying a total of $5 in fees,
| getting way less proportionally.
|
| They must really make their bulk on big patrons paying like
| $20+/month to a single patreon
| what wrote:
| Why is this person selling "nightclub" memberships via patreon?
| wtallis wrote:
| The what and why of the nightclub memberships are explained
| pretty well on the patreon's about page:
| https://www.patreon.com/dnalounge/about
|
| The person in question is
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski
| mrcwinn wrote:
| While its true that creators often share "extras" in return for
| support, it's crazy to call the support itself a "digital good."
| I can only assume they mean it is digitally good for their
| business.
| dankwizard wrote:
| Just do what we all do to dodge this, have the Account management
| and purchasing abilities sit inside an embedded browser window
| that opens up from a button push in the app. Yes it adds a little
| barrier but with Apple Pay it is a very small barrier and the
| juice is worth the squeeze.
| iknowstuff wrote:
| Don't they forbid this? Spotify couldn't even link to their
| website in the US lol
| colechristensen wrote:
| This was a result of the Apple vs Epic case, external payment
| processors avoiding the fee were enabled in the US in May
| 2025.
| kccqzy wrote:
| If it was enabled, why can Apple still demand 30% cut here?
| Couldn't Patreon just switch to external payment processors
| citing the Epic case?
| AstroBen wrote:
| They'd have to require all current subscriptions be
| cancelled and the re-upped with the new payment
| processor, no? That's gunna be really costly
|
| But then again to avoid a 30% fee.. probably worth it
| ezfe wrote:
| Because Patreon doesn't want to do that. They could.
| ansc wrote:
| _in the US_
| colechristensen wrote:
| They don't have to "cite the Epic case", it's just
| functionality available to everyone now. Your app is no
| longer blocked from approval for including an external
| payment provider.
|
| They'd actually have to do it though and that could lead
| to a large loss of revenue for themselves and their
| subscribers.
| kccqzy wrote:
| In practice I've seen apps just game the system by (1) using
| IAP using the normal flow, and (2) giving user a button
| unrelated to purchasing that would open a new WebView, which
| just happens to contain a purchase button.
| ezfe wrote:
| Spotify does link to their website to sign up in the US...
| hahahahhaah wrote:
| Or add a 45% apple tax afyer they click buy. E.g. costs $100,
| price comes up as.$100 with added apple tax as line item. total
| $145.
|
| Click here to avoid apple tax takes you to web page if allowed.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| Not allowed. They ban your app immediately if you inform
| people they are robbing them!
| debazel wrote:
| This and the practice of forcing you to use same pricing on
| different platforms should just be made illegal and it
| would fix so much of this.
| noitpmeder wrote:
| I could be wrong but seem to remember this being explicitly
| disallowed by Apples terms
| amelius wrote:
| Except the juice is for you and the squeeze is for your
| customers.
|
| And it's still a net loss.
| m132 wrote:
| Patiently waiting for a mandatory 30% fee on every transaction
| made with iOS banking software. Maybe that'll put a definitive
| stop to forcing mobile "apps" with jailbreak detection on
| customers and have banks think twice before crippling the
| functionality of their websites.
|
| Please Apple, make this happen.
| DANmode wrote:
| Never.
|
| Popular apps have been exempt from these rules since the
| beginning of time - not that I agree with this.
| wmf wrote:
| Is Patreon not popular?
| speed_spread wrote:
| As an app? No.
| DANmode wrote:
| If their app didn't exist on iOS,
|
| would it be weird/embarrassing for Apple?
|
| That's what "popular" means, in this context.
|
| That's how they make their decisions.
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| I feel like it would definitely be weird.
|
| But Patreon does have a web version but I am not sure how
| many people prefer web sites in Apple ecosystem
| especially on Ios so I do find the whole thing to be a
| bit weird because this ~30% cut essentially seems to rip
| off of creators in some sense.
| DANmode wrote:
| It rips off _everyone_.
|
| Epic Games went to federal court over this with Apple
| like 40 fuckin times - a related fun read for you.
| simondotau wrote:
| I'd be cheering on Epic Games if they were going after
| Sony and Nintendo with equal fervour. Personally, I don't
| see why any developer should be allowed free rein on
| anyone else's platform when it comes to the selling of
| games and virtual hats.
|
| Personally I think Apple should have two pricing tiers:
| one for interactive entertainment, and one for everything
| else. For interactive entertainment, a flat 30% on
| everything. For everything else, Apple lowers their
| margin to cover transaction costs only (in the realm of
| 5-10%).
| troupo wrote:
| That's what Apple already doing: applying arbitrary
| categories and charging arbitrary amounts of money
| because "transaction costs and platform or something".
|
| 1. Where the hell is the notion of "using the platform
| for free" even coming from (it's coming from Apple of
| course). I didn't know that iPhones are free, or that dev
| fees are waived for everyone.
|
| 2. Why the hell can't I use a _different_ payment
| processor tham Apple and tell people about it? Then I 'm
| neither using Apple's platform "for free" nor paying
| _Apple 's_ transaction fees.
| simondotau wrote:
| For interactive entertainment, I see no moral obligation
| for Apple to adopt any particular policy unless all major
| digital game store operators (Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft,
| Valve etc) are subject to the same requirements.
|
| For all other apps, I agree that alternative payment
| processing should be permitted for one-off transactions.
| And I can agree for subscriptions as well, _provided_ the
| developer can meet a high standard for simple,
| frictionless cancellations.
| troupo wrote:
| > no moral obligation for Apple to adopt any particular
| policy unless all major digital game store operators
| (Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, Valve etc) are subject to the
| same requirements.
|
| Why? iPhones are not gaming consoles.
| simondotau wrote:
| Liquor stores are not candy stores, yet they are allowed
| to sell candy to minors while being prohibited from
| selling liquor. The principle is straightforward:
| regulation should follow the product, not the venue.
| troupo wrote:
| All pained analogies are both pained and invalid.
|
| iOS is not a liquor store, and allowing people to use
| other payment processors or even other stores on the
| platform is not selling liquor to minors.
|
| Note how your analogies immediately fall apart for other
| _platforms_ like, for example, _Apple 's own MacOS_.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| > I don't see why any developer should be allowed free
| rein on anyone else's platform
|
| Is it a "platform" the way a console is or is it a public
| marketplace? I'd think the distinction comes down to size
| relative to the rest of the market. If I run a private
| club that caters to a only a few people I'm not impacting
| anyone else. Whereas if I run a giant chain of so called
| "private clubs" that in reality 50% of the town purchases
| their groceries from then perhaps some scrutiny by the
| regulator is in order.
| simondotau wrote:
| You quoted a sentence fragment that, when read in
| isolation, conveys a position I emphatically reject.
|
| To answer your question directly: I contend that when it
| comes to operating a marketplace for interactive
| entertainment, an iPhone is no different from a Nintendo
| Switch, and if you want to impose rules, they must be
| imposed equally. For all other apps, I think Epic made
| some valid points.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| The quote was not intended to frame your position in any
| particular manner. Simply to provide context so it was
| clear what I was responding to.
|
| I take two issues with your response.
|
| First and foremost, the point I raised was specifically
| about the size of an operation relative to the overall
| market. You haven't addressed that. You say you see no
| difference but don't explain why. It seems obvious to me
| that larger players will require different regulations
| than smaller players due to having different effects on
| the market.
|
| Second, Apple doesn't operate a marketplace for games.
| They operate a general purpose market that includes apps
| for anything and everything. Compare a 1000 sq ft mom and
| pop game shop to a 400k sq ft big box retailer that sells
| groceries, liquor, clothing, home goods, yard tools, just
| about everything except for literal building materials.
| It wouldn't be reasonable to treat them the same way.
| simondotau wrote:
| > It seems obvious to me that larger players will require
| different regulations than smaller players
|
| I agree with this in principle, but I don't think that
| principle applies here. Apple is not a uniquely large
| vendor of games. There are multiple ecosystems operating
| at similar orders of magnitude in games sales, at around
| $10B or more. Against that backdrop, portraying the App
| Store as some singular 400-pound gorilla with respect to
| games is not accurate.
|
| > Second, Apple doesn't operate a marketplace for games.
| They operate a general purpose market
|
| That distinction cuts the other way. A general-purpose
| market does not escape product-specific regulation; it
| applies it selectively. A store that sells liquor must
| comply with liquor laws when selling liquor, but selling
| liquor does not prohibit it from selling candy to
| children. It is normal and reasonable to attach rules to
| the product being sold, not to the fact that the venue
| also sells other things.
|
| Perhaps if Apple were willing to exclude games from the
| _App Store_ and move them to a newly created _Game
| Store,_ it would be easier to imagine how they could be
| made subject to different rules. But I don 't think that
| should be necessary for the government to impose
| different rules on different product categories.
|
| To be clear, another acceptable outcome IMO is for the
| _Epic Games_ argument to prevail with respect to all
| major gaming platforms. If they believe Apple deserves 0%
| of Fortnite revenues on iOS, then Sony deserves 0% of
| Fortnite revenues on Playstation.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| It seems to me that you're cherry picking a product
| category while I am taking "mobile app market" as a
| whole.
|
| I did not suggest that Apple could escape laws that apply
| to a given product category. Quite the opposite - that I
| think it is reasonable for a behemoth to be subject to
| _additional_ regulations that cut across _all_ product
| categories. That was the point of my analogy. In physical
| retail big box stores are subject to additional
| regulations that mom and pop shops are not. The fact that
| Walmart happens to sell games and happens not to be the
| largest retailer of those is not going to get them out of
| being treated as the giant that they are.
|
| I don't think it matters that in any given product
| category Apple isn't the largest. The issue is that they
| are one half of what is effectively a mobile app store
| duopoly in most of the western world. That fact carries
| serious implications for developers and consumers alike.
| Developers in particular, regardless of product category,
| are effectively forced to do business with Apple. On that
| basis I believe that either the app stores of both Apple
| and Google should be subject to _extremely_ stringent
| regulations or alternatively that the platforms should be
| forcibly opened up by law (ie no more locked down
| devices).
| simondotau wrote:
| I agree with stringent regulations with respect to apps
| other than interactive entertainment. I disagree about
| interactive entertainment because I don't think that
| moral arguments for marketplace regulation extends to
| video games. _Especially_ when it comes to cross-platform
| games like Fortnite. Nobody is forced to make games for
| iOS. Epic Games were certainly not forced to do business
| with Apple any more than Bungie or Naughty Dog weren 't.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| Is this distinction you're drawing based on a categorical
| difference such as entertainment or art? Or is it related
| to the size of the vendor relative to some metric?
|
| Given that the service operator gates access to the
| customers and that most customers are unlikely to switch
| just to do business with a particular vendor, then
| shouldn't policy be determined solely by the size of the
| service operator? Why should the type of good or size of
| the vendor enter into it?
|
| In the west Apple is approximately half of mobile. That's
| massive. Saying a vendor isn't forced to do business with
| them is like saying that a vendor isn't forced to sell
| their products competitively. All things being equal if
| you publish software for mobile then you will be selling
| through Apple regardless of the terms they might impose.
|
| Your remark about Bungie and Naughty Dog seems to me like
| saying that the local city doesn't need to tax a chain
| restaurant at the same rate as an independent one because
| it has storefronts in other cities with more favorable
| terms. The idea being that if they don't like the city's
| terms they can just close that storefront; it won't kill
| them due to their size and reach.
| DANmode wrote:
| I hope my comments don't come off as "cheering" for any
| of these parties...
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Patreon is a very niche app in the grand scheme of
| things. There's the saying that only 1% of web visitors
| ever stop by and actually _contribute_ , and I'd expect
| that number to drop to 0.001% when it comes to
| contributing monetarily through a tool like Patreon. This
| is an absolutely tiny minority.
|
| Hell I'd argue more people are upset about the lack of an
| OnlyFans app than Patreon. OF has way more brand-
| recognition (outside of tech) than Patreon.
| barnabee wrote:
| I follow a number of creators on Patreon and have never
| once thought I want/need a Patreon app.
| solarexplorer wrote:
| Have they? Netflix, Spotify, Kindle, ...
| Noaidi wrote:
| A nickel for each iMessage...
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| Honestly... if we implemented $0.01 charge on every message,
| post and etc. the world would become an amazing place.
| metabagel wrote:
| I think that spammers would happily pay that rate.
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| Today out of curiosity, I tried looking at what is the
| cost of one PVA (Pre-verified account) of google. I found
| it to be around ~$0.03 (3 cents) or it could be an amazon
| account idk or maybe an youtube account
|
| Like my point is that atleast for amazon/yt, these bots
| usually cost this much ~$0.03 to buy once.
|
| Then we probably see a scammer buy many of these accounts
| and then (rent it?) on their own website/telegram groups
| to promtoe views/ratings etc./ comment with the porn
| ridden bots that we saw on youtube who will copy any
| previous comment and paste it and so on.
|
| So _technically_ these still cost 3 cents & scammers are
| happily paying the rate.
| _alaya wrote:
| I mean...that's how SMS used to work? Or still works?
|
| Once upon a time it was expensive to send messages and now
| it's cheap.
| thewebguyd wrote:
| Yeah. Iirc, I used to have to pay $0.20 per SMS message,
| sent and received, before unlimited plans became a thing.
| Also had a limited amount of minutes for phone calls.
|
| I remember Verizon wireless at the time had a plan with
| unlimited nights and weekends for calls and texts, so my
| friends and I would message each other like crazy on the
| weekends when it was free. Got grounded when I got my
| first girlfriend in high school for racking up the phone
| bill from text messages and promptly got my phone taken
| away.
| johnisgood wrote:
| You had to pay for receiving SMS?
| thewebguyd wrote:
| Yeah, in the early days, at least in the US, carriers
| used to charge for both incoming and outgoing SMS unless
| you had a plan that included it, usually with a limited
| amount of messages and they were quite expensive for the
| time.
| rationalist wrote:
| It costs to mail physical letters, somehow I still get
| "spam" addressed to homeowner/resident in my physical
| mailbox.
| anonymous908213 wrote:
| 1. This would not deter bad actors in any way, spammers
| already have no issue paying for junk mail. An 0.01 cost
| means nothing if the action they're taking generates more
| than 0.01 for them (it generally does). In fact this
| essentially _incentivizes_ bad actors; you get punished for
| not profiting off your messages, so people would be _more_
| inclined to find ways to monetize their posts.
|
| 2. The costs for this would be ridiculous. I have probably
| sent over a million public messages on Discord in the
| decade I've been using it. $10,000 is a pretty steep fee to
| do some chatting.
|
| 3. This is essentially a digital ID scheme with extra
| steps, and requires ceding privacy completely to
| communicate on the internet.
|
| I understand your comment was probably an off-hand joke and
| not to be taken seriously but if you think about it for
| very long it becomes apparent that it would actually make
| the problem worse.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >spammers already have no issue paying for junk mail.
|
| Junk mail isn't that expensive in the grand scheme of
| things. And I'd be surprised if the margins for this was
| so high that a mere 1 cent transactions wouldn't deter so
| many of them.
|
| I see it the opposite. You will never stop truly
| motivated propaganda from spreading its messae. They put
| millions into it and the goal isn't necessarily profit.
| But you stop a lot of low time scammers with a small cost
| barrier.If only because they then take a cheaper grift.
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| I was talking about good actors as well!
| sneak wrote:
| Yes. Now you have to dox yourself to the platform to be
| able to talk to anyone, because payment cards are linked
| to strong ID.
| barbazoo wrote:
| That would totally amplify the voice of people you want to
| hear more from, not less /s
| lwhi wrote:
| This was Bill Gates' idea with regard to a bit-tax, and
| goes someway to explaining why Microsoft initially didn't
| believe the internet would take off (and tried to push
| their own MSN walled garden as an alternative).
| dyingkneepad wrote:
| Some countries still charge for SMS. That's why WhatsApp is
| so popular in many places of the world.
| apples_oranges wrote:
| No way really .. amazing in 2026 if true
| bandrami wrote:
| There's basically two mobile worlds in India. The middle
| class has mobile plans basically like the rest of the
| world, while the poor (especially the rural poor but also
| to some extent the urban poor) have a pay-per-use account
| that also functions as their bank. So sending a text
| might cost 2 rupees, and an MMS might cost 6.
| KellyCriterion wrote:
| in a lot EU countries, still today telco contracts are
| marketed with "...and unlimited number of SMS into all
| networks..."
|
| Its still widely used :-D
| cdrnsf wrote:
| I just use the bank's website.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Many banks require you to two-factor authenticate with an app
| on your phone.
| cdrnsf wrote:
| I've yet to encounter one in the US, but I suppose that
| would make me install it.
| digitalPhonix wrote:
| Which banks do you use? I'm looking to switch away from
| Chase (which does this).
|
| It's a surprisingly hard thing to search for online...
| cdrnsf wrote:
| Capital One now for a while and a local credit union.
| Amex does provide this as an option but supports SMS as
| well.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >Which banks do you use? I'm looking to switch away from
| Chase (which does this).
|
| Do you mean SMS codes or a Chase Bank App?
|
| I have to deal with the former because I auto-delete
| cookies when I close tabs and use Multi-account
| containers on Firefox.
|
| I've _never_ been required to install any application
| (Chase branded or otherwise) on my phone in order to use
| the Chase website. I 'll note that I've been a Chase
| customer since they acquired Chemical Bank in 1996.
|
| Am I missing something important here? If so, I'd love to
| hear about it.
| digitalPhonix wrote:
| Chase allows both SMS and their app to be the 2nd factor;
| I dislike both of those options and would much rather
| TOTP
| scirob wrote:
| My chase only allows sms or call 2fa. Wish they would add
| passkeys or other options
| AdamN wrote:
| They're all going to move that way - it's sort of
| fundamental to PassKey. It can be done with just a laptop
| and their built in hardware but I suspect that since
| everybody has a mobile phone the UX will be built around
| that more often than not.
|
| I quite like it though. At one of my banks I don't even
| use a password. My browser has the right material (from a
| prior authn) and then it pushes a validation request to
| my phone and with FaceID I'm in.
| digitalPhonix wrote:
| > then it pushes a validation request to my phone and
| with FaceID I'm in.
|
| That's exactly what I don't want though. I don't want to
| be tied to a bank app that requires a non-rooted
| device/whatever other checks it does.
| alterom wrote:
| _> Which banks do you use?_
|
| My local credit union (TechCU) does none of that
| nonsense, and I highly recommend a credit union over any
| of the big banks in any case.
| cookiengineer wrote:
| Within the EU, there is a law that mandates accessibility
| without a smartphone. The banks will sell you some
| proprietary dotcode scanners then which are all
| manufactured by the same crappy UK company (as a
| sidenote).
|
| But the upside is: they work offline, and makes your 2FA
| app unhackable because it's not an app and instead a
| physically separate device.
|
| If you're as serious about your opsec as I am, I heavily
| recommend to not use apps on smartphones for banking.
| philipallstar wrote:
| 2-factor auth is free, so it doesn't incur the 30% cost.
| cookiengineer wrote:
| > 2-factor auth is free, so it doesn't incur the 30%
| cost.
|
| The all new modern push notifications! Pay only 99ct per
| 2FA message, that's a steal deal!
| sethops1 wrote:
| For now.
| viktorcode wrote:
| They will, the moment your bank starts selling media inside the
| app.
| soundsgoodman wrote:
| how is this legal
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Trump fired Lina Khan on day one of his adminstration, so
| there's a start.
| benoau wrote:
| Good question considering apps unequivocally have the right by
| court order to use their own billing, and considering the
| contempt ruling and referral for criminal investigation Apple
| already got for violating that order.
| dpc_01234 wrote:
| Should be 50% at least.
| Noaidi wrote:
| Boycott Apple services. It's the only way they will listen.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Yea, that won't do much. How about convict Apple of monopoly
| practices.
| ks2048 wrote:
| Tim Cook hanging out with Trump at the White House a few days
| ago - not a good sign this will happen anytime soon.
| epolanski wrote:
| Jeff Bezos commissioning an hagiography on Melania looking
| for other favours.
| Noaidi wrote:
| I really don't understand this attitude. Of course it will.
| If enough people do it. This is how corporations change not
| through protest and we're certainly not going to get any
| antimonopoly anything going on soon.
|
| They make literally about 40% of their profit off of Apple
| services. Do you really think if people on mass stopped
| buying Apple TV, Apple Pay, Apple Music, an iCloud, they
| wouldn't care?
|
| https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/01/2025-marked-a-
| record-...
|
| I mean the minute people started talking a general worker
| strike in Minneapolis all of a sudden all these companies
| freaked our and wrote a letter protesting about IVE's
| behavior in Minneapolis.
| pixl97 wrote:
| >I really don't understand this attitude.
|
| It's not an attitude, it's an observation. Corporations
| almost never change their behaviors because of protests and
| people bitching about them. It's one of the least effective
| ways of implementing change, especially when said company
| holds a locked in/monopoly position.
|
| The thing is the end consumer is mostly hidden from the
| problems of Apples over charging, it deeply affects the
| companies selling services on the Apple platforms. What
| would affect Apple far more is not consumers not buying,
| but a huge part of the people offering on Apples market
| pulling out. But, Apple has that game rigged to. Particular
| suppliers get special deals with far lower costs. The
| competitors to those suppliers are now screwed. Apple will
| not offer them lower costs (again, Apple hides these
| contracts until they eventually get disclosed in court),
| every other company ends up paying a huge Apple tax because
| pulling out hand the competitor a huge market.
|
| Honestly I'm fine with Apple charging whatever it wants for
| on its store. I am not fine with Apple selling you what
| should be a general purpose device and saying only its
| store can be used. Competitive stores on the device would
| quickly break Apple of it's monopoly behavior.
| impossiblefork wrote:
| But it's completely wrong.
|
| Having a boycott against you is like being hated. Firms
| spend enormous sums on advertisements.
|
| Even a tiny group boycotting you has a substantial
| influence on your popularity-- they will tell their
| friends, etc. and will lead to reduced popularity.
| pixl97 wrote:
| It is not completely wrong. It's situational. The
| attention span of the general public is short,
| exceptionally short when it's about something that
| doesn't directly affect the general public too.
|
| General public: "OMG, I should boycott Apple because they
| are making some other businesses life hard, why?"
|
| It's a very hard sale because all the general public sees
| is Apple phones are easy to use and friendly. Attempting
| to explain the complexities that occur in the background
| gives Apple power in the narrative that they are doing
| everything to keep you "safe".
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >Corporations almost never change their behaviors because
| of protests and people bitching about them.
|
| Yes, because protests almost never reach critical mass
| when talking on the scale of a billionaire conglomerate.
|
| The 3% rule is at effect here. if Apple made 200 billion
| last quarter (I don't know the exact numbers), we'd need
| at least 6 billion dollars worth of damage to make them
| listen, and make it clear it's because of this.
|
| Even if the average IOS spender spent 1000/month
| (averaging in some super whales), we'd need 6 million
| users to stop spending for this to start having an
| effect. Can we get 6 million users to do that? I don't
| think so, but I'd love to be proven wrong.
|
| >The thing is the end consumer is mostly hidden from the
| problems of Apples over charging, it deeply affects the
| companies selling services on the Apple platforms.
|
| Yes. But that isn't proof that protests don't work. It's
| proof that people are ignorant to these situations.
| Making them aware is the hardest part in all this, and
| I'm sure corporations know this.
|
| >every other company ends up paying a huge Apple tax
| because pulling out hand the competitor a huge market.
|
| Companies work too, but we have even less coordination on
| this. And their incentives match Apple's. Patreon proper
| does not actually get directly impacted by this unless a
| bunch of creators pull out.
|
| But the rare chances companies do push back, it works
| quickly. Just look at the Unity situation a few years
| back for a modern example.
| derbOac wrote:
| My impression is that Apple as a corporation is really
| sensitive to their public image. I happen to believe that
| some corporations are actually highly sensitive to dollar
| losses but I also think what Apple worries about is a
| kind of downstream effects of brand image being lost.
|
| I don't think that's all it would take but I kind of see
| Apple worrying that their products will start to be like
| fur in the 1980s or something... something that gradually
| fades and loses its brand value.
|
| I guess in the end I sort of agree with the OP that
| boycotts can work and fretting about numbers initially
| leads to this kind of chicken and egg problem. If you try
| it it might work, if you try it repeatedly it's more
| likely to work, but if you never try it will never work.
| moogly wrote:
| > if people on mass _[sic]_ stopped buying
|
| Ah, the "vote with your dollar" argument. How's that been
| working out.
| Noaidi wrote:
| It ended apartheid in South Africa.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| I do think it will work. I also think most people won't
| even know this is a thing, and that many who do know won't
| be clamoring to ditch their tech anytime soon. I never
| owned an apple service, so I'm just paying lip service if I
| say I'm "boycotting apple". I can't do much more on my
| front as a customer.
|
| I can do a bit more as a voter, but not in this current
| administration. It's sadly not even a top 10 pressing issue
| compared to what BS is going on right now. But I won't
| forget this.
|
| >I mean the minute people started talking a general worker
| strike in Minneapolis all of a sudden all these companies
| freaked our and wrote a letter protesting about IVE's
| behavior in Minneapolis.
|
| Yes. And it took not one, but two blatant murders on the
| street to do that. Tech is much more ephemeral in its
| evils.
| sschueller wrote:
| I refuse the purchase any apple products (I was never a fan and
| don't like paying premium for a walled garden) but it's
| impossible to offer an app if you don't also make one for apple
| devices.
|
| There is no way around it especially in an apple dense market
| like Switzerland.
|
| They have a clear monopoly and together with Google a duopoly.
|
| I can thankfully continue with my refusal to purchase from HP
| perfectly fine.
| justapassenger wrote:
| I miss the old school monopolies, where MS was a bad guy because
| they dared to include browser.
|
| And yes, I do legalese details of that are much more complex. But
| it just makes no common sense.
| brianwawok wrote:
| Like try to break the internet and the java programming
| language? The former being most successful for years
| protocolture wrote:
| You mean the web right? Or did Microsoft ever roll its own
| BGP code?
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| For some reason I am assuming that they are talking about
| dot net web servers with the servers running windows
| (though I can be wrong and I am a little confused by what
| they mean break the internet as well in this context as
| well)
| cephi wrote:
| There's also the time they tried to kill the open-ness of
| SMTP
| anonymous908213 wrote:
| If you mention Java, I think you may only incite more
| nostalgia for the monopolies of yesteryear. Was Microsoft's
| approach to Java evil and ill-intentioned, yes, absolutely.
| But it eventually resulted in .NET and C#, so I'd say that
| particular battle was a net benefit to humanity in the end.
| .NET is even truly cross-platform now, and open-source.
| Meanwhile Apple achieves interesting technical advances with
| their new hardware but I will never benefit from the
| existence of it because I will not use hardware that is
| locked to a prison OS.
| m132 wrote:
| I have a theory that they've actually succeeded with the
| latter too. I mean, look at Java now, and look how many mini-
| Javas (all those JIT-compiled languages and their runtimes)
| have emerged since. The point of Java was to unify, we've got
| more division than ever instead.
| anonymous908213 wrote:
| The point of Java was write-once, run everywhere, and that
| is perfectly viable these days. I don't want to live in a
| world where everyone is a Java programmer, and I don't
| think there is really any reason to suppose that unifying
| on a single programming language would be desirable for
| developers. IMO, Javascript already shows the dangers of
| over-unification; you get an ecosystem so full of packages
| that a significant portion of the language's developers are
| only capable of developing by stacking 1000 packages on top
| of each other, with no ability to write their own code and
| accordingly no ability to optimize or secure their programs
| according to the bespoke needs of the project rather than
| using general purpose off-the-shelf libraries.
| m132 wrote:
| I can quickly think of problems we have to deal with
| trying to make a real cross-platform application, or
| worse, a cross-language interface to a system/library,
| but not many that would stem from having a single
| dominant (non-stagnant or proprietary) language.
|
| The overuse of dependencies is a problem, sure, but it's
| completely unrelated to "over-unification". Every
| ecosystem with a built-in package manager suffers from
| this, be it Node.js, Python, or Rust, to name a few. In
| fact, it's not even the package manager, it's the ease in
| adding new dependencies. Go demonstrates that pretty
| well.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| > a significant portion of the language's developers are
| only capable of developing by stacking 1000 packages on
| top of each other, with no ability to write their own
| code
|
| That's because those devs are incompetent, not because
| there are a ton of packages.
| anonymous908213 wrote:
| I believe one enables the other. If the package ecosystem
| wasn't oversaturated to the degree it is, they wouldn't
| be able to masquerade as developers and publish anything.
| But because there is a Javascript component for
| everything, they can do enough of an impression of a
| developer to ship things and get hired without ever
| learning how to actually program.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| IE was not just used to break the internet. It also had
| advantages. It supported features other browsers didn't.
|
| Without IE, we wouldn't have had XMLHttpRequest, which means
| we wouldn't have had Gmail, which means we wouldn't have seen
| the bloom of "web 2.0" websites.
|
| As for Java, Microsoft's C# is way ahead of Java in terms of
| language features. No idea how the runtime performance
| compares these days (both are very fast), but I'd rather have
| Microsoft Java than Oracle Java.
|
| Microsoft's intent was always to break the competition, but
| they did it by offering features others wouldn't or couldn't.
| Evil Microsoft's Windows was the most feature-packed
| operating system out there because they threw every possible
| feature at the wall, kept what sticked front and center, and
| bothered to maintain what didn't stick. Microsoft Agents, the
| shitty Clippy things, were supported well into the Windows 7
| era despite dying out the moment Bonzi Buddy was found out to
| be malicious. But Microsoft dared to break backwards
| compatibility with .NET 1 to fix the typing problem with
| generics that Java has to this very day; they just ended up
| supporting both, side by side.
| vlod wrote:
| >IE was not just used to break the internet.
|
| It still did. Did you ever have to write specific code for
| ie6? <shudder>
| leptons wrote:
| Apple also includes a web browser on iOS, but forces every
| other browser you can install to use their browser engine. It's
| one of the many reasons they are being sued by the DOJ for
| anti-competitive practices.
|
| Apple also sits on a board that approves new web technologies
| for standards formalization, so they can squash adoption of
| anything that might make web browser APIs as capable as a
| native application, so that they can force people to make
| native apps where they can extract a percentage from it (they
| can't do that with a web application). Rather than work out
| reasonable ways to support things other browsers allow, they
| just say "no thanks" and then there is no standard allowed to
| move forward.
|
| It's extremely abusive and anti-competitive. I hope the DOJ
| continues to pursue litigation against Apple for this and many
| other things.
|
| https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/media/1344546/dl?inline
| dawnerd wrote:
| Starts to make a lot of sense why Tim Cook is out there
| ruining his image for the sake of some favors.
| leptons wrote:
| I believe he'd be doing that regardless of the DOJ suit.
| Tariffs are another issue he is dealing with. Apple likes
| money, and will do practically anything to secure more of
| it.
| m132 wrote:
| It gets real depressing when you compare the recent case of
| Google to what was done to AT&T in the 80s.
|
| I'd love to be proven wrong, but it feels like over the past
| couple of decades we've gone from clever guys coming together
| with an idea and starting companies like Microsoft, Google, and
| Apple, to celebrating buyouts of startups by large behemoths--
| that's how low the definition of success has dropped. Is
| competition law even a thing anymore?
| shimman wrote:
| It is, but the problem is that no one is enforcing the laws
| both old and new. That is why the elites hated Lina Khan, she
| was simply enforcing laws already on the books.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I think I'm old enough to have experienced this cycle so many
| times with so many businesses that I just feel kind of silly to
| hate on Apple or Microsoft or whoever. They're all just
| maximizing profits as designed.
|
| I think people find it easier to scowl at the villain du jour
| than to dig into the deep complex issue of when capitalism
| doesn't work, when the government isn't doing enough, and what we
| could do about it... or the feeling that we really can't do much.
| aykutcan wrote:
| You don't need to solve the problems of capitalism to call
| bullshit bullshit. Saying "companies maximize profits" doesn't
| magically make the behavior acceptable and when Apple does
| this, it's not just "the market at work," it's the use of
| market power.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Complaining about it is part of the system operating the way
| it operates. It's factored in already. I just think that it's
| not really interesting. It's reasoning about the instance,
| not the class.
| thewebguyd wrote:
| > feeling that we really can't do much.
|
| That's why people don't dig into the deep complex issues.
| Because it's uncomfortable, and forces one to confront the
| potential reality that their worldview, and everything they've
| known about how our society works is wrong, broken, and
| collapsing in front of them.
|
| It can be a very distressing and depressing state of mind.
| There's a reason "ignorance is bliss" is a common trope,
| because there's some real truth to it. For some, it's better
| for emotional and mental wellbeing to ignore the problems of
| reality and remain ignorant.
| deaux wrote:
| > For some, it's better for emotional and mental wellbeing to
| ignore the problems of reality and remain ignorant.
|
| I think it isn't just some, it's effectively everyone, the
| nature of being human. Instead, there's a group of people who
| are willing to sacrifice their emotional and wellbeing to
| face these problems of reality, and try to use the limited
| power they _do_ have to improve them, for the greater good.
| tootie wrote:
| Maximizing profit is the essence of capitalism but this is pure
| rent seeking. They are extracting excessive fees for no obvious
| value creation.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >or the feeling that we really can't do much.
|
| We can do a lot if we pressure the company or the regulations
| around it. Maybe not right now in this current regime, but
| tides will shift.
|
| The issue is that people's attention spans on this are much too
| short. The fervor around this may not even last to the end of
| this month, let alone until a change in power allows a new
| administration to properly go after the company.
| willtemperley wrote:
| I'd rather they garner a few dollars this way than look to
| actually shady monetization practices, like most other big tech
| companies do.
|
| Not a bit deal really, a tiny minority of people will be a few
| dollars out of pocket, because the loophole most of us don't
| enjoy has been closed.
| _alaya wrote:
| Apple has an impressive commitment to evil, similar to Oracle.
| They get better at it every year.
| blell wrote:
| The tremendously, villainy evil of getting money for a service.
| thewebguyd wrote:
| A service that Apple is mandating everyone to use or else get
| kicked off their operating system...
|
| This would be an entirely different conversation if Patreon
| was still allowed to use other payment systems outside of
| Apple's IAP service. No, this is Apple forbidding competitors
| on their platform.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| So
|
| - the devs all need to get licesnses and specific hardware to
| develop for IOS
|
| - They spin up their own servers to manage all the finances
| coming in
|
| - They work on their payment processing solution separate
| from Apple. And Patreon still pays some fee to apple over the
| app.
|
| - the model of Patreon only takes 5% off of creators, so
| that's not enough for Apple. It also wants a cut at the
| customers of the website who provide services. Customers not
| beholden to any one platform.\
|
| - And to force them to do that, they are kicking the other
| processing plan off as an option, leaving only them to work
| with.
|
| And it's somehow not evil? If I let a friend sleepover at my
| apartment, is the landlord in the right to demand a day of
| rent from them too?
| fragmede wrote:
| I see you don't have much interaction with landlords and
| their thought processes.
| hermanzegerman wrote:
| That's why the DSA is a good idea that should be replicated
| worldwide.
|
| Too many parasites between creators and consumers
| kibwen wrote:
| "Nice business model ya got there, sure would be a _shame_ if
| somethin ' happened to it."
| cmckn wrote:
| TLDR: if you still have any Patreon subscriptions through Apple's
| in-app-purchase flow (look in Settings > Apple Account >
| Subscriptions) cancel them and restart them on patreon.com
| SilverElfin wrote:
| With only two mobile OS providers, they should be highly
| regulated. But given Tim Cook gave Trump a golden award and
| attended the premiere of the Melania documentary, I doubt they'll
| get any antitrust trouble. Disappointing rent seeking behavior.
| viktorcode wrote:
| On the contrary. There is an ongoing DoJ antitrust case against
| Apple with a long list of grievances. Most of those were
| already addressed by Apple (since the case was filed a pretty
| long time ago) the rest will be tested in the courtroom in the
| following years.
|
| Those cases take a long time.
| jacquesm wrote:
| > rent seeking
|
| This goes _way_ beyond rent seeking, it is much closer to
| outright theft, for rent you get something in return. This is
| just a nice form of robbery and I 'm sure it is all legal by
| some stretched definition of the word but it makes me sick.
|
| Yesterday we had the monthly Woz adulation article, I really
| like the man but would like him even more if he told Cook to
| his face that this is not the Apple that he had in mind when he
| co-founded the company. It's not like he has anything to lose.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| seems that 96% are already doing this:
|
| > According to TechCrunch, only 4% of Patreon creators are still
| using the platform's legacy billing system, with the rest having
| already switched over.
|
| I've never used the Patreon app even once -- those creators I
| support, I set it up on the website.
| didip wrote:
| Soon Google will do the same thing. And then what?
|
| The practical way out is to just buy QQQ and get some of your
| money back.
| AnonC wrote:
| I actually love Apple for pushing this matter this hard and
| sticking to its guns. This will bring in more regulatory scrutiny
| not just in the U.S. but in other countries as well. That will
| force Apple to give up (maybe in a decade or so) this practice of
| arbitrary rules and squeezing the last penny from others.
|
| Thanks a lot, Eddy Cue, for all that you do to bring Apple down
| to its knees!
| cadamsdotcom wrote:
| So in about a trillion or two dollars of revenue's time, then.
| sethops1 wrote:
| In the U.S. I wouldn't expect meaningful regulation from an
| administration that accepts bribes in the form of literal gold
| nuggets.
| hrldcpr wrote:
| Tim Cook has been spending a lot of time sucking up to Donald
| Trump recently, so I think the U.S. federal government will
| only be assisting Apple
| seanhunter wrote:
| Why would anyone use Patreon's app?
| podgorniy wrote:
| Why would you think reality shows so many people using patreon
| app?
| seanhunter wrote:
| I genuinely don't know, which is why I asked. Even on mobile
| I only ever use the website and can see literally no benefit
| whatsoever to there being an app.
| podgorniy wrote:
| TLDR: user reach and convenience (or avoidance of the
| inconvenience artificially created by the app store
| companies to ensure own monopoly).
|
| App stores are another source of distribution of the
| platform. Apps create another engagement channel. Apps are
| another way to reach more people and keep them "hooked"
| longer (push notifications, tighter integration with the
| system). Poor performance of the website-only apps is often
| offputting showing lower retention and engagement metrics.
| People don't konow how to create a web app icon on the home
| screen, but know how to search for apps in the appstore.
|
| Some platforms make website-based apps harder to create and
| manage (in the name of the resource optimisation or
| security). So no background players, no face-based logins,
| no airplay, battery drains way faster with web based apps,
| no proper file storage, hard to handle guestures, no
| restoration of the state of the pages, etc, etc.
|
| When inside patreon company there is a question "do we do
| the native app or we keep the website" there is no good
| argument from project manager side why not to do the app as
| it increases all the metrics they care about and accept
| future possible risk that something will change from Apple
| side.
| seanhunter wrote:
| Thanks for taking the time to write this. I can totally
| see how my original message may have come across as
| snarky but it was honestly not intended as such. I
| sometimes feel like I don't understand my fellow humans
| at all and this is one of those times. I can see why
| patreon benefits from users using their app, but as an
| occasional user of patreon, as I say I am baffled that
| it's the sort of thing users will install an app for. It
| honestly never occurred to me to do so and as I say I use
| the website.
| podgorniy wrote:
| Cheers. It's hard to distinguish genuine from non-genuine
| people online. Especially when they ask things which
| appear trivial from where one stands. Thanks for having
| patience.
| dbbk wrote:
| Notifications? Video and audio playback? Really not rocket
| science.
| raincole wrote:
| What a weird comment lol. You can write a bot asking "why would
| anyone use (the product mentioned in title)" to every HN
| thread. That's how much it contributes to the discussion.
| sigmoid10 wrote:
| HN is becoming more and more like Stackoverflow. Half the
| comments pretend this is not an issue or irrelevant and the
| other half posts hasty, incorrect solutions.
| mhitza wrote:
| Just stop publishing the app, not every little thing needs an
| app. What the use for the app anyway? Notifications and apple
| pay?
| wuiheerfoj wrote:
| Don't need an app for Apple Pay
| sunaookami wrote:
| Serving ads and tracking
| atoav wrote:
| What is the use of an app that could be the website? Easy:
| Circumventing the protections a web browser offers your vict..
| ah.. users.
| iknowstuff wrote:
| Apps are more sticky. Users forget about websites more easily
| grishka wrote:
| It's highly unlikely for someone to use the internet in 2020s
| but be unaware that Patreon is a thing.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| Patreon isn't something you need to be checking all the time,
| though, unless you patronise a LOT of people. It can pretty
| much be a "setup and forget" kinda deal.
| cybrox wrote:
| A lot of people pay for the exclusive content which is
| curated on Patreon and their app.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| Oh, fair enough -- I've only known Patreon the 'open' way
| before. So the Patreon app is actually an exclusive
| publisher of some content? Do they actually market that
| feature?
| debugnik wrote:
| Nearly every Patreon creator I know of has subscription
| tiers with exclusive content. Posts can require a minimum
| tier to view them, creator pages list the tiers you can
| join, and your feed teases you posts you _could_ access
| if you joined the right tier from creators you follow.
| Izkata wrote:
| But not exclusive to the app, as far as I know it's just
| another interface to that same exclusive content
| available through the website.
| debugnik wrote:
| Discussion here started on whether users check apps more
| often than websites and whether Patreon is the kind of
| platform that one might want to check often for new
| content.
|
| I'm not sure how has the goalpost here moved to app-
| exclusivity, I understood exclusive here to mean
| "exclusive to Patreon" as opposed to supporting a creator
| that posts everything for free somewhere else, which is
| the use case that made that one user assume one doesn't
| check on Patreon often.
|
| Also, mobile browsers easily cut out background audio so
| the website is nearly useless on a phone for audio posts
| compared to the app, as much as I'd prefer it.
| Izkata wrote:
| They specifically said "app" which is why I interpreted
| it as exclusive to the app.
|
| The other way around is a little confusing as a question
| because that's the primary purpose of Patreon and is
| mentioned on the homepage marketing (multiple payment
| tiers with exclusive content).
| debugnik wrote:
| I'm willing to consider that they moved the goalpost and
| not you, but I still don't get how has this thread
| diverged.
|
| I too got confused by oneeyedpigeon's question but I
| assumed from their claim about it being "setup and
| forget" that they simply don't know much about it.
| cybrox wrote:
| I should have probably said: "[...] exclusive content
| which is curated on [the creators] Patreon and
| [accessible to the user via the web browser or] their
| app."
|
| Hope this clears things up. My main point was that there
| is in fact an incentive for users to check the app beyond
| setting up payment and forgetting about it. Even if it is
| not the only way such content is available, it certainly
| is a convenient one.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I use the app for its native podcast integration. The RSS URL
| also works but I have yet to find a decent RSS client that will
| synchronise progress across devices well.
| jahnu wrote:
| Funnily enough I stopped using the Patreon app for podcasts
| with the big rewrite a while back where it became almost
| unusable and switched to Overcast instead.
| jinzo wrote:
| I'm running a small service, sub 150 users, no online signup
| kind of business, B2B. Small EU country. 95% of users ask 'do
| you have an mobile app?' in first 5 minutes of onboarding.
| Telling them how to install a PWA (and what it is and so forth)
| is an uphill battle. Unfortunately App Stores rule the non
| technical crowd.
| pipo234 wrote:
| To many users, an app seems to be perceived as _the blessed
| way_ to access the web. While on a mobile, they are mostly a
| way to organize symlinks or bookmarks. Except, off course a
| web browser does its best to protect the user while most apps
| don 't.
|
| Meanwhile I continue doing the Lords work by telling kids
| that apps are _not_ the internet. Hopefully, that 95%
| percentage will eventually decrease.
| didntcheck wrote:
| It's not users who are pushing this. It started off with
| just superfluous but optional apps of websites. Now every
| year I find there is something I used to be able to do,
| which I now _must_ own a smartphone to do. And it 's not
| just getting discounts at coffee chains, it's increasingly
| stuff like accessing healthcare plan benefits, or verifying
| my identity for banking
|
| A few sites throw up a blocking screen to download the app,
| which disappears once you spoof a desktop UA. But the big
| problem is businesses now having no web interface _at all_
| pipo234 wrote:
| Very good point, though I believe it's both market push
| and consumer expectation.
|
| Because we have such limited control over our devices,
| they effectively provide the security of a jail locking
| down what users can do. That is appealing from a
| healthcare or banking perspective because it obfuscates
| the client-server API and gives exact control over the
| UI. As a bonus, the coffee chain gets to glean lots of
| details from your phone that would be unavailable in a
| browser.
|
| As individuals we can do little more that push back:
| don't let yourself be trapped by coffee chains (go to a
| different one) and bother your bank's service line about
| having to use their app. The rest is up to government
| intervention, I fear.
| charcircuit wrote:
| The OS is what protects the user. Have you ever seen the
| prompts asking the user if they want to share their
| location?
| curt15 wrote:
| >To many users, an app seems to be perceived as the blessed
| way to access the web. While on a mobile, they are mostly a
| way to organize symlinks or bookmarks. Except, off course a
| web browser does its best to protect the user while most
| apps don't.
|
| That is an education problem. What do school computer
| courses teach these days? Do schools even have computer
| literacy classes anymore? Do they still teach students
| about the internet?
| addandsubtract wrote:
| This made me realize, Firefox needs to create a launcher
| that just creates PWAs out of bookmarks (or vice versa).
| That way, people get the "app feel" without needing to
| download every single app.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| There may be a time where we have to push back, though, and
| this may be it. "There is no app" may sound terrifying now,
| but once we've educated users, it will only get less scary,
| until we might actually claim back some ownership of our own
| stuff from the likes of Apple.
| cybrox wrote:
| This is not an accident. This is exactly why Apple (and
| Google also) have made the PWA experience bad for years. They
| must force users to believe their app store is the only
| source of programs.
| mehagar wrote:
| For Apple, sure. But Google has been leading efforts to
| make the PWA experience good. In origin trial right now is
| the ability for websites to install PWAs: https://github.co
| m/MicrosoftEdge/MSEdgeExplainers/blob/main/....
|
| This would make it much easier to find and install web apps
| than the current method.
| pydry wrote:
| >95% of users ask 'do you have an mobile app?' in first 5
| minutes of onboarding
|
| Did you ask them why?
| pjmlp wrote:
| Why do they need to install a PWA?
|
| We do mobile friendly Web UIs, that is enough.
|
| Their customes, employees, go to the respective company
| website, get a responsive UI for their device, done, the
| services require to be online anyway.
| dns_snek wrote:
| They said that the users are asking for it.
| layer8 wrote:
| The users are asking for an app on the app store, not a
| PWA.
| roysting wrote:
| It's about convenience in most cases; an "app" to tap on,
| not a URL to remember and enter or a bookmark to save,
| name, file, and locate.
|
| Just like apps in general, PWAs are mostly a mobile heavy
| modality. Bookmarks and the browser is largely still fine
| on laptop/desktop, but even there you see the app design
| language start prevailing with things like bookmarks and
| "recent sites" being presented like app icons.
| johnisgood wrote:
| I swear it is so alien to me. Tapping on an app is
| equivalent to tapping on a link in my bookmarks.
| billynomates wrote:
| You could even have a button on website to install an
| icon on the launcher which goes directly to the site in a
| webview
| eloisant wrote:
| Even if it's not a PWA, on both iPhone and Android you
| can create an "app icon" that will open a URL in a
| chromeless window. It's as simple as tapping "Add to
| home" from your browser.
|
| So you get your "app" to tap on.
| greiskul wrote:
| It's not about power users. It's about regular users and
| the patterns they have learned.
|
| The mobile ecosystem was built in a way to funnel all
| users into apps. That's the experience that is optimized
| for use, that's the experience users feel safe and
| secure. Barriers were put in place on what apps are even
| allowed to do (like not having alternative app stores, or
| a browser in iOs that is not just a webview of Safari).
| This created an enviroment where developers and companies
| are forced to develop to this ecosystem, and pay the
| Apple tax, since that's where the users are. And an
| alternative system is impossible to be created since
| Apple uses it's power at the hardware and operating
| system level to make alternatives impossible.
|
| And someone will probably come and say that this is all
| users choice to be locked down in the walled garden. That
| the walled garden is keeping the users safe, so therefore
| it is only fair that Apple gets to capture 30% of all
| digital economical activity.
| layer8 wrote:
| Notifications.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Aka upselling and user engagement.
| layer8 wrote:
| Some things I do want to get notifications about,
| including from Patreon, whose notifications are perfectly
| fine, configurable with appropriate granularity. I don't
| get any unwanted notifications there.
| mehagar wrote:
| So they can potentially work offline and deliver push
| notifications.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Very few applications actually need push notifications, a
| large majority is only annoying users with upselling, or
| user engagement.
| roysting wrote:
| This may just be more of a design and communications
| challenge for you, than your users. I have seen several
| design templates that use various forms of visuals to assist
| the user through the "add to Home Screen" process, which is
| just three steps; Share---> More ---> Add to Home Screen. It
| Is arguably even a faster process than going through the App
| Store, even if users may be more familiar with it.
|
| You could accompany it with some copy explaining how it keeps
| the service efficient and affordable, i.e., possible stating
| if you were to offer an app you would have to increase the
| price by 75% to pay Apple their fee and for the extra costs.
|
| I suspect other arguments for PWAs would not really matter,
| like that you have no need to track them or use other
| abilities an app affords, etc. Most people only care about
| very few things engineers actually care, let alone know
| about.
|
| I've always been an advocate of PWAs whenever it makes sense
| and will even design and architect to that objective. But
| even when I would deal with clients, I think the real "up
| hill battle" is that apps allow for higher fees and charges
| because they're more work and come with greater expenses for
| for-profit apps, so there has been very little incentive to
| spread general user awareness about the "add to Home
| Screen"/PWA.
|
| It's a bit of a paradox, but I guess that seems to be an
| under-appreciated driver in something like "advanced consumer
| capitalist economies", where the "rational actor" simply does
| not exist anymore.
| Fokamul wrote:
| What kind of users are these? Power-users or normal users
| (Android etc.) or dum..Apple users?
|
| Because in my circle, power-users and beyond. Everybody is
| angry with apps needed for everything, you want buy bread in
| store, "do you have our app?" It's a meme here. And in our
| local subreddit, 600k users. Sentiment is the same.
|
| We also tried to bypass stores apps with generating new
| accounts and distributing QR/cards for free to everyone. It
| was kinda popular.
|
| And problems are more real with each day, eg.: scammers have
| their work way easier, since dumb users can take a huge loan
| directly from banking app in their phone.
|
| Also small EU country, btw.
| poulpy123 wrote:
| By definition power users and beyond are a minority
| billynomates wrote:
| BTW, you don't need the app store for that. You can use
| Firebase App Distribution which doesn't require you to go
| through the review process.
|
| Basically you just ask their email address and add it to a
| list in Firebase. Upload your ipa to firebase and the user
| will receive an email with a link to download
| prmph wrote:
| Not sure I understand. So people don't use websites anymore?
|
| Specifically, do people not use websites that have
| rich/complex data driven functionality anymore?
|
| If they do, I'm wondering what determines whether an
| application is seen as needing a mobile app vs being ok as a
| regular web app.
| baby wrote:
| Hard agree. I hate it when a website force me to get an app
| now. I feel like websites have matched apps in terms of feel-
| good on mobile that I don't really use apps anymore
| rytis wrote:
| > What the use for the app anyway?
|
| Works offline?
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| a) does it actually work offline (seems unlikely for a
| payment app, although I guess it could batch stuff)?
|
| b) if so, does it work any better than a web app can offline?
| nkrisc wrote:
| Sure, if your app has something worthwhile to do offline.
| hobofan wrote:
| It allows you to download Patreon-exclusive videos for e.g.
| viewing it on a flight, similar to how Youtube does it.
| It's literally the only reason I have it installed as an
| app.
|
| I've never seen a PWA do that feature well.
| Tepix wrote:
| PWA also work offline.
| hotep99 wrote:
| I used to subscribe to some podcasts that were distributed to
| subscribers via the app.
| wouldbecouldbe wrote:
| yeah for entertainment content you just cant get away with it
| sadly
| sevenzero wrote:
| Apps are usually built so people can't skip ads. Its the only
| reason to have an app. Other than esoteric reasons like "we
| also have an app because x,y,z also have apps".
| aembleton wrote:
| Most of them still source their ads from a known domain so
| you can easily block them using DNS.
| vlod wrote:
| Yep, it's the driving force why I rarely install apps. If the
| mobile site doesn't work well, it's a good filter that I
| shouldn't use it. (Doom scrolling trap).
|
| For those that are not aware, on Android you can install
| Firefox and Ublock-Origin. Life saver!
| oidar wrote:
| And for iOS, Orion.
| kllrnohj wrote:
| I don't think that applies to Patreon which, as far as I
| know, doesn't have any ads in the first place?
|
| The app might make it easier for them to enforce DRM-like
| behaviors to prevent people from pirating creators content,
| but I strongly suspect people aren't doing that on iOS
| regardless.
| Jean-Papoulos wrote:
| Because apps are the lowest-friction path to users. If you
| publish a tool that targets an audience of more than a very
| specific niche of people, you'll get people asking for an app
| literally every day. My inbox used to be full of them.
| Recursing wrote:
| I work on a website that doesn't have any mobile-specific
| features, new users ask me all the time why we don't have an
| app.
|
| My sister and my parents basically ~only read newspapers from
| their apps, despite it being static text with some images.
|
| I don't know how, but Google and Apple are really good at
| nudging people to use apps instead of websites.
| joshstrange wrote:
| Clients and customers will not stand for this. I don't agree
| but I've seen it enough times now it doesn't surprise me. They
| want an app, doesn't matter if you have an identical web-based
| version that does the exact same thing, they want an app.
|
| I write cross platform apps using Vue/Quasar (previous
| Angular/Ionic, and before that Titanium), I have put up a web-
| based version of their app (as a fallback and as an early MVP)
| and it's like pulling teeth to get anyone to even play with it.
| Then you put an app up on TestFlight and suddenly they are
| using it.
|
| And that's just trying to get the to use the web while I'm
| still setting up crap for a "native" app. The idea of not
| having an app is a non-starter.
|
| Again, I don't agree with them, I'm just telling you what it's
| like out there if you are developing software for other people.
| An app brings "prestige", they want be able to say "we have an
| app". And no, saving a webpage to the home screen is not a
| viable alternative (trust me, I've tried). Clients and
| customers reject that and there are extra limitations with that
| approach (or there were last time I tried, around using the
| camera feed, things that work fine in mobile Safari).
| Tepix wrote:
| We really need to build more awareness for PWAs (Progressive
| web apps). Users (and developers) need to be educated on
|
| - how to install them
|
| - what advantages (and disadvantages) they have. In particular
| regarding censorship and privacy!
|
| Apple and Google need to be pressured to make PWAs
|
| - easier to install
|
| - more capable
|
| - less buggy (Mobile Safari in particular).
|
| If your app's needs can be met with a PWA, you owe it to your
| users to offer one!
|
| Here are a few PWA showcase links:
|
| https://pwa-showcase.com/#/all-cards
|
| https://whatpwacando.today/
|
| And a lazy AI-generated list of things that PWAs can do today
| on top of the things a normal web page can do:
|
| https://www.perplexity.ai/search/make-a-list-of-all-things-p...
| 0xTJ wrote:
| That's not a reasonable solution. Have you used the Patreon
| app? I use it regularly on Android, and have dozens of audio
| podcast files downloaded through it.
| ryukoposting wrote:
| I use the Patreon app. It's great. I get to see stuff from my
| favorite creatives weeks (sometimes months) early, and ad-free.
| Since many of them are youtubers and I don't pay google to show
| me less ads, this is a huge value prop. And, the Patreon app
| can cast videos to my TV, so it's really a complete experience.
| jzl wrote:
| Does the 30% cut only apply to patrons who subscribe within
| the app? I'm assuming yes, but just checking since I haven't
| seen confirmation of this.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| I don't see anything there that isn't also a valid
| description of the Patreon website.
|
| If your TV supports AirPlay, you just tap the icon on a video
| in Safari.
| dbbk wrote:
| I mean, the Patreon app has a podcast player in it... can't do
| that on a webpage
| superxpro12 wrote:
| Its the convenience. 1 or 2 button clicks from the home screen
| to open "the app".
|
| Sure you could do it in a browser, but half the time the
| credentials dont cache, or you have to waste 4 clicks and 20
| seconds finding a bookmark.
|
| They want convenience. For better or worse.
| kyle-rb wrote:
| I think they could get pretty far with a PWA, but there are
| legitimate arguments to go native. For use cases like podcasts,
| where users can download them ahead of time, it seems like
| Safari limits storage to 1GB [0]. Plus playing background audio
| might not be as good an experience.
|
| [0] https://web.dev/articles/storage-for-the-web
| aquir wrote:
| You can be the patron of a creator and Apple in the same time!
| Jokes aside, this is awful...I like/use Apple products but this
| unacceptable, I hope everyone dodges this and pays through the
| website
| sinnsro wrote:
| Another outstanding decision vetted by Tim Cook.
|
| In all seriousness, finance people see everything through the
| lens of margins and money primarily. Since any company's
| function is to deliver value to its shareholders, if allowed,
| bean counters will scorch the earth for it.
|
| Ultimately, this is at odds on how Jobs approached things,
| i.e., money was not the end all be all.
| WA wrote:
| Apple's 30% tax was introduced under Steve Jobs and there
| were no small business exemptions back then. Jobs died in
| 2011. It's time to stop extrapolating what Jobs would be
| doing 15 years later in 2026 if he were still around. Could
| be the same, could be better, could be worse.
| pjmlp wrote:
| In a time were operators where charging up to 90% for other
| stores.
|
| Those with listings of SMS codes for which app to download,
| depending on the phone OS.
|
| So it was a great deal back in 2008.
| WA wrote:
| You are talking about phone apps, I'm talking about
| "software licenses sold over the internet".
| bigyabai wrote:
| If Apple adopted the 90%, they would still be criticized.
|
| The fact remains that it was a very stupid system in
| 2008, and lowering the percentage doesn't obviate Apple's
| perverse incentives.
| isk517 wrote:
| It isn't 'You either die a hero or live long enough to
| become a villain', it's 'You either die a hero or live long
| enough for people to realize you are a villain'. While it's
| ultimately meaningless to speculate on what the dead would
| do if they were living, Steve Jobs in life did have plenty
| of belief and made plenty of decisions that are perfectly
| inline with what we are seeing in 2026 and there is no
| particular reason to believe he would not just be up there
| with the worst of them.
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| Jobs was a greedy bastard like all the other CEOs. The
| difference is that he also had mostly good taste as far as
| products go.
| ndr42 wrote:
| At that time 30% was not something you would consider high
| in contrast to the situation before the advent of app
| stores.
| WA wrote:
| This is outrageously wrong. Back in 2011, the pricing
| model for "an app in your pocket" was 99 cents. The
| universal pricing model of apps was a one-time fee and
| the pricing range was that of an mp3 roughly. 30% of that
| is a lot. App sales worked only in volume.
|
| If you sold software over the internet, you had PayPal,
| which had a flat fee of $0.35 + 1.7% or so and if your
| shareware was $30, the transaction fee essentially was
| ~$1. Stripe had roughly the same fee when they launched.
| You had more traditional credit card merchants and when I
| inquired one in Germany back in 2010, it was more or less
| in the same ballpark (~10%).
|
| In Europe, you could also just get money wired, which
| cost you something like 0-10 cents.
|
| 30% for payment processing were always extremely high.
|
| Edit: The only thing where you had no other options was
| when you tried to sell stuff on the internet for $1,
| because the flat fee part of credit card processors would
| eat up all of that. Apple indeed helped here a little
| bit, because it was always 30% and no fixed part.
| anomaly_ wrote:
| It's not a "processing fee". It's an
| distribution/access/market fee for the captive audience
| that Apple has spent tens of billions developing and
| supporting.
|
| If you think you can make any money selling software on
| the internet and paying _nothing_ other than $0.35 +
| 1.7%, think again.
| WA wrote:
| Yeah I heard this before, but no, it is mostly a
| processing fee. The reality is:
|
| - Developers helped to make Apple the platform it is
| today.
|
| - Apple had their 30% fee when the App Store was MUCH
| smaller. It's not like that fee came only after they had
| the audience.
|
| - Apple will do zero marketing for you unless you are
| already successful.
|
| - Apple doesn't earn money with the most popular free
| apps, but still hosts them. They could charge by traffic,
| by downloads, whatever, but they won't.
|
| - Apple will charge you if you make money in the app.
| They will force you to use their payment processor if you
| want to make money.
|
| So, it is 100% a processing fee and everything else
| either came later or isn't congruent with what they
| actually charge money for.
| Izkata wrote:
| Just as an aside, everything here is true of Android as
| well, and I think the cut was higher (or there were more
| intermediaries taking a bit as well): I priced an app
| $1.47 in 2010 so I'd get about $1 on every purchase.
| WA wrote:
| True, the Google cut was also 30%, but they didn't make
| such a fuss about "no links to website" and stuff like
| that. They didn't even have a review process for a long
| time.
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| I think you could if apple didn't force the App Store.
| Most people discover apps through other web sites, not
| through the App Store.
| ndr42 wrote:
| I was thinking about something comparable, where there is
| a digital storefront, payment processing, security,
| delivering, installing on all my devices and so on...
|
| Steam comes to mind. They take 30% (and I think 5% for
| credit card or whatever).
|
| So I do not think that "outrageously wrong" is
| characterizing my remarks adequately.
| pksebben wrote:
| Steam is fundamentally different in very important ways.
|
| Your phone is general purpose, steam is focused on a
| narrow band of market
|
| The iOS store adds nothing but cost to the purchasing
| process, with hilariously terrible discoverability and
| sorting, steam makes navigating and discoverability
| breezy and easy
|
| Your phone is arguably not an optional part of your life,
| whereas nobody ever missed an important call because they
| weren't on steam
|
| Steam does not take any money from apps or companies for
| transactions it was not involved in. Here, and in other
| cases, the costs of doing business with apple extend to
| people who have no relationship with apple at all
| saurik wrote:
| > you had PayPal, which had a flat fee of $0.35 + 1.7% or
| so
|
| PayPal also offered a "micropayments" rate (that I used
| in Cydia), wherein they charged $0.05+5% (which is much
| better for payments under $12).
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| Processing fees were way less than 30% before the App
| Store. And considering how overrun the App Store now is
| with junk apps there is basically no service Apple
| provides other than taking money.
| asadotzler wrote:
| Is bluffing how you want to show up?
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| Tim Cook is usually good at politics, which doesn't seem to
| be the case here. Nobody other some CNBC guests really gets
| too upset when they take 30% from tinder, music or mobile
| gaming companies. And those types of apps run by unpopular
| large companies make up the majority of App Store revenue.
|
| However, newspapers and content creators are popular in a way
| that carries political weight. It'd be wise for Apple exempt
| these categories and write off the few hundred million in
| forgone revenue as a political expense.
|
| For example allowing the NYT or Joe Rogan to have nice paid
| apps with no fees would be a much more effective use of money
| than the same amount in political donations.
| dwaite wrote:
| Apple doesn't do partner exceptions (one of the complaints
| Epic had about working with them is that Apple wouldn't
| negotiate lower rates with companies, unlike the game
| consoles.)
|
| They do have carve outs in the agreement, such as the
| 'reader' exception. Newspapers I believe also fall under
| the 'reader' exception.
|
| I have suspected for a while that the 15%-after-the-first-
| year subscription rate drop was a carve out targeted
| specifically at trying to retain Netflix IAP. However,
| Netflix was able to operate without IAP because of the
| "reader" exception.
| supernes wrote:
| How long until they make the argument that they're entitled to
| 30% of your salary because you use Apple hardware to do your
| work?
| lostlogin wrote:
| Hilarious how this is more than my tax rate. My tax rate gets
| education, healthcare, policing, etc etc.
| high_na_euv wrote:
| On the other side Apple gets money, so they can make *whole*
| world better, not just your country.
|
| Think about how many lives were improved just by M* CPUs or
| Siri
|
| /s
| lostlogin wrote:
| > Think about how many lives were improved just by M* CPUs
| or Siri
|
| But these were paid for by the hardware purchase.
| steve1977 wrote:
| Oh but you do get policing...
| charcircuit wrote:
| Look at how many different APIs you get as a developer on
| iOS.
| alibarber wrote:
| Feels more like a sales tax (VAT) though, which is the same
| for everyone.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| Exactly, not even a progressive tax!
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| dont give Apple any ideas!
| pavlov wrote:
| They must be looking at the revenue Claude Code is making on
| Mac and thinking "Why aren't we getting 30% of that?"
|
| Wouldn't be surprised if macOS starts locking down CLI tools
| towards an App Store model too.
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| Developers are a tricky market for this because they could
| realistically move to different platforms if stuff like this
| started to happen. Or at least work on remote machines.
|
| If gaming on Macs ever became popular though this would be a
| real risk.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| Apple fans on the other hand are not a tricky market. They
| swallow whatever Apple gives them.
|
| It doesn't matter if they are developers or not.
| OtherShrezzing wrote:
| I'm not sure Claude Code is making enough for Apple to take
| notice & drastically alter their CLI like that? CC has
| 100-150k users across all platforms, paying $200-1200/yr
| each. Even if every developer is on the top tier Max plan,
| and on MacOS, that's $180mn in revenue at Anthropic. So even
| in the most optimistic scenario, that's only ~$50mn revenue
| for Apple at a 30% take.
|
| That pales in comparison to the hardware & subscription
| revenues Apple brings in by being a dev-friendly OS.
| lnenad wrote:
| Source for the numbers? I am asking since Anthropic's
| revenue is 5+ billions, I'm guessing it's mostly from
| developers.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| Claude code reached $1B in six months in early Dec and
| given what I am seeing on ground, I wouldn't be surprised
| if just in last 2 months after that their revenue grew by
| double.
|
| [1]: https://www.anthropic.com/news/anthropic-acquires-bun-
| as-cla...
| stavros wrote:
| There is a $2400 plan as well.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Presumably if you buy an AI subscription through an iOS app
| you also have to pay 30% Apple tax. Nice work for them.
| g947o wrote:
| It does work like that.
|
| For me personally, I have used this method to spend my
| Apple gift cards purchased on a discount. Effectively I got
| a Claude subscription at 15% off. (You could argue this
| only works because OpenAI/Anthropic charge the same price
| across web/mobile, and I agree.)
|
| So, as much as I despise Apple's business model, in some
| sense I have directly benefitted from it (other than stock
| price).
| dwaite wrote:
| I would expect also that there is a broader revenue sharing
| agreement for both being a system-integrated search engine
| and "world knowledge" chatbot (Google and OpenAI being the
| respective defaults)
| thewebguyd wrote:
| > Wouldn't be surprised if macOS starts locking down CLI
| tools towards an App Store model too.
|
| The day that happens is the day Apple sees a mass exodus of
| developers to Linux, I don't think they'd be _that_ stupid.
| They enjoy enough goodwill right now as the platform of
| choice (vs. Windows for those that don 't want to run desktop
| Linux), I can't imagine they'd casually just throw that away.
| bigyabai wrote:
| > I don't think they'd be that stupid.
|
| We're talking about the company that abandoned CUDA, OpenCL
| and Vulkan mere moments before they were killer
| technologies. If Apple wanted to phase-out Homebrew, I
| genuinely think most of the community would nod in unison
| and switch to developing in UTM. Mac owners are nothing if
| not flexible.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Yeah no, as a Mac and Linux user, I would seize buying
| Mac hardware and buy exclusively Linux if they took down
| Homebrew from being usable. At that point a Mac is no
| longer a Unix system.
| dwaite wrote:
| If Claude Code was in the Mac App Store, they would have
| signed an agreement to do so (offer an in-app purchase option
| and Apple gets a 30% cut of subscriptions for the first year,
| 15% after that).
|
| They would also be sandboxed such that the app wouldn't have
| access to the level of system integration it needs.
| amelius wrote:
| They certainly would if they could.
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| You joke, but legally they could. If game engines can charge a
| licence fee as a % of revenue from games developed on those
| engines, then legally there's not much to stop apple doing the
| same. Of course consumers and enterprises wouldn't tolerate it,
| but the barrier is commercial rather than legal.
| hahahahhaah wrote:
| Guess it is no different than Docker Desktop charging based
| on your revenue. The idea being charging based on some second
| order.
| dwaite wrote:
| I've long believes that the requirement to use in-app
| purchasing was to make such revenue sharing easier to audit -
| if you can only use Apple's payment system to do certain
| things (or else your app isn't approved), then Apple doesn't
| have to worry about things like audits.
|
| Since various countries have regulated the ability to do
| third party payments from apps, Apple has since added API to
| launch said payments, to help generate statistics on use so
| that they can then demand third party auditing that the
| commissions are still being properly paid.
|
| In the US there was a court decision that they couldn't meter
| or charge commission, which may very well be walked back and
| will lead to lots of fun future articles.
| plufz wrote:
| But what about my banking app! I think it's only fair Apple
| take 30% on every transaction I make. After all they put in a
| huge amount of work validating and making sure my banking app
| is safe and functional.
|
| Edit: Maybe I am greedy now, but it would be nice if large
| transactions like say buying a house only would cost me a 15%
| transaction fee to Apple.
| conductr wrote:
| Large transactions are riskier, let's give them 45%. After
| all, I'd really hate to see their margins suffer.
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| I worry about their finances
| ChrisRR wrote:
| Who's downvoting this? When you think online sarcasm is so
| obvious that no-one could believe it, someone's always
| there to prove otherwise
| krior wrote:
| Maybe because its not really contributing anything new to
| the discussion?
| Gabrys1 wrote:
| Visa/Mastercard take like 1 or 2%. That's why they cannot
| compare to Apple...
| bluescrn wrote:
| If they tried to take significantly more, cash would be a
| lot more popular.
|
| Yet Apple can get away with taking 30% and companies still
| accept this and push their apps rather than websites.
| tcfhgj wrote:
| > Yet Apple can get away with taking 30% and companies
| still accept this and push their apps rather than
| websites.
|
| companies and users!
| blasphemers wrote:
| Visa/MasterCard take like 0.3% the rest of the interchange
| fee goes to the issuing and acquiring banks.
| kshacker wrote:
| We just got layers and layers of entrenched middlemen
| (middle corporations) everywhere
| pjmlp wrote:
| It made sense in the early days, phone operators were charging
| up to 90% for the infrastucture to send an SMS, and get a
| download link to a J2ME/Windows CE/Pocket
| PC/Symbian/Palm/Blackberry download link to install the app.
|
| So everyone raced to the iOS app store, it was only 30%, what a
| great deal!
|
| The problem is that two decades later it is no longer that
| great deal in mobile duopoly world.
| NoBeardMarch wrote:
| It's kind of interesting that while the structure is largely
| the same, the underlying behaviour/intent has morphed from a
| disruptor-model into being toxic rent-seeking behaviour.
| StopDisinfo910 wrote:
| All the regulators in the world have their sights set on them
| and they know it. The light is half on already and the music is
| slowing. This party is soon to be over. It's a last ditch
| attempt at milking all they can.
| anonzzzies wrote:
| 30% of my yearly unrealised gains would be fair.
| g947o wrote:
| 30% of profit from stock sales initiated on Apple hardware
| should automatically go to Apple. Because why not. It's a
| digital sale, there is no physical goods changing hands. Sounds
| perfectly reasonable to me. /s
| bsza wrote:
| Isn't it strictly _worse_ that they 're already thinking
| they're entitled to 30% of your salary because _your clients_
| use Apple hardware? You can change what you use, you can 't
| change what they use.
| SwtCyber wrote:
| Honestly that joke is uncomfortably close to how the logic
| already works...
| account42 wrote:
| That's of course _on top_ of the 30% they take on things you
| buy using your salary via Apple devices.
| black_puppydog wrote:
| and the 30% they take from the things you _sell_ via apple
| devices, once your work is done.
| jsheard wrote:
| Come on, if you work on a MacBook then Tim Apple deserves at
| least one of your kidneys. It's only fair.
| robshippr wrote:
| Don't give them any ideas haha
| kkukshtel wrote:
| Stuff like this is ironic but I do think it's escape hatches
| like this that will make these tech companies, if they ever go
| down, go down kicking and screaming. Any platform holder that
| ever finds themselves in a bad place financially will 100% pull
| all the levers like this.
| m463 wrote:
| Don't worry, they're ethical because interns will only pay 15%.
| nusl wrote:
| Really shitty to see how greed and money corrupts everything.
|
| "Use our payment system"
|
| "No thanks, our current system works just fine"
|
| ".. or get kicked off our store"
|
| "Okay, I guess I'll do it then"
|
| "Okay you're on our payment system; we take 30% off all purchased
| using our payment system."
|
| "Get fucked"
| bluescrn wrote:
| Apps bad. Web good.
|
| Why did we let mobile go down the one-app-per-website path?
| yoz-y wrote:
| When iPhone came out the sentiment was clearly opposite. The
| "sweet solution" was ridiculed and workarounds found. When web
| caught up, it was plagued with self inflicted performance
| issues. And eventually Apple decided to not invest in good PWA
| support.
|
| I was an app advocate for a long time, now I made a PWA and
| it's maybe 90% there. But you still get behaviors that you can
| not fix.
|
| IMO the worst however is products that have a fully functional
| website, but refuse to let you use it (e.g.: Instagram)
| didntcheck wrote:
| Yes. It's improved now, but the mobile web was _bad_ for a
| long time. The early days of Android experienced a "web-
| first" ecosystem by force, as lazy businesses just threw a
| webview around their site, and it was awful
| willtemperley wrote:
| Web is much better when the data should be public. Apps are
| much better when any kind of data privacy is required.
|
| The trouble is, market forces always try and push things the
| other way.
|
| The Reddit App for example is totally unnecessary. It's just
| public web content and should be a website.
|
| SaaS on the other hand shouldn't really be a thing at all. I
| have no idea why anyone thinks it's a good idea for their
| private data and app state to be on a cloud somewhere they
| don't control.
|
| Note that this does not preclude the use of cloud services that
| users can control e.g. by specifiying trusted endpoints. I'm
| trying to build the idea of "data locality first" software.
| I.e. you know where your data are and where they aren't.
| troupo wrote:
| > Why did we let mobile go down the one-app-per-website path?
|
| Because the web is still barely usable for anything more
| complex than showing a few lines of static text and an image?
|
| Because for almost as long as (modern) mobile apps exist the
| web was even less usable?
|
| Because even now you can whip up a fast complex mobile app with
| 60fps animations and native behaviours probably in minutes?
| While on the web you're lucky if you can figure out which
| state/animation/routing library _du jour_ isn 't broken beyond
| all hope?
| vlod wrote:
| I might be in the minority but I have a really hard time
| using iOS and their apps in general (I use Android).
|
| I struggle (and mostly curse) to figure out what swipe
| gesture to use to get simple stuff to just work. Not super
| sure all the 60fps animations and wizz-bang behaviours are
| being used the way you think they are.
|
| #include<"old-man-yells-at-clould-meme">
| microtonal wrote:
| I strongly prefer apps. The thing that goes wrong here is:
| Duopoly bad. Competition good.
|
| Since app distribution is not a fair market anymore, it needs
| to be regulated. Either the fees have to go down close to cost
| _or_ alternative app stores should be allowed. And not the
| malicious compliance version of it (as Apple is trying in the
| EU).
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| To keep their growth rates going, these mega companies soon need
| to swallow the whole country's GDP. I really wonder where this is
| going. They can't keep growing at some point.
| akomtu wrote:
| This might become technocracy at some point, if the
| corporations become stronger than the state govs. In that case,
| the entire NOAM region will become a so-called technate, ruled
| by a form of ToS. I'd say, technocracy is way worse than even
| autocracy.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy_movement
| darthoctopus wrote:
| I think you may have fundamentally misunderstood what a
| technocracy is: it has nothing to do with tech companies
| whatsoever. From literally the article that you have linked:
|
| > The technocracy movement proposed replacing partisan
| politicians and business people with scientists and engineers
| who had the technical expertise to manage the economy.
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| Technocracy is probably not the right word for what you mean.
| Oligarchy is probably a better one. This will probably evolve
| into idiocracy if you have seen the similarly named
| documentary .
| randyrand wrote:
| I assume this is only for purchases made using the app, right?
|
| Otherwise it just wouldn't make sense. Google gets a cut of all
| revenue, Apple gets a cut of all revenue, x, y, z, ... there
| would be nothing left over.
| Bengalilol wrote:
| > "According to TechCrunch, only 4% of Patreon creators are still
| using the platform's legacy billing system, with the rest having
| already switched over."
|
| The very last line of the article.
| troupo wrote:
| Yes, because intimidation and scare tactics work
| kickette wrote:
| This means that 4% are subverting the 30% fee.
| benoau wrote:
| Like Apple subverted the court order to allow apps like
| Patreon to use their own billing.
| fnoef wrote:
| I don't get it. Apple is the top 3 most valuable companies in the
| WORLD. THE WORLD. They act like a greedy friend that would ask
| you to pay back $1.54 for a meal of $1500, because you ordered a
| side of fries which they did not eat.
|
| Aren't they making the majority of their money from selling
| hardware and iCloud subscriptions? Why they go on and milk
| developers, who make apps FOR THEIR ECOSYSTEM?!
| amelius wrote:
| > greedy friend that would ask you to pay back $1.54 for a meal
| of $1500
|
| 30% is not that.
| cybrox wrote:
| Analogy =\= Precise Maths
| user34283 wrote:
| There is a difference between paying 30% and 0.1% that goes
| beyond "precise maths".
|
| It's an egregious share, and Apple is making an estimated
| $30 billion a year with this, at a margin perhaps more than
| twice as high as on iPhone sales.
| techterrier wrote:
| woosh
| dns_snek wrote:
| $1500 represents the money you've already given them to
| purchase the hardware. You already overpay for that - fine -
| then they demand a 30% cut from $5 you're giving to a
| struggling independent creator. It's pure greed coming from
| one of the richest companies in the world.
| sega_sai wrote:
| Maybe that's exactly how you become one of the most valuable
| companies.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Good thing GenAI is about to destroy capitalism, finally!
|
| Even the stupid many headed hydra can't survive when an 8
| year-old kid has a super intelligence capable of autonomously
| manufacturing a bio weapon.
| amelius wrote:
| Except BigSilicon is the new capital needed to drive GenAI.
| surgical_fire wrote:
| What don't you get?
|
| They are greedy because Apple fans would by a turd in a box if
| it had an Apple logo.
|
| If I was in charge of Apple I would do the same thing. In fact,
| I would likely increase the Apple cut to 40%. People would pay,
| they like their slick toys.
|
| The developers will continue to make apps for their ecosystem
| regardless.
| hu3 wrote:
| After the $1k monitor stand I don't doubt Apple can get away
| with selling ANYTHING.
|
| https://www.apple.com/shop/product/mx5n3ll/a/pro-stand
| westpfelia wrote:
| You get it though. They ARE the top 3 most valuable company in
| the world. How do you think they got there? Greed all the way
| down.
| rock_artist wrote:
| The core problem is still the same.
|
| Until there will be a broad regulation that enforce any general
| purpose computing device to allow installing non-provisioned
| apps, we'll be in those situations.
| CrzyLngPwd wrote:
| If only we could find a way to blame Putin for this.
| amelius wrote:
| I still can't believe developers love to work for this feudal
| overlord. They are building a wall around our profession. Have a
| little foresight and move your business elsewhere.
| user34283 wrote:
| It's not so much that I love giving 30% to Apple, and more that
| there is no way to move your business elsewhere because Apple
| monopolizes mobile app distribution.
|
| And the other half of the mobile app market is monopolized by
| Google who copies the pricing model while delivering even worse
| (if any) service to developers.
|
| It's either getting out of mobile apps or paying up.
|
| This is not going to change without drastic steps by
| regulators, which both Apple and Google fight tooth and nail.
| amelius wrote:
| It's not just about making apps. Anything you do for this
| company is going to backfire at some point and hurt us.
|
| This even includes developing open source tools for MacOS.
|
| And even if it doesn't backfire it is largely a wasted
| effort.
| vlod wrote:
| You know some of us remember Mac System [7|8|9] and how MSFT
| pretty much ruled everything (Apple had low %).
|
| We kept working on the platform and developing tools and
| things changed. Of course Apple is a lot more powerful than
| MSFT back then and the general population is their target.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| 4% of Patreon iOS users. That's how many use the legacy system
| Apple is insisting they remove. The other 96% already are using
| IAP.
| didntcheck wrote:
| > Patreon gives creators the option to either increase their
| prices in the iOS app only, or absorb the fee themselves,
| keeping prices the same across platforms.
|
| I'm curious what percentage of creators chose which
| hu3 wrote:
| Which makes it even more petty coming from Apple.
| slater wrote:
| Money number must go up!
| panstromek wrote:
| > Note: This image has been edited to include a pile of cash.
|
| I giggled
| gethly wrote:
| web is now so good that mobile apps lost any meaning to exist -
| unless you need to access some local hw or data on consistent
| basis(the app must run as daemon or something like that). in
| other words, if you app is a service, just use web. if it is not
| a service, then you just sell it as you would a desktop program.
| shevy-java wrote:
| They work to make Apple rich. It's a bit like the mafia, but not
| as rememberable.
| phurpa10923 wrote:
| Attitude like a true mob boss.
| nabla9 wrote:
| Apple's App Store profits on commissions from digital sales
| Revenue $32 B Operating Costs $7 B [1]
| Estimated Profit $25 B Operating Margin ~78%
|
| [1] R&D, security, hosting, human review, and including building
| and maintaining developer tools Xcode, APIs, and SDKs.
|
| Apple could take just 7% cut and still make 20% profits.
|
| Fun Fact: During the Epic trial, it was revealed that Apple's
| profit margins on the App Store were so high that even Apple's
| own executives were sometimes surprised by the internal financial
| reports.
|
| ---
|
| edit: There is no ideological argument for voluntary action here.
| The entire goal is to force regulators to step in. The debate
| over 'good vs. bad companies' is just online noise and rhetorical
| trik, no one on either side of the political spectrum wants these
| systems to be fixed voluntarily with corporate altruism.
| wosined wrote:
| But people still use/buy it so why would they cut the cost?
| vincnetas wrote:
| and that exactly what monopoly allows you to do.
| nabla9 wrote:
| There is no ideological argument for voluntary action here.
| The entire goal is to force regulators to step in. The debate
| over 'good vs. bad companies' is just online noise and
| rhetorical trik, no one on either side of the political
| spectrum wants these systems to be fixed voluntarily with
| corporate altruism.
| NewsaHackO wrote:
| But what are they even doing for regulators to have to step
| in? Making profits from someone selling their product in
| your market seems pretty valid to me. Are you saying this
| is anticompetitive to other possible app store storefronts
| like Google Play or something?
| gabaix wrote:
| They are not allowing other marketplaces, or creators
| themselves, to run apps on Apple devices directly.
| NewsaHackO wrote:
| Why should they have to allow third parties to run apps
| on their platform? The fact that it is a clear security
| risk already gives them justification, but even looking
| past that, Apple is not the only platform that bars users
| from running third-party software or marketplaces on
| their products. For example, playstation, xbox, and
| switch all disallow running unauthorized games on their
| platforms. What makes Apple different?
| nabla9 wrote:
| No. This is a result of a market failure caused by
| monopoly power. Regulators must make sure market
| capitalism works.
|
| I'm not sure what is the basis for your question but
| using market definition where Google Play and Apple Store
| are in the same market is not correct (market definition
| is essential part of any monopoly regulation).
|
| Markets are defined by choice of practice, not by choice
| in principle.
| NewsaHackO wrote:
| My question is: what is the basis for asserting that this
| market failure is due to monopoly power? Is your argument
| that their excessive profits from the services provided
| result from anti-competitive behavior? If so, what
| specific anti-competitive behavior are you referring to?
| nabla9 wrote:
| The specific cited anti-competitive behaviors (from DOJ
| and EU Commission is) are related to violating anti-
| steering provisions (companies forbidden for directing
| towards other payments methods), tying and bundling (in-
| app purchase requirements), self-preferencing (obvious),
| "tap-to-pay" monopoly, and blocking third party app-
| stores.
| rpdillon wrote:
| Just to ground the discussion in Apple's criminal
| behavior a bit, here's some excerpts from a 2025 ruling
| about Apple's behavior in this regard:
|
| > Apple's response to the Injunction strains credulity.
| After two sets of evidentiary hearings, the truth
| emerged. Apple, despite knowing its obligations
| thereunder, thwarted the Injunction's goals, and
| continued its anticompetitive conduct solely to maintain
| its revenue stream. Remarkably, Apple believed that this
| Court would not see through its obvious cover-up (the
| 2024 evidentiary hearing). To unveil Apple's actual
| decision-making process, not the one tailor-made for
| litigation, the Court ordered production of real-time
| documents and ultimately held a second set of hearings in
| 2025.
|
| > To summarize: One, after trial, the Court found that
| Apple's 30 percent commission "allowed it to reap
| supracompetitive operating margins" and was not tied to
| the value of its intellectual property, and thus, was
| anticompetitive. Apple's response: charge a 27 percent
| commission (again tied to nothing) on off-app purchases,
| where it had previously charged nothing,and extend the
| commission for a period of seven days after the consumer
| linked-out of the app. Apple's goal: maintain its
| anticompetitive revenue stream. Two, the Court had
| prohibited Apple from denying developers the ability to
| communicate with, and direct consumers to, other
| purchasing mechanisms. Apple's response: impose new
| barriers and new requirements to increase friction and
| increase breakage rates with full page "scare" screens,
| static URLs, and generic statements. Apple's goal: to
| dissuade customer usage of alternative purchase
| opportunities and maintain its anticompetitive revenue
| stream. In the end, Apple sought to maintain a revenue
| stream worth billions in direct defiance of this Court's
| Injunction.
|
| https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand
| .36...
| NewsaHackO wrote:
| So, I wanted to avoid referring to this case because it
| undermines any discussion, but if you want to include it,
| the judge ruled in favor of Apple for nine out of ten
| claims made by Epic, including 1) Apple's 30% commission
| is not anticompetitive behavior, and 2) Apple has the
| right to not allow third-party apps on their platform.
| Apple, being Apple, attempted to subvert the part about
| allowing links to other storefronts by adding a 27%
| commission aas well as a scare page, which is what they
| are currently in hot water for. However, the overall
| decision was solidly in Apple's favor regarding the App
| Store's 30% commission and practices.
|
| > One, after trial, the Court found that Apple's 30
| percent commission "allowed it to reap supracompetitive
| operating margins" and was not tied to the value of its
| intellectual property, and thus, was anticompetitive.
|
| Epic is twisting other people's words here. Notice how
| they quote "allowed it to reap supracompetitive operating
| margins" but not the point about it being
| anticompetitive. It's because the decision never said
| that.
| nabla9 wrote:
| The operating cost is the maximum Apple can come up with when
| their accountants attribute everything they possibly can to
| digital sales for the sake of legal argument. R&D shouldn't
| really be included, and Apple uses those same tools and APIs
| themselves. I think the actual profit margin is closer to 90%,
| and Apple could maintain a 20% margin with just a 3-4% fee.
| rob74 wrote:
| I'd say that in the case of Patreon, _any_ fee for Apple is
| unjustified. Apple can justify their fee on app purchases
| /subscriptions in the app store, but Patreon is not an app
| subscription, the money goes mostly from the patrons to the
| people they support. Ok, Patreon takes a cut to cover their
| operating costs, and also make a profit (not sure how
| profitable they are currently), but I really can't see how
| Apple, who don't have anything to do with this process except
| for listing the Patreon app on the app store, can justify
| taking a cut.
| saimiam wrote:
| If a user almost exclusively uses the Patreon ios app to
| consume the artist's content and likes to live inside the
| ios ecosystem for frictionless payments using the card on
| file/privacy/UX/whatever, then I feel apple should get to
| set the terms of engagement.
|
| If you were a chain store in a high end mall where
| customers cars were all parked for free by valets, mall
| staff knew their names, and generally made them feel
| special, you'd not balk at a higher commission to be paid
| to mall for access to their customers, right? Airports come
| to mind for this.
|
| I believe apple lets you set whatever price you want on
| their store, just not tell customers that they could get a
| lower price elsewhere/on the vendor's website (I don't
| follow App Store policies very closely so my info is
| probably out of date).
| rubyfan wrote:
| I don't think anyone suggests Apple should get nothing
| for their app store services, just that it shouldn't be
| 30% of every transaction processed through every iOS app.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| I think that is in fact exactly what GP is suggesting.
| rubyfan wrote:
| I don't read it that way. I think the point is it doesn't
| make sense that apple is taking a cut of a transaction
| that is not in their payment rails*. Apple can still be
| compensated for their App store service without using a
| model that takes 30% of all transactions, e.g. a listing
| fee, an app review fee, etc.
|
| *And anything on their payment rails should have a normal
| transaction fee, e.g. Stripe's retail rate is 2.9% +
| $0.30.
| dwaite wrote:
| This is the model they have moved to in the EU - an
| annual per user-app core technology fee for apps enabled
| to be listed outside the store, and relaxed in-store
| rules (and reduced commissions) if you choose to still
| list in Apple's App Store. Effectively, they are acting
| as if commissions are paying the core technology fee, and
| subsidizing it for apps which aren't profitable.
|
| The per-user model means that apps which have adopted
| freemium and advertising-driven models wind up having
| quite different financials, and could be more expensive.
| londons_explore wrote:
| The EU has the right approach. Don't try to legislate
| exactly what is a fair/unfair amount of profit to make -
| change the rules of the game by requiring third party
| marketplaces and payment platforms so apple has to lower
| rates or lose every app into a third party store.
|
| Apple can easily say "Use our store exclusively and you
| get our security/privacy guarantees. Go outside our store
| and you're in the wild west". App developers can then
| decide how much fee they are willing to pay for access to
| the user base who refuse to venture into the wild west.
| Other stores might try to persuade users that they are
| more secure and more private too via stricter review
| policies or more locked down permissions etc.
| fauigerzigerk wrote:
| From a consumer point of view, the best approach would be
| if devlopers had to sell their app in Apple's App Store
| (if Apple approves) and could optionally provide other
| purchasing options on top of that.
|
| It would prevent fragmentation and give people a choice
| to pay up if they actually value Apple's extra
| protections (if any).
| dwaite wrote:
| Several years in, I don't believe Apple has lowered rates
| at all.
|
| If the EU has the right approach, then they still do not
| have the right implementation.
| thfuran wrote:
| What they should get is customers for their phones and
| computers.
| hshdhdhj4444 wrote:
| > If a user almost exclusively uses the Patreon ios app
| to consume the artist's content and likes to live inside
| the ios ecosystem for frictionless payments using the
| card on file/privacy/UX/whatever, then I feel apple
| should get to set the terms of engagement.
|
| When I paid over $1000 to buy an iPhone I thought I was
| buying a technological product that I could use to
| improve my life.
|
| I didn't realize I was buying a ticket to Disneyland
| where the seller of the product decided how I interacted
| with everything the device enabled.
|
| I don't think this should be disallowed. I certainly
| think it's incredibly false marketing for Apple to claim
| I bought an iphone, when in reality I paid upfront for
| essentially AOL.
| gyulai wrote:
| > I certainly think it's incredibly false marketing for
| Apple to claim I bought an iphone, when in reality I paid
| upfront for essentially AOL.
|
| I wonder if that has ever been tried against Apple or a
| similar company in a court of law, because I think there
| might be real merit there. One would have to get a bunch
| of people together claiming a refund on the purchase
| price on the grounds that ownership hasn't been
| transferred and therefore Apple is in breach of contract
| in relation to the contract for sale of an iPhone. Then
| those people would have to bring a class action, and the
| case would revolve around the concept of "ownership".
| Because "ownership", to a first approximation, means the
| legal right to do with some piece of property essentially
| as you please, and Apple is clearly basing much of their
| business on the assumption that users do _not_ have those
| rights and is taking positive action to prevent users
| from exercising such rights.
|
| I don't know much about the law in the rest of the world,
| except Germany, but in Germany that would certainly be
| the case, and there is a surprising amount of case law
| revolving around such things as horses or other animals
| being sold, and the former owner then trying to restrict
| the new owner in exercising their ownership rights, which
| generally end with ownership rights being upheld by
| courts.
| Teever wrote:
| I've been thinking for a while now that a really
| effective way to deal with problem companies would be
| coordinate a mass action on small claims closets around
| the world all on the same day.
|
| Often in small claims court you win by default if the
| other person doesn't show up and I'm sure judges know
| average will sympathize with the kinds of arguments that
| you raised above.
| gyulai wrote:
| I don't know. We don't have any such thing as small
| claims court in Germany, but my expectation would be that
| judges in low-level courts will try their very best not
| to get noticed for setting any kind of precedent
| whatsoever. The only thing that's going to happen if you
| rule against Apple in a low-level court is that they will
| go into revision, and carrying a high probability that
| the higher-level judge will overturn the decision and
| make the lower-level judge look bad in the process.
|
| Also, any kind of effort to annoy someone by bringing
| coordinated actions in lots of venues all at the same
| time is probably abuse of process.
| silon42 wrote:
| I think a fair coordination would be for someone
| somewhere to complain about this every single day
| (1/country).
| Teever wrote:
| The idea isn't just to use small claims courts, but to
| use whatever first level legal venue to seek redress you
| can find in your area. That might mean small claims
| courts, or consumer protection bureaus, or binding
| arbitration. Whatever it is the idea is to coordinate
| with others to do so in a way that strains the resources
| of the organization you're fighting against and is in
| venues that are sympathetic to consumers and are able to
| make clear judgements with little chance for the opposing
| side to appeal.
|
| The goal of this isn't to annoy someone, the goal is to
| seek compensation for their unacceptable behavior and
| raise awareness of it so that others may do so as well.
|
| With the mindboggling assymetry in resources between a
| single individual and an entity like Apple or Google it
| only makes sense for people to team up and coordinate
| against them.
| fauigerzigerk wrote:
| _> but my expectation would be that judges in low-level
| courts will try their very best not to get noticed for
| setting any kind of precedent whatsoever._
|
| Is there even such a thing as precedent in the German
| legal system?
| direwolf20 wrote:
| There isn't.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| You have the legal right to do anything to your iPhone
| that you please, except for DMCA circumvention. Apple,
| cleverly, designs it so you can't do very much without
| DMCA circumvention. But it is the government's fault for
| this loophole, not Apple's.
| xmcp123 wrote:
| It is the governments fault that it exists, and apples
| fault for exploiting it to the extent they do.
|
| It's a choice, and you can tell it's a choice because
| many, many other companies choose not to.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| Do they? Seems every company exploits DMCA
| anticircumvention. Even the ones that sell tractors.
| patja wrote:
| Is this sarcasm? Apple pretty much invented the walled
| garden of personal computing.
| Zak wrote:
| > _I didn't realize I was buying a ticket to Disneyland
| where the seller of the product decided how I interacted
| with everything the device enabled._
|
| If you're the sort of person who posts on HN and you
| bought an iPhone after they hit the $1000 price point,
| you probably did know that.
|
| It surprises me a little that so many people who do know
| still make that choice.
| Matl wrote:
| I think the point OP is making is not that they actually
| didn't know, but that they shouldn't have to know for
| that price.
| TheDong wrote:
| Presumably you also would agree that it's fair if Chrome,
| Windows, and Lenovo all charged me 30% each for using
| Patreon via Chrome+Windows on a thinkpad, right?
|
| They're doing about as much to facilitate my use of
| Patreon as Apple is.
|
| This isn't like a mall at all. This is like a web
| browser, where apps are webpages, and Apple is insisting
| that the contents of that webpage are something they can
| dictate all payment terms on.
|
| For the airport analogy to work, it would have to be that
| you go to the Airport, go into the electronics store, buy
| a Kindle, and then the Airport insists it can take 30%
| not just on the purchase of the kindle, but 30% on every
| single book you buy on the kindle forever.
|
| Apple taking a cut on the purchase price of an app that a
| user found via the app store does make some sense. Apple
| taking a cut of an in-app interaction with a creator that
| the user almost certainly found elsewhere is nonsense.
|
| What next, should apple take a 30% cut of my rent because
| I found my apartment on the Craigslist app? Should they
| take a 30% of my train ticket that I purchased using the
| Safari app? Why does Patreon have to add a 30% cut on in-
| app content, when Safari lets me pay for in-app content
| with my credit card without taking any cut?
| saimiam wrote:
| > certainly found elsewhere
|
| I agree that if someone discovered the artist elsewhere,
| Apple has weaker standing in claiming a huge commission.
| But if they found an artist elsewhere, they would also
| know that they can support that artist elsewhere and not
| through the iOS app. If the patron found them through the
| patreon iOS app and use the app to consume the artist's
| content, then clearly the patron has indicated that they
| prefer the iOS experience.
| TheDong wrote:
| And if I access Patreon via Chrome on Windows, and use
| Chrome on Windows to consume the artist's content,
| clearly I prefer the Chrome and Windows experience, so
| Microsoft and Google should be getting their 30% cut,
| right?
|
| ... and of course the user found the artist elsewhere
| than the iOS app store. They found them on youtube, or
| reddit, or _possibly_ on the webview inside the patreon
| iOS app, which is also _not_ apple's App Store content,
| it's content provided by Patreon.
|
| Again, should accessing my bank via the Safari or Chrome
| iOS app mean apple gets 30% of all my bank transactions,
| just because they were displayed on a webview inside an
| iOS app?
| tapoxi wrote:
| The logical conclusion is that if you buy an Apple device
| from www.apple.com on your Windows PC, Microsoft should
| get a 30% cut of that sale.
| ribosometronome wrote:
| There's a large amount of Apples:Oranges comparisons here
| that should be obvious to people who even read the
| headline, "in the iOS app" not "on iOS", as your
| comparison indicates.
| dwaite wrote:
| Sure, if Google wants to start a business model where
| your websites only load if you sign a business agreement
| and agree to commissions.
|
| However, regulators would probably take note that Google
| has been aggressively pushing their browser for free for
| over a decade to gain market share, and have a field day.
|
| The difference is that Apple's business model hasn't
| changed - you've always been restricted to distributing
| apps under a business agreement, and the conditions on
| commissions have been pretty consistent since inception,
| or at least since IAP was added in 2009.
|
| "What ifs" about Apple charging 30% for bank transactions
| would run afoul of regulators. This is about consuming
| member-exclusive goods and services in-app, which again
| has been in the contract terms since 2009.
|
| Goods and services consumed outside of the app (such as
| purchases of physical items on Amazon, or plane tickets
| or the like) are actually forbidden from using in-app
| purchase and do not have a commission rate.
| Talanes wrote:
| >If the patron found them through the patreon iOS app and
| use the app to consume the artist's content, then clearly
| the patron has indicated that they prefer the iOS
| experience.
|
| I hate IOS enough that I'm running at least a full
| numbered version behind with updates turned off and never
| plan to buy another IOS device, and I'm subscribed to
| multiple Patreons started through the IOS app merely
| because it was the device in my hand and they
| automatically funnel Patreon links to it.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| That's not worth 30%. Imagine if Youtube charged 30% for
| anyone who clicked a link under a video in a web browser.
|
| Even if people do enjoy browsing through the PAtreon app
| and choosing creators they want to subscribe to, that's
| not worth 30%. Rent-seeking is a cognitive disease.
| browningstreet wrote:
| Chrome, Windows and Lenovo don't have the payment system
| baked in, with all the consumer protections that come
| with it.
|
| I'm not entirely pro-Apple percentage in this argument,
| but I think people often dismiss the magical thing that
| Apple created with the app store and their
| payment/subscription system. The rest of the world keeps
| ripping users off, and Apple's walled garden is as
| protected a thing as it gets.
|
| I've gone directly to my bank for subscription charges
| billed directly to my credit card and they wouldn't
| reverse or stop them. Cancelling and reversing on the App
| Store is basic, easy, and friction-free.
|
| Plus, the Android environment doesn't yield nearly the
| same sales volume even with significantly more installed
| units.
|
| People spend on iOS and they don't spend on other
| platforms.
|
| 30% hurts and it sucks, but.. Patreon will probably take
| it because they'll do the math and it won't come out in
| favor of the alternative. That's what really sucks,
| beyond Apple max-max-maxing this.
| realusername wrote:
| They can offer to cancel or reverse subscriptions because
| you paid 5x that subscription amount just in fees.
| sroussey wrote:
| The cost side of that protection is < 0.1% not 30%.
| fauigerzigerk wrote:
| _> The rest of the world keeps ripping users off, and
| Apple's walled garden is as protected a thing as it
| gets._
|
| This keeps getting repeated but it's not actually my
| experience. Not even Apple believes it, otherwise they
| could avoid a lot of legal and regulatory trouble by
| giving users a choice: Pay through Apple for an extra 30%
| protection fee.
| Matl wrote:
| > Chrome, Windows and Lenovo don't have the payment
| system baked in, with all the consumer protections that
| come with it.
|
| Chrome definitely does, at least to a degree.
|
| But you have the option to not use it, because guess
| what? You're supposed to own the device.
| browningstreet wrote:
| Chrome doesn't do this, Chrome has a wallet and you're
| still stuck talking to your credit card company.
|
| It looks like you may have edited your comment, but the
| issues of Apple's app store payment percentage, the
| open/closed nature of their appstore, and the ability to
| sideload apps are 3 separate issues.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Apple's walled garden couldn't even protect it's users
| from a literal LastPass scam app. It was reviewed by
| Apple. It passed. It was in the store.
|
| _The screenshots for the app had "Documets" and
| "Lasspass" prominently visible_
|
| Nothing about this is for _your_ sake.
| vel0city wrote:
| Chrome and Windows definitely do have payment systems
| baked in. Google Pay, the Microsoft Store, etc.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| I had a Patreon subscription I forgot about. I went to
| Patreon and ended it. It took about a minute, including
| filling out the feedback form about why I was quitting.
| seemaze wrote:
| >What next, should apple take a 30% cut of my rent
| because I found my apartment on the Craigslist app?
| Should they take a 30% of my train ticket that I
| purchased using the Safari app?
|
| Sure they could, and usage of those products to purchase
| goods would nominally drop to 0%. People do not care
| about a lot of things, but they do care about losing
| money.
| odo1242 wrote:
| Apple would then force the with-IAP price to be the same
| as the without-IAP price so that they get a 30% cut of
| your rent regardless. You may be underestimating their
| willingness to tax all economic activity
| seemaze wrote:
| While this would obviously be harmful to the consumer, I
| don't see this as plausible.
|
| Amazon was able to achieve this by positioning themselves
| as the primary distributor of the goods in question.
| Apple is in no position to leverage a monopoly over fiat
| transer or housing supply.
|
| With regard to municipal transportation, perhaps they are
| edging closer with Apple Pay, NFC, Wallet, etc.. but I
| can't imagine municipalities supporting, or constituents
| accepting, a tax on their existing taxes.
|
| Of course, maybe Apple.gov is the long game. Hard to say
| whether that would be better or worse that the status
| quo..
| wolvoleo wrote:
| Yes it's fine but the 30% should be charged to the
| customer who wants to stay within that ecosystem of
| course. If they want that white glove treatment they can
| pay for it. Of course once the users see how much that
| fluffy ecosystem actually costs them I bet most of them
| will just pay patreon directly :)
|
| If the platform like patreon is supposed to absorb that
| fee they will increase prices for everyone even people
| who won't touch Apple like me. That's not fair. Or more
| likely, they will just give less to the content creators.
|
| In the EU it's already forbidden to force payments
| through Apple or to forbid the platforms to charge the
| fee back to the customer.
| pc86 wrote:
| I subscribe to a half dozen creators and I have
| exclusively used the web interface to subscribe and
| consume this content. You cannot tell me with a straight
| face that if the only difference was I subscribed on my
| phone to someone who charges me $10/mo, Apple is entitled
| to $36 for the first year and $18/yr in perpetuity
| thereafter.
| mrighele wrote:
| Should Ford get a 30% cut every time you fill your gas
| tank ?
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Don't worry, we are well into "car branded fuel only"
| territory with electric vehicles.
|
| "Buy our electricity at a huge markup to power your
| vehicle. Oh, you don't have one of our vehicles? Sorry,
| that's an extra 10% on top"
|
| This was dystopic scifi like 20 years ago and Americans
| are so clueless they just sleepwalked into it because
| they'd rather not have a government at all.
| silvestrov wrote:
| You could make the argument that Patreon isn't much more
| than a banking app.
|
| It just focuses on the receiver of the money than the
| sender.
|
| I think Apple is slowly killing apps with this policy.
| Everybody will slowly move to "web only" as 30% would kill
| their ability to compete with anybody else. This will
| likely be much stronger in countries where iPhones do not
| have the same market share as in the US.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Honestly I wouldn't be that shocked if Apple tried
| demanding a 30% royalty on bank deposits and bills paid
| using iPhone apps. They've decided the future of their
| company depends on being _huge_ assholes about it.
| mcintyre1994 wrote:
| I would be surprised by that because iPhone users would
| notice that. I think the App Store model relies on their
| fee being invisible to consumers, and the increased price
| you're paying not being linked to them. AFAIK apps aren't
| allowed to explain that they charge more if you subscribe
| on iPhone to users either, or why they do so.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| True, hard for bank deposits where the user sees both
| ends of the transaction.
|
| For bill payments though, they'd just insist on taking
| 30% of your electric bill payment and if the electric
| company's margins aren't high enough to absorb that then
| "Haha that sounds like a you problem" - Tim Cook,
| probably
| odo1242 wrote:
| Apps are allowed to link to web services to offer payment
| as an alternative to IAPs and offer a discount for doing
| so, thanks to Apple v Epic.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| Can they, or will they be delisted if they do that?
| bjt wrote:
| From the Patreon FAQ:
|
| > Can I opt out of the App Store Fee?
|
| > For U.S. fans, there's still a way to avoid Apple's
| fee. When signing up in the iOS app, they can choose web
| checkout instead of Apple's in-app purchase system.
| Apple's rules require that any paid content shown in the
| iOS app is also available to purchase through Apple's in-
| app system.
|
| https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-
| us/articles/28801582599181...
| dlubarov wrote:
| While you're correct, it's worth noting that this only
| happened because the judge in the Epic lawsuit ordered an
| injunction forcing Apple to allow it.
|
| Apple then "maliciously complied", allowing it while
| demanding a 27% fee on any web-based payments, which was
| found to be a violation of the injunction.
|
| https://technologylaw.fkks.com/post/102ka4o/apple-
| violated-u...
| jorvi wrote:
| Something interesting is that Apple and Google Pay charge
| a tiny commission (don't have the number at hand). Which
| banks didn't like, so at least on Android they created
| their own NFC payment stacks for a while. Only to then
| discover that maintaining such a stack cost them more per
| year than the commission.
| fauigerzigerk wrote:
| I think Google Pay does not charge a fee.
| vel0city wrote:
| Ah yes, back in the Isis days. What terrible luck in the
| naming department on that one.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Softcard
| burgreblast wrote:
| When you use Apple Pay, Apple collects ~0.15% (15 bps)
| from the issuing banks for credit. $1B in transaction
| volume = $1.5M
|
| In 2022 the total volume was estimated at $6T * .15% =
| $9B. Real number would be maybe half due to lower fees on
| debit, but it's hugely profitable for Apple, and carries
| zero risk.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| They'd much rather have 30%.
| mox1 wrote:
| I think this is a very strong and simple argument to use
| with regulators, politicians etc.
|
| When I put my credit card into Apples ecosystem they take
| a 0.15% cut of the transaction and appear to be very
| happy with the results. When I put my application into
| the ecosystem they take 30%..
|
| You can then break down why this is, but boy is that an
| interesting contrast.
| Spoom wrote:
| > Everybody will slowly move to "web only" as 30% would
| kill their ability to compete with anybody else.
|
| Frankly, yes, please. I mean, I'm biased as my whole
| career is in web app development, but there are _so many
| things_ these days that _do not need a whole native app_.
| They 're just communicating with a server backend
| somewhere, using none of the unique native functionality
| of the phone (much of which is available in browser APIs
| these days anyway). I can block ads in a web app much
| more easily. It's much harder to do customer-hostile
| things like block screenshots in a web app.
|
| Native apps definitely have a place, but I think they're
| very overused, mostly for reasons that benefit the
| business at the expense of the customer.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Apple makes sure it's not practical.
|
| You still can't have a "share to" target that is a web
| app on iOS. And the data your can store in local storage
| on safari is a joke.
|
| Of course, forget about background tasks and integrated
| notifications.
|
| In fact, even on Android you miss features with web apps,
| like widgets for quick actions, mapping actions to
| buttons and so on.
|
| And no matter how good you cache things, the mobile
| browser will unload the app, and you will always get this
| friction when you load the web app on the new render you
| don't have on regular apps.
| mircerlancerous wrote:
| Service workers solve the cache issue; web apps can run
| permanently offline after initial load. You may be a bit
| out of date on the state of the web.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| No, I use them but loading and unloading the app in the
| tab still happens when the browser flushes the app from
| memory because the OS killed it or the browser eviction
| policy hits.
|
| This loading is not nearly as seamless as a regular app
| starting back up.
|
| For a regular app, you have the app loading, and the os
| cache helping with it. If you do your job half correctly,
| it loads as a block almost instantly.
|
| For a web app you have the web browser loading, the the
| display of the white viewport in a flash, then the app
| loading in the browser (with zero os cache to help with
| so it's slower). It needs then to render. Then restoring
| the scroll (which is a mess with a browser) and the state
| as much as you can but you are limited with persistence
| size so most content must be reloaded which means the
| layout is moving around. Not to mention JS in a browser
| is not nearly as performant as a regular app, so as your
| app grows, it gets worse.
| xnyan wrote:
| > I think they're very overused
|
| I disagree, native apps on iOS have important abilities
| that no web application can match. The inability to
| control cache long-term is alone a dealbreaker if trying
| to create an experience with minimal friction.
| pphysch wrote:
| Those same elevated controls are used to steal PII and
| sell to data brokers. Again, it's the companies that are
| trying to force apps on their users. If it were genuinely
| a much better UX, they wouldn't have to do that.
| xnyan wrote:
| I don't think you are correct, but I could be wrong. For
| example, can you replicate the functionality of TikTok -
| autoplay unmuted videos as the user scroll down to new
| videos? It's the experience that the user expects.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| I'm sorry but why do you think this can't be done in a
| website?
| peaseagee wrote:
| I use FB via my web browser (Firefox on Android) and when
| I look at Shorts, it has this exact functionality. Web
| browsers on mobile can do this, clearly.
| dwaite wrote:
| Sure, once the user interacts with the first video.
|
| If third party native apps were installed and run without
| user interaction the same as cross-origin redirects, I
| would expect the same limitations with native apps.
| kcrwfrd_ wrote:
| Yes I literally worked on a PWA with this exact feature.
|
| I believe you can see it working on TikTok web as well.
|
| You just can't have the first video unmuted on initial
| load, although I wonder if this can be relaxed when user
| installs a PWA.
| rpdillon wrote:
| I've probably deleted 15 apps from my phone in the past
| year as I steadily move over to the web for everything.
|
| My chat agent, file transfer tool, Grubhub, Amazon,
| YouTube, news, weather are all deleted in favor of a set
| of armored browsers that suppress the trash and clean up
| the experience. Its been an amazing change, as those
| companies no longer get a free advertisement on the
| application grid of my phone, making my use of them much
| more intentional.
| mircerlancerous wrote:
| Service workers allow you to control cache in web apps;
| you may be a bit out of date.
|
| There are hardware APIs for some stuff that only works in
| native (cors, raw tcp), but 99% of apps don't need those.
| Almondsetat wrote:
| You couldn't make that argument because Patreon is also a
| platform to host content, not just send money. If it was
| something like a twitch donation app the argument would
| make more sense
| dboreham wrote:
| The hosting aspect is only necessary because a) piracy
| and b) Google would eat their lunch if they were the gate
| keeper to content. Bit like how Ticketmaster takes all
| the money from artists because they get to say who sits
| in a seat.
| Already__Taken wrote:
| You could if they built a donation & support trading app
| separate from the content app?
| josephcsible wrote:
| > Everybody will slowly move to "web only" as 30% would
| kill their ability to compete with anybody else.
|
| This is why Apple makes PWAs so miserable in Safari and
| disallows other browsers unless they're just Safari with
| lipstick.
| barnas2 wrote:
| > You could make the argument that Patreon isn't much
| more than a banking app.
|
| Don't give them any ideas.
| rkagerer wrote:
| Next up, Apple starts taking a cut of every money
| transfer you do with your banking app.
| H1Supreme wrote:
| Isn't that exactly what this is? Except they're targeting
| a single app.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| Apple users seem to be fine with everything being much
| more expensive. Not only the 30% apple tax itself,
| developers know Apple users pay more and specify higher
| prices on Apple.
| jama211 wrote:
| 30% is also the cut google takes on the google play
| store. This is not an apple only issue. This is a
| regulatory one.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| Google allows out-of-store installation (for now...) so
| it's much easier to argue there's competition. Apps
| installed through F-Droid don't have this tax.
| crabmusket wrote:
| Imagine seeing a popup banner in an app each time you
| open it that interrupts whatever you're trying to do to
| say "open on our website!"
|
| (Apple's censorship notwithstanding)
| MadameMinty wrote:
| Next up, 2% cut whenever you use any banking or payment
| app. Only 1.5% when you use Apple Pay!
| odo1242 wrote:
| They currently do charge 0.15% on Apple Pay actually.
| yibg wrote:
| No kidding. Imagine if Apple took 30% of your Venmo
| transfers.
| akerl_ wrote:
| Why are you ok with Patreon taking a cut but not Apple?
| seemaze wrote:
| Certainly not defending Apple's behavior in this instance,
| but isn't the success of the larger product ecosystem a
| direct driver of their App Store profitability? To strictly
| evaluate the App Store finances in isolation seems to be the
| sort of accusation you've levied against Apple in the
| opposite direction..
|
| I like Apple less and less these days for various reasons,
| but I haven't purchased an app on the App Store in more than
| a decade. It's strictly a vehicle for local utilities when,
| for whatever reason, a browser will not suffice. Nearly all
| purchasing is done on the 'open' web.
| parineum wrote:
| > ...for the sake of legal argument. R&D shouldn't really be
| included
|
| That's an incredibly ridiculous take. R&D is an operating
| cost and it's an ongoing expense related to the app store
| existing.
|
| > I think the actual profit margin is closer to ...
|
| You can replace "think" there with "feel".
| jbs789 wrote:
| Or you could argue the App Store wouldn't exist without the
| hardware, so the relevant reporting is both combined - lower
| margins.
| blahgeek wrote:
| > Apple could take just 7% cut and still make 20% profits.
|
| We can say this to any company, "$X could reduce price by $Y
| and still make $Z profits", but it doesn't really make any
| sense. Making profits is what makes a company a company instead
| of a non-profit organization.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| it sounds like it does make sense because if they are making
| $Z profits then they are still making profits and are not
| non-profit.
|
| there could also be cases where cutting back to $Z profits
| might be preferable in case not doing so were to prompt
| legislation causing someone to be forcibly cut to $Z-1 or
| even $0 profits from a particular profit source.
|
| Which it has been my observation that when someone is saying
| "X could reduce price by $Y and still make $Z profits" it
| often coincides with saying therefore company X should be
| legislated on this particular profit source.
|
| Note: $X didn't make much rhetorical sense.
| rubyfan wrote:
| _> there could also be cases where cutting back to $Z
| profits might be preferable in case not doing so were to
| prompt legislation causing someone to be forcibly cut to
| $Z-1 or even $0 profits from a particular profit source._
|
| Not in an environment where regulatory capture costs so
| much less than any change legislation could bring. The
| remedy in almost every recent monopoly case has been
| remarkably nothing. Politicians don't actually want change,
| they want the threat of legislation so that industries
| bring truckloads of money to line their pockets.
| croes wrote:
| It makes sense that regulators can step in without destroying
| a company.
| vasco wrote:
| When parts of a market become dominated by one or few
| companies operating in a limited choice environment,
| consumers can't just opt to not use both Apple and Play
| store. You need to choose one in practice.
|
| At this point the regulators should investigate what the
| barriers are to new entrants and if it's too costly and
| nobody has managed to cut in the last few years, establishing
| some rules is probably a good thing. This happens as
| industries mature and become critical, it happened in
| transportation (most bus, train companies), energy, water
| supply, trash, etc, depending on the country and market
| conditions.
| ThunderSizzle wrote:
| Barrier to entry is simple: both Google and Apple heavily
| discourage "sideloading" or make it practically impossible.
|
| Google is moving in that direction.
| ImHereToVote wrote:
| I think it's a little known fact that societies don't exist
| for the benefit of companies. It's actually the other way
| around.
| awesan wrote:
| It does make sense to highlight, because this kind of
| statistic is a very strong indicator that the market is not
| competitive. This is not a normal kind of profit margin and
| basically everyone except for Apple would benefit from them
| lowering the margins.
|
| In normal markets there are competitors who force each other
| to keep reasonable profit margins and to improve their
| product as opposed to milking other people's hard work at the
| expense of the consumer.
| newsclues wrote:
| Might not be competitive but it's totally voluntary. No one
| needs app, it's not food or shelter, so clearly consumers
| are willing and able to pay this.
|
| The consumer is willing to pay the price based on the
| perceived value from the App Store
| account42 wrote:
| What is also totally voluntary is our decision to let
| Apple exist as an entitiy, to give them a government
| enforced monopoly over certain things, to make it illegal
| to break their technical protections of their monopoly
| etc.
| lozenge wrote:
| The relevant market here is the creators not the
| consumers. As a creator you have no choice but to accept
| whatever fees Apple, Google, Steam etc set. Or whatever
| rates Spotify pays you per stream. The fact you "could"
| host your own website is irrelevant when the reality is
| nobody will visit it.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > The relevant market here is the creators not the
| consumers. As a creator you have no choice but to accept
| whatever fees Apple, Google, Steam etc set. Or whatever
| rates Spotify pays you per stream. The fact you "could"
| host your own website is irrelevant when the reality is
| nobody will visit it.
|
| Collective action by the creators would help.
|
| All they have to do is dual-host (a fairly trivial
| matter, compared to organised collective action). What
| would make things even better is if they dual host on a
| competing platform and specify in their content that the
| competing platform charges lower fees. If even 10% of the
| creators did this:
|
| 1. Many of the consumers _would_ switch. 2. Many of the
| creators not on the competing platform would also offer
| dual-hosting.
|
| The problem is not "As a creator you have no choice but
| to accept whatever fees Apple, Google, Steam etc set".
| The problem is the mindset that their content is not
| their own.
|
| I say it's their mindset, because they certainly _don 't_
| act as if they own the content - when your content is
| available only via a single channel, you don't own your
| content, you are simply a supplier for that channel.
| happymellon wrote:
| > specify in their content that the competing platform
| charges lower fees.
|
| Apple will ban you for this.
| lelanthran wrote:
| > Apple will ban you for this.
|
| How? I thought it was a Patreon thing - the "competing
| platform" would be competing with the Patreon app.
|
| I'm not familiar with Patreon, but I thought the way it
| worked was that you could tip content creators via the
| Patreon app. I'm pretty certain that Apple cannot tell
| Patreon (a third party) that they are only allowed to
| offer exclusive content.
| iamnothere wrote:
| Apple doesn't allow you to mention that you have
| alternate payment channels on other platforms. Can't even
| allude to it.
|
| To me this is the thing that should be outlawed. Let
| people pay the Apple tax if they want, but don't prevent
| people from making other arrangements. Most people are
| lazy and will pay the tax, if it isn't excessive.
| matkoniecz wrote:
| > No one needs app, it's not food or shelter
|
| "No one needs app" is not the same as "No one has
| biological mandatory need to have an app"
| account42 wrote:
| High profit margins are a sign of market failure.
| HPsquared wrote:
| "Competition is for losers"
| 9rx wrote:
| Not so much a failure. Rather, there is no intent for there
| to be a market here at all. A market relies on offerings
| being reproducible. Intellectual property laws are designed
| specifically to prevent reproduction.
| lz400 wrote:
| Makes me think of the concept of involution in Chinese
| business and how they understand all of this very
| differently, and how difficult it is to compete because of
| that.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| For anyone else wondering
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neijuan
| gortok wrote:
| "Growth is what makes a cell a cell."
|
| Until it turns into cancer because of unrestrained growth.
|
| Like it or not capitalism is a part of an ecosystem. We've
| been "educated" to believe that unrestrained growth in
| profits is what makes capitalism work, and yet day after day
| there are fresh examples of how our experience as consumers
| has gotten worse under capitalism because of the idea that
| profits should forever be growing.
| FatherOfCurses wrote:
| "Why wait until tomorrow to get one golden egg when I can
| kill the goose today and get all the golden eggs?"
| ibejoeb wrote:
| Agreed, but this is about to be a special case if it's not
| already. We're contending with compulsory digital IDs and
| cashless economies that must be used on authorized devices,
| and Apple is one of the two makers. While it's certainly not
| necessary to use Patreon, not having it or something like it
| is an actual barrier to individual trade. I don't think I can
| get behind a schema that means Apple can take whatever
| portion it wants from a transaction initiated on a device
| that it creates and that is otherwise fairly necessary for
| day-to-day life in the developed world.
| chrisan wrote:
| > even Apple's own executives were sometimes surprised by the
| internal financial reports.
|
| Was this recorded or just people drawing lines between Epic's
| expert witness claims and the executives trying to down play
| them?
| uyzstvqs wrote:
| The problem is the monopoly over distribution channels.
| Regulation needs to force devices to allow A) downloading and
| using packages & executables from the internet, and B) any app
| to download and install other apps.
|
| Regulating the fees for one central app store is no solution.
| stouset wrote:
| > downloading and using packages & executables from the
| internet
|
| Oh boy, now my mom can get the full experience of having
| malware on her phone too!
| samrus wrote:
| I hate the classic apple users' "mom" argument. Why are all
| your moms morons? And why do you want to fuck up the entire
| mobile landscape to baby proof it for them. Im not gonna
| ruin my experience with technology because you dont expect
| your mom to be able to wipe her ass without apple's help
| linkregister wrote:
| There is nothing stopping you from using non-Apple
| hardware to escape restrictions on downloading unreviewed
| software.
| array_key_first wrote:
| There are many things impeding you from doing so and you
| know it, because Apple designed it that way. Walled
| garden, remember?
| stouset wrote:
| I hate the classic "everyone should be an expert at IT
| and it's their fault and they had it coming due to their
| own ignorance if they make mistakes" argument far more
| than you hate mine.
| rpdillon wrote:
| Let's not put everybody in a cage because we can't stop
| dumb people from walking off cliffs.
| ulrikrasmussen wrote:
| With freedom also comes responsibility, and some innocent
| people will inevitably shoot themselves in the foot. This
| is not a strong enough argument for putting everybody else
| in a cage and letting a duopoly take over virtually all of
| the distribution of consumer software.
| ericmay wrote:
| It might be a strong argument depending on the negative
| effects - I don't think it's very clear cut. Also no,
| neither Apple nor Google have a duopoly on the
| distribution of all consumer software. Microsoft exists,
| for example.
|
| The other problem consideration here is negotiating
| power.
|
| Today consumers don't have negotiating power over
| individual developers, but both Apple and Google do. If
| you complain to Meta about their unwanted tracking, you
| don't really have many options besides deleting the app
| (which you should do anyway). But if enough people
| complain to Apple or Google, they are more inclined to do
| something and have the power.
|
| While it may be a marriage of convenience, it's
| undeniable that both companies through their app
| distribution models have also provided benefits to
| consumers that developers otherwise would have abused -
| privacy, screen recording, malicious advertising, &c.
|
| If you want to argue from the standpoint of pro-consumer
| action, you have to remember that "developers" are
| usually pretty awful too and will get away with anything
| they can, even if it harms their customers. A good
| balance, instead of ideological purity about one "side"
| or the other is the smarter move. I tend to come down on
| the side of the mainstream app stores precisely because
| those asking for more "freedom" to do as they wish are a
| tiny minority and are usually more technical. I.e. they
| can jump through the hoops to install 3rd party app
| stores and jailbreak their phones today, and since you
| already can do what you want, maybe it's best to just
| leave the masses alone since they're very obviously happy
| with the duopoly.
| array_key_first wrote:
| Apple and Google each respectively have a monopoly in
| their markets. Only apple approved apps may be installed
| on an iPhone.
|
| Digital goods DO NOT work like physical goods. I can just
| buy another washing machine. I CANNOT just choose to opt
| out of using a smartphone. My choices are apple or
| Google, and even within those choices it's limited by
| network effects.
| ulrikrasmussen wrote:
| I run GrapheneOS, but I can't use the national digital
| identity app because it requires Google Play Integrity. I
| very much cannot do what I want without it having severe
| consequences because the duopoly is starting to shape the
| basic digital infrastructure, and critical services start
| requiring that I use one of the two ecosystems.
|
| I think the principle of digital autonomy should be front
| and center. Surely we can figure out security models that
| don't imply that two American tech companies get to call
| the shots on what people can or cannot do on hardware
| that they supposedly own.
| dwaite wrote:
| Working adjacent to such digital identity app
| development, they are unfortunately regulated to require
| such device integrity approaches.
|
| If Google Play Integrity didn't exist, the app would only
| be certified to run on e.g. unrooted Samsung Knox
| devices.
| hombre_fatal wrote:
| Well, you have to balance it with how much you want to
| line the coffers of malicious actors.
|
| If you go all the way to "everyone should have the
| freedom to get pwned", then you are also funneling the
| money of innocents into the pockets of some of the worst
| people in the world, and that's not a great outcome just
| to make life more convient for some HNers.
|
| The question is about what trade-off makes sense for most
| people. That probably is some sort of escape hatch
| nontech people just won't do.
|
| Maybe it's a hard thing to appreciate until you've
| watched aging family members get tricked by absolute
| scum, mostly enabled by how loosey-goosey modern
| computing can still be.
| kakacik wrote:
| The thing is, apple decides this for themselves, on a
| product that you fully bought and privately own. It
| bundles the most brilliant and most incompetent clueless
| people into 1 group and goes for lowest denominator. No
| freedom of choice.
|
| Of course thats PR argument, in reality its about
| distorting and manipulating the market to get the most
| money out of its users and bind them to their ecosystem
| as hard as possible to extract even more. And the amount
| of those same people who uncritically defend them here is
| still staggering. But maybe its just employees ignoring
| their ndas, some investors and similar folks.
| SwtCyber wrote:
| What really makes it uncomfortable is that Apple isn't just a
| neutral marketplace. They control the OS, the distribution
| channel, and the payment rails, so creators and platforms like
| Patreon can't realistically opt out
| randallsquared wrote:
| While inconvenient and likely to reduce patrons, the article
| does describe how they can opt out: use the web to do any
| payment activity.
| chii wrote:
| They could opt out - by sticking to web platforms.
|
| Apple cannot charge for that. However, apple does attempt to
| gimp the web platforms on mobile to "subtly" push for apps.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Why could Apple not charge a percentage for any user using
| their mobile device? Why would it be limited to app store?
| direwolf20 wrote:
| Because they don't control those. Apple could choose to
| only allow users to access websites that pay them a bit
| 30% fee, but users would notice the web was turned off on
| their device. They don't notice when the app store does
| it.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| I don't think people would notice if Apple just made the
| website behind a paywall. Most people are not going to be
| aware that they can access the same content without
| paying a fee to Apple. They may only even have an Apple
| device to access the internet, so they'd just see it as
| normal
| fauigerzigerk wrote:
| I doubt it. People are pretty savvy when it's about
| getting something more cheaply or for free.
| archerx wrote:
| They do and it's awful. I'm making a browser based game and
| it works great on desktop browsers but Apple refuses to
| allow css filters on canvas forcing you to build your own
| filters and apply them to image data. The web audio api is
| also a pain to get working properly on iOS safari and a
| bunch of other arbitrary but feels like they're intentional
| obstacles found only on iOS. I'm almost considering just
| using webgl instead of a 2d context but who knows what
| obstacles apple is hiding there also it will make
| everything so much more verbose for no real gain.
|
| Not even in the days of IE was I ever this frustrated.
| danielvaughn wrote:
| I tried something similar a couple years back, and fully
| agree. Safari is atrocious for trying to create a good
| mobile experience. It almost feels intentional.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| > Not even in the days of IE was I ever this frustrated.
|
| I've been web devving since the days of IE as well and
| this reeks of hyperbole. Maybe things are different for
| browser games, but for me, _everything_ has vastly
| improved since those days.
| archerx wrote:
| Well maybe we are doing different things. Back in those
| days Javascript and CSS were much simpler people would
| cry about the position of elements and easy stuff like
| that. However I have to manually manage web audio api
| memory because if you don't release the buffers and other
| things the memory won't get released until the tab in
| closed, so it's easy for a tab to inexpertly take up
| 6gigs plus of ram (1min of audio is ~80mb), it's
| impossible to know that, that is happening unless you
| know, so you have this missive memory leak that even
| refreshing the tab won't fix and you have no idea why it
| happening, that is true frustration. You have to manage
| memory in canvas too especially if you are using bitmaps
| and if you are on iOS because it will crash the page
| because you looked at it wrong. I don't know anything
| that would have crashed the page in IE back in the day.
| So no, it is not hyperbole :)
| nozzlegear wrote:
| Sorry, I shouldn't comment before I have my coffee.
| Saying it "reeks of hyperbole" was unnecessarily rude.
|
| That does sound frustrating. You're working with APIs
| that I don't usually touch (audio, canvas) so it's not
| surprising that I haven't experienced that. I was
| thinking back to the days I had to support IE 8, trying
| to debug weird issues in production like scripts not
| working because `console.log` wasn't defined unless the
| developer tools were opened.
| NorwegianDude wrote:
| To be fair, he's completely right. I have a lot of
| experience with IE6 and safari on iOS, and while IE6 was
| bad and did weird shit, Safari is much worse. It's
| amazing that things can work in any browser, without ever
| even thinking about it, but then on Safari you get weird
| behaviour, straight up rendering bugs because of some
| weird race conditions with the engine or even crashes.
|
| The latest issue that I've noticed yesterday is the
| button nav bar on the screen when running PWAs. The
| button is over the bottom navbar of the PWA, and despite
| apple themselves coming up with the API to inform the
| browser about safe display areas, it doesn't work in PWAs
| on iOS. PWA mode on iOS != non PWA on iOS. They often
| behave completely different and you often have to use JS
| for basic things to work, like clicking a link(yup, this
| was a thing for years).
| pornel wrote:
| The whole Epic vs Apple was about Apple blocking this.
| Before being slapped by regulators, Apple had anti-steering
| policies forbidding iOS apps from even mentioning that
| purchasing elsewhere is possible.
|
| Even after EU DSA told them to allow purchases via Web,
| Apple literally demanded a 27% cut from purchases happening
| outside of App Store (and then a bunch of other arrogantly
| greedy fee structures that keeps them in courts).
|
| Apple knows how hard is _not_ to be in the duopoly of app
| stores. They keep web apps half-assed, won 't direct users
| to them, but allow knock-off apps to use your trademarks in
| their search keywords.
| StopDisinfo910 wrote:
| That's pretty much the conclusion the EU came to and why they
| introduced the notion of gatekeepers in the DMA.
|
| It doesn't matter if you are not technically in a dominant
| position if your special role in a large ecosystem basically
| allows you to act like one in your own purview.
|
| You could say this kind of move invites more scrutiny but the
| regulators are already there watching every Apple's move with
| a microscope and their patience with Apple attempts at
| thwarting compliance is apparently wearing thin at least in
| the EU if you look at preliminary findings.
| patanegra wrote:
| Yeah, because they built it. If people were using Linux
| everywhere, the situation would be different.
| gumby271 wrote:
| Don't forget they also directly compete with Patreon with
| podcast subscriptions. You can support a podcast through
| Apple podcasts or Patreon, but only one of those has a 30%
| chunk taken out.
| dwaite wrote:
| IIRC Premium Apple podcasts charge their standard
| subscription fees (eg 30% the first year, 15% the years
| after that)
| u8080 wrote:
| But those profits made possible by actually having other
| infrastructure parts existing(OS, hardware, marketing, etc).
| eloisant wrote:
| The $160 billion of cash Apple is sitting on doesn't
| contribute to any infrastructure.
| absynth wrote:
| This is all money that is reducing expenditure elsewhere. I get
| it: capitalism and economics. Yet I still think humanity could
| do better and I think capitalism itself suffers. Economics
| theory is broken if it thinks this is good for society in
| general.
| patanegra wrote:
| One company's margin, is other company's opportunity.
| ulrikrasmussen wrote:
| The problem is that Apple owns the platform and half of the
| mobile ecosystem. You can't just launch a competitive
| marketplace which could compete alongside Apple's app store,
| nor can you launch an alternative operating system. You have
| to launch a whole new smartphone stack complete with
| operating system, app distribution and app ecosystem.
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| Or not use apple.
| observationist wrote:
| This. Doing business with almost any major company is
| unethical, but Apple sits near the top of the big tech
| companies people shouldn't do business with. They are not
| a force for good in the world.
| eviks wrote:
| Indeed, that's why the former blocks the latter: not to lose
| margins to those opportunities
| jszymborski wrote:
| > The debate over 'good vs. bad companies' is just online noise
| and rhetorical trik...
|
| Agreed, there are bad privately held corps, and worse privately
| held corps, with badness usually proportional to their size and
| profit.
| danielvaughn wrote:
| I really think I might be done with Apple. The only thing
| keeping me using them is how much I hate Android. The
| _millisecond_ a competitor arrives, I'm dropping my iPhone like
| a bad habit.
| vlod wrote:
| Off topic, but is there anything specific that you hate about
| Android? I find it acceptable. I'm trying to cut down my
| phone usage so maybe I'm more tolerant.
| goatking wrote:
| Not OP, but: "acceptable", that's the problem. Also I
| dislike Google more than Apple.
| Zak wrote:
| I'm wondering what adjectives you hope to apply to a
| phone operating system. I'm content with mine when I
| don't have to think about it, for which "acceptable"
| seems about right, and discontent when I do.
| RDaneel0livaw wrote:
| I keep hoping and wishing for a daily drivable linux phone
| that's compatible with all the us networks to come along.
| I'll keep hoping and wishing. Someday I hope we will get
| there!
| drnick1 wrote:
| GrapheneOS on a Pixel is that competitor. Open source, more
| secure than Apple, compatible with nearly all Android apps.
| It's all the positive aspects of Android without the
| downsides (Google).
| eloisant wrote:
| > compatible with nearly all Android apps
|
| The "nearly" is the issue. Opting out of the Apple/Google
| duopoly comes at a great cost.
| saintfire wrote:
| I've used it for 3 years and the only app I couldn't use
| has been Google pay/wallet.
|
| Truly is nearly. Some apps (banks) you need to toggle a
| compat mode.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| I don't think Apple could actually, unless they could prove to
| shareholders that it would create more value
| Herring wrote:
| _> shareholders_
|
| Yeah that has to be a good 95% of why businesses do bad
| things.
|
| The last thing Apple wants is for people to think they've
| plateaued. Stock starts going down to normal P/E ratios,
| expensive engineers leave, etc.
| dimitrios1 wrote:
| > force regulators to step in
|
| > force
|
| > regulators
|
| That's my whole problem, personally.
|
| What we need much, much less of in this world is government
| force, especially during these trying times of government force
| and outreach (something I expected my more left side of the
| isle colleagues to have finally realized by now).
|
| COIVD really was a test of how much governmental draconianism
| we would take, and we failed spectacularly, and not only that,
| but are demanding more government.
|
| So no, we don't need more regulation, especially given this
| country's history of regulatory capture. We need new solutions.
| Atreiden wrote:
| We don't need "more" government, we need the government to do
| its job. We need the regulators who have been legally
| appointed to oversee these areas to actually respond to these
| behaviors. Regulatory capture is the issue, but the solution
| isn't less government. It's getting corporate money and
| lobbying out of the government (Citizens United is to blame
| for most of our woes), increase the enforcement of anti-
| corruption laws, and get antitrust back on the table.
|
| I want big corporations to be scared. I want them to fear for
| their own survival, and to tread lightly lest the sword of
| damocles fall upon them.
| thegrimmest wrote:
| Advocating for regulators to step in is already a value
| judgement. Why is "high profitability" a cause for regulatory
| scrutiny? The optimal behaviour in any ecosystem (corporate or
| natural) is to defend as much territory as is within your
| power, not to keep only to what covers your "needs". Why have
| you deemed this behaviour, which is emergent anywhere
| competition between organisms exists, as in need of regulation?
|
| Apple is succeeding largely on merit, within the bounds of
| civilized, peaceful competition. Shouldn't we all just be
| grateful for the contributions they have made to our
| civilization?
| pier25 wrote:
| Plus more than $20B for the Apple developer fee without which
| you cannot publish the their stores.
| ghtbircshotbe wrote:
| They could lower the rates even more and still afford the
| government bribes and solid gold tchotchkes, but the whole
| point of the bribes is to not do that.
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| That's not how business works. The App Store in current form
| would not exist without all the collective investment that went
| into all of Apple's hardware, for instance.
|
| Microsoft Office: Revenue $45B Operating Costs $12B Profit $33B
| Operating Margin 75%
|
| Google Search Ads: Revenue $175B Operating Costs $45B Profit
| $130B Operating Margin 75%
| devmor wrote:
| > That's not how business works. The App Store in current
| form would not exist without all the collective investment
| that went into all of Apple's hardware, for instance.
|
| While technically true, this argument doesn't provide any
| merit to the discussion. The App Store backed purchase for
| the Patreon subscription would not exist _at all_ without the
| creator 's work and investment in creating their form of
| content.
|
| In the absence of the App Store, the creator would still have
| access to their patrons via mobile web and payment via the
| methods already provided by Patreon. The app is merely a
| convenience - it's a hard sell that this convenience is worth
| 30% of the creator's revenue through the platform.
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| > The App Store backed purchase for the Patreon
| subscription would not exist at all without the creator's
| work and investment in creating their form of content.
|
| Both parties are getting the chance to set whatever price
| they want. Up to the market to resolve supply/demand
| equilibrium
| devmor wrote:
| Creators on Patreon are already loosely bound to the
| market of other creators. Not all creators are affected
| by this change.
|
| The app store payment cut harms only creators who have
| disproportionately high percentages of patrons that
| primarily consume their content from iPhones - a
| demographic that they have no control over.
|
| If they wish to increase their price to make up for this,
| they then are forced to risk turning away their other,
| non-iPhone-primary patrons. Notably, Patreon is forbidden
| by Apple from making this pricing scheme transparent and
| up-charging only iPhone users to keep the creator whole.
|
| The only party with power here is Apple - and they are
| using it to strongarm.
| sfblah wrote:
| Being a monopolist is good fun until they storm the Bastille.
| dmix wrote:
| Those margins are pretty normal in software, especially a
| mature product like that.
| matt-p wrote:
| Let's be honest if this was a European company it would be
| capped by law at 5-10%. Problem is who has an incentive to do
| the right thing here? Not apple and certainly not the US
| government (most of this revenue comes from outside the
| US).Nobody can defend it, yet nobody wishes to stop it.
| eloisant wrote:
| The US government should absolutely do that, but they won't
| because they defends the interests of big companies rather
| than the interests of small companies or US citizens.
| funkyfiddler369 wrote:
| > no one on either side of the political spectrum wants these
| systems to be fixed voluntarily with corporate altruism
|
| Right on. But that's exactly the wiggle room where voters could
| pull some of those cards like "climate change mitigation (of
| consequences)", "climate change preparation", "upcoming waves
| of climate change refugees", "AI dividing the population",
| "Universal Basic Income", all of which are things companies
| like Apple won't do anything for (or against) while their goods
| are still mostly for proper earners and not for people who buy
| stuff at a discount (I'm exaggerating).
|
| Since corporate altruism is definitely not on the menu,
| government institutions and NGOs will have to pick up way more
| than they are currently prepared for.
|
| We are in a strange phase of calm before the storm, despite all
| those wars and conflicts--or in spite of them, I don't know.
| Shits' gonna hit the fan sooner or later and it's up to the
| voters to demand adequate preparation.
|
| Big Corps caused significantly more damage than they had to
| cause for all those profits, whether as a side effect or not,
| and they did that long enough.
|
| Job cuts, whether due to AI or not, will remain a thing while
| no "new" giants will rise for quite a while ... and
| corporations will sing the song "it's what the people want"
| only as long as voters will stay quiet.
|
| Sure, bribes, corruption and blablabla, but it doesn't change
| how votes work and none of it changes how the devoted clerks in
| the administration do their jobs and write laws (if they have
| to have to) ...
| ripped_britches wrote:
| I'm surprised they were surprised because operating costs
| should be pretty much nil. What do they do, pay a few thousand
| app reviewers, a few hundred software engineers? Pretty sure if
| they had to, they could operate App Store for a few tens of
| millions of dollars per year.
| jama211 wrote:
| Well said. Glad to see this at the top. Google also takes 30%.
| And I think steam too. This is 100% a regulatory issue.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| But competitors to Steam exist: Epic Games Store only takes a
| 12% cut. Publishers have an option to use other distributors
| but choose not to.
| eloisant wrote:
| > Publishers have an option to use other distributors but
| choose not to
|
| They can choose to sell in the store where all users are,
| or in the store nobody goes.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Correct, but that means that publishers are choosing to
| distribute via Steam, despite the existence of other
| options, because Steam's superior features, user base,
| etc. justify paying that premium. They _could_ distribute
| on Epic games, or even self-distribute like how Blizzard
| does, but they choose Steam.
|
| It's not analogous to iOS that has no other options for
| distribution.
| godelski wrote:
| I think what confuses me is that Apple is taking so much profit
| that it reduces their profits.
|
| It's a classic direct-indirect management problem. Think about
| Android for a second. It costs nothing to put an app on their
| app store. People can make apps for themselves and then just
| publish because either "why not" or it's an easy way to
| distribute to friends and family. So basically it is making app
| creation easy. Meanwhile Apple charges you $100/yr to even put
| something up on the store, makes it hard to sideload, and
| consequently people charge for apps, which Apple rejoices as
| they get a 30% cut (already double dipping: profiting from
| devs, profiting from the devs' customers).
|
| BUT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT SMARTPHONES
|
| A smartphone is useless without apps! People frustrated they
| can't find the apps they want on iPhone? They switch to
| Android. People on Android want to get away from Google but
| they can't do half the shit they want to on iPhones (and the
| other half costs $0.99/mo)? They bite their tongue or rage quit
| to Graphene.
|
| The only reason this "fuck over the user" strategy works is
| because there's an effective monopoly.
|
| All of this is incredibly idiotic as the point of a smartphone
| is that it is a computer that also makes phone calls. We have
| made a grave mistake in thinking they are anything but general
| purpose computers. All our conversations around them seem
| really silly or down right idiotic when you _recognize_ they
| are general purpose computers. And surprise surprise, the
| result is that seeing how profitable and abusive the smartphone
| market can be leads to a pretty obvious result: turn your
| laptops and desktops into smartphone like devices. Where
| everything must be done through the app stores, where they lock
| you out of basic functionalities, where they turn the general
| purpose computer into a locked down for-their-purposes
| computer.
|
| The thing that made the smartphone and the computer so great
| was the ability to write programs. The ability to do with it as
| you want. It's because you can't build a product for everyone.
| But the computer? It's an environment. You can make an
| environment that anyone can turn into the thing they want and
| they need. THAT is the magic of computers. So why are we trying
| to kill that magic?
|
| It doesn't matter that 90% of people don't use it that way, and
| all those arguments are idiotic. Like with everything else, it
| is a small minority of people that move things forward. A small
| percentage of players account for the majority of
| microtransactions in videogames. A small percentage of fans buy
| the majority of merchandise from their favorite musicians. And
| in just the same way, it is a small number of computer users
| (i.e. "powerusers") that drive most of the innovation, find
| most of the bugs, and do most of the things. I mean come on,
| how long did it take Apple and Google to put a fucking
| flashlight into the OS? It was the most popular apps on both
| their stores for a long time before it got built in. Do you
| really think they're going to be able to do all the things?
| zombot wrote:
| Apple obviously needs this to save themselves from bankruptcy.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| Isn't Patreon effectively a sort of payment processor? So how is
| this different from Apple demanding a 30% cut of transactions
| conducted by (for example) Paypal? (Assuming Paypal has an iOS
| app ofc, I have no idea.)
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| Well, it's called greed
| viktorcode wrote:
| They also host and serve videos. Not sure about other media
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| Good point. That makes them a combined platform and payment
| processor. So it seems to me the logical question would be,
| shouldn't they just break the platform part out then? But
| isn't that exactly what their percentage fee amounts to? So
| Apple should be entitled to 30% of their (IIRC) 5%, right?
|
| Really they ought to further split that out into "processing
| fee" and "platform services fee" and Apple would then be
| entitled to 30% of the latter.
| Fokamul wrote:
| So weird, why do you need Patreon dedicated app in appstore?
|
| There is really so many people visiting Patreon, only because
| it's in Crapple appstore?
|
| Or is this because they want to support as many payment methods
| as possible. And Apple Pay support requirements is to have an
| app?
|
| Would be great, if they simple take a hit and gutted the app and
| redirect all people into website.
|
| If they have good PR team, with proper messaging, they could make
| even more money, since people on Patreon usually don't like
| corpos.
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| Incoming "please pay on webpage, else you have to pay 30% more"
| banner in the app
| g947o wrote:
| Version update rejected by Apple
| andrewl-hn wrote:
| This is actually against their App Store rules, and likewise
| the article has the following bit:
|
| > Patreon gives creators the option to either increase their
| prices in the iOS app only, [...]
|
| it would totally not fly with Apple. They don't let this 30%
| commission to be visible by users, just like every other
| company that does such commissions. You don't see that the
| creator only gets about half of your donation on YouTube or
| Twitch, you never see that Visa takes 1% of your payment in a
| store, etc. Even governments do that. I don't see the value of
| VAT in the price of goods in stores. The US sales tax is an
| exception.
|
| A lot of people would complain about how high those fees (or
| taxes) are if they saw them spelled out for them.
| JamesTRexx wrote:
| Well, I certainly won't sell my fiction to Apple for them to turn
| it into a series in the future.
|
| Unless they pay me 30% of all hardware and software revenue
| because popularity is a vehicle to sell more under the Apple
| brand.
| cong-or wrote:
| 2035: Apple takes 30% of my Patreon, Google matched it through
| their "Competitive Parity Agreement," and the EU fined them both
| EUR2 billion which they paid in 45 minutes of revenue then raised
| fees to 32% to cover legal costs.
|
| The real innovation was convincing us this was inevitable.
| Rygian wrote:
| You naively assumed that they would actualy disbourse 2 GEUR in
| payments for those fines.
|
| Reality disagrees:
| https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2024/12/13/data-regulato...
| nromiun wrote:
| Apple's ecosystem is the 8th wonder of this world. Nowhere else
| you can put a logo on a piece of cloth or aluminum wheel and sell
| them for hundreds of dollars. Greatest capitalist company of all
| time.
| SwtCyber wrote:
| What bugs me about this isn't even the 30% in isolation, it's the
| category creep
| elAhmo wrote:
| Can't they just remove this option from app and redirect to the
| web? Wasn't this the same story with Spotify?
| mattmaroon wrote:
| Yes, which suggests internal metrics show this to still be the
| better path.
| ElDji wrote:
| For those who, like me, are looking to break free from Apple but
| were tied to it through photo storage in iCloud, here's a first
| step towards independence: Immich! I self-host an instance for my
| whole family, and it works like a charm.
| PlatoIsADisease wrote:
| I've been saying its a 'walled prison'.
| m000 wrote:
| Technofeudalism at its finest.
| jacquesm wrote:
| The wealthiest company in the world really needs that last little
| bit from those Patreon creators who have it way too easy in their
| lives. It's not as if the people that take that meager bit of
| cash are going to invest it in Apple stock so they're going to
| have to pay up.
|
| The Mafia can learn a thing or two from Cook.
| haritha-j wrote:
| I guess that's how you become the wealthiest company in the
| world.
| dzonga wrote:
| no wonder Tim Cook hangs around Trump a lot.
|
| Both employ mafia tactics
| siavosh wrote:
| This is the machine. The behavior is much larger than any CEO
| or even trillion dollar company.
| jacquesm wrote:
| The CEO could _easily_ stop this.
| siavosh wrote:
| And the board would replace them. It's their fiduciary
| duty.
| dopamean wrote:
| The board could argue that it's damaging to the company's
| brand and long term bottom dollar to charge such usurious
| fees and fire the CEO for taking such a harsh stance with
| app developers.
| siavosh wrote:
| They could do a lot of things.
| robotnikman wrote:
| This. The board and the shareholders are the ones with
| the real power.
| jacquesm wrote:
| This nonsense has been parroted so often by now there
| should be a name for it.
|
| And I'll be happy to prove you wrong: there are many
| things that Apple could do but hasn't done yet that would
| make them money and yet nobody is suing them for that.
| For instance they could make the cut 35% or 50% and if
| they don't then shareholders would sue. But they won't.
| worksonmine wrote:
| Does this apply to creators that aren't even in the Apple
| ecosystem or is it only for the patreons paying through the iOS
| app? What if everyone moved to the website?
| woadwarrior01 wrote:
| Apple has an Apple Pay for Donations[1] program, which doesn't
| apply for rent seeking entities like Patreon. I wonder if
| Patreon's 10% fee is commensurate with the negligible value that
| they provide?
|
| [1]: https://developer.apple.com/apple-pay/nonprofits/
| billynomates wrote:
| Yes but you cannot restrict content or features based on
| whether or not someone is a donor, which is basically what
| Patreon is for.
|
| Source I run a non-profit and we have an app that takes
| donations via Apple Pay
| dbbk wrote:
| Did you even bother to look up what Patreon is providing for
| that fee?
| jakub_g wrote:
| Just to put things into perspective: Visa and MasterCard
| interchange fee in EU is 0.2% for debit cards and 0.3% for credit
| cards. Apple taking 100x this is just ridiculous.
| Beestie wrote:
| Apple is doing to creators what the recording industry did to
| musicians. Enjoy what's left of the Golden Age of Patreon content
| because greed is going to suffocate it out of existence.
| aembleton wrote:
| Or setup payments through the website
| davidmurdoch wrote:
| Is it still true that Apple bans you from telling users, in
| app, they can pay through alternative platforms?
| spogbiper wrote:
| I think it depends on the laws controlling Apple where you
| live
| conartist6 wrote:
| Take from the poorest to give to the richest of the rich -- that
| is the new way of doing business.
|
| I feel like I've just watched a man in a $4000 suit wresting the
| change jar out of the hands of a homeless person
| jacquesm wrote:
| Took his mobile phone and shoes too!
| baby wrote:
| every system that gets too greedy eventually gets squashed (e.g.
| regulations) or kills its host (e.g. cancer).
|
| I've noticed watching blood money on Netflix that greedy systems
| tend to get greedier and greedier, and this is the best way to
| catch bad actors.
|
| On the other hand, criminals that try not to become too big and
| remain low-profile are the ones that never get caught.
| ingohelpinger wrote:
| Nostr and Zaps, problem solved.
| vlod wrote:
| Can you mind elaborating further how this would work? I am
| somewhat familiar with both of them.
|
| Are you suggesting some sort of app store or web page to send
| money/bitcoin?
| idiotsecant wrote:
| The amount of people defending this because it's apple in here is
| astounding. This is possibly the least consumer friendly thing
| apple has done in a while, and that's saying something.
| rahilb wrote:
| Question for the indie developers here; do you get more paying
| users from Apple devices?
|
| I've never even considered publishing apps for other platforms as
| my gut tells me juice wouldn't be worth the squeeze. Or to put it
| another way, I would prefer customers who already proved they
| have deep(er) pockets and are price insensitive.
| ivm wrote:
| Yes, I have the same app on iOS and Android, and for a long
| time it brought in half the revenue on Android for twice the
| effort (really messy SDK combined with too many OS versions and
| devices). Lately the gap has been closing, but it's still
| roughly 40% Android and 60% iOS, though I have slightly more
| installs on iOS.
| rahilb wrote:
| Interesting insight, thanks.
| ghm2199 wrote:
| Wait a minute, there is a payment surface you can build in
| iOS(e.g. iirc a stripe demo video from the epic ruling last
| year), where one can pay outside the apple in-app payment method.
| The surface could specifically get you to your own web view(i.e.
| your own domain or stripe's surface) for payments. The bigger
| idea, I thought, would not let apple figure out a company's take
| was, to ask them to pay up.
|
| How does this shakedown work for companies/orgs that have large
| number of paying iOS DAUs?
|
| What am I not getting here?
| samrus wrote:
| This is low even for apple. They havent earned commision on this
| at all
| jacquesm wrote:
| They don't mind.
| layer8 wrote:
| As they don't for all the other digital-content purchases they
| have taken 30% for many years already.
|
| Which is why we have been getting great UX like being unable to
| buy books in the Kindle app.
| samrus wrote:
| Yeah. I get charging for hosting an app in your store, that
| requires work to build the ecosystem and security and stuff.
| But you have to draw the line on a platform and ecosystem and
| vetting that someone else has done. What did apple do to
| build kindles library of books? What did apple do to attract
| creators that patreon's users would like to support? Nothing.
| They should get 30% for installing paid apps that they are
| vetting and hosting, but nothing for things third parties are
| hosting and vetting
| justinclift wrote:
| Interestingly, Patreon doesn't give creators an option of "Just
| don't accept donations for us from Apple users" instead, which is
| what my old project (SQLite Browser / DB Browser for SQLite)
| would have gone with if available. :(
|
| I've instead handed the reins to others, so I don't have skin in
| this game any more. ;)
| kg wrote:
| Apple generally frowns upon things like that. At one point they
| wouldn't even let you disclose in your UI that Apple was taking
| a 30% cut of transactions, it was against the rules to do so.
| phkahler wrote:
| For the price of paying Apple, Patreon should be able to develop
| a web app instead. Why isn't this happening? Why an app when the
| web will do?
| intrasight wrote:
| Yeah, I don't understand this at all. I use Patreon and I
| support a couple of tech content creators. But my use of
| Patreon intersect in no way with iOS and I'm not sure how it
| would. Can someone please explain?
| fruitworks wrote:
| Okay so basicially apple users are dumb as rocks which is why
| iOS is so profitable in the first place, and they are
| corraled into installing apps and making in-app purchases.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| The dark side of your walled garden is they can abuse you as they
| see fit, and when they become a giant, your options are to like
| it or leave.
| davidmurdoch wrote:
| Sometimes I think the 30% was supposed to be 3% originally, and
| no one noticed the decimal was in the wrong place when they
| shipped it, and then people paid it anyway, so they kept it.
|
| 30% is just so unreasonable that it would be totally
| understandable if someone would believe this.
| derekdahmer wrote:
| Steam, the Kindle Store and iTunes all had similar sales cuts
| since before the app store launched in 2008.
|
| It's egregious now but at the time it wasn't crazy because
| software developers often made way less than that when going
| through traditional publishing routes. Plus everyone was just
| happy to be making money off the new platform.
| Topgamer7 wrote:
| Nah, they probably used pre-existing marketplaces like steam as
| an example of what "they could get away with"
| trimbo wrote:
| In 2008, the app store was launching, and physical software was
| still sold at Targets, Walmarts and other large retailers. A
| 30% margin was roughly what retailers would make off of
| physical software sales. By setting the App Store to be the
| same, Apple was signaling to retailers that they were not
| trying to undercut their margin, and keep a healthy
| relationship with them.
| bigyabai wrote:
| It was 2008; "big box" software was largely seen as obsolete
| to the _vast_ majority of developers. Marketing was done
| online, and the benefit of investing in retail had stopped
| outweighing the consequences. Online updates quickly became
| the norm, and service features supplanted point-of-sale
| business model (much like Apple 's double-dip into
| microtransaction profits).
|
| Apple chose 30% because they knew they _weren 't_ a retailer.
| You can hunt for a cheaper _Diablo II_ copy online or at Wal-
| Mart, but not on iPhone.
| danpalmer wrote:
| I think console games were the exception to this. It took
| until recently with the PS5 to get a diskless console
| model.
|
| Apple see the iPhone as a game console, not that anyone
| else thinks of it in that way.
| trimbo wrote:
| > It was 2008; "big box" software was largely seen as
| obsolete to the vast majority of developers.
|
| Well, I'm just reporting it as I understood their decision
| in the moment. I was working on The Sims at that time, and
| I assure you, retailers still mattered to us bigly.
| asadotzler wrote:
| No one was buying boxed software in 2008. The second we had
| broadband, call it 2002-ish, everyone was downloading
| everything. For many of us that began in the 90s before we
| had broadband. Overnight downloads over 56K phone modems was
| already overtaking boxed purchases. More people downloaded
| Netscape in 1995 than bought it boxed.
| danpalmer wrote:
| Not disagreeing with your general point, but Netscape is
| probably a bad example here. People who wanted Netscape
| would have been much more likely to know how to download
| and wanted to download it. Compared to, say, video editing
| software, which would have much less correlation with web
| users back in 1995 when not everyone was a web user.
| okokwhatever wrote:
| Apple doing Apple things... nothing to see here
| dev_l1x_be wrote:
| What is the strategy for "app" distribution for the mobile market
| that bypasses iOS / other vendors ? Is this even possible?
| megamix wrote:
| Can someone explain how much of value the iOS app is to users?
| I'm a noob at Patreon, aren't creators receiving their support
| through the website's payment gateway already? I'm not really
| against a company setting the rules if it's their platform, if
| the market cannot accept it then alternatives (competitors) will
| eventually find new ways.
| d--b wrote:
| Probably the only added value is direct notifications of new
| content.
|
| Patreon is probably going to shut down the payment feature from
| the app and orient people to the website. That's what I'd do...
| And bad mouth Apple.
|
| Given Patreon's clients is influencers, this is a fairly bad PR
| move by Apple, for probably zero return...
| gumby271 wrote:
| So the company that also lets you support your favorite podcasts
| via a subscription decided their competitor should pay 30% more
| just to do the same thing? Cool.
| wigster wrote:
| are they going to pay 30% towards refunds/fines etc. due to
| crimes committed using iOS?
| indycliff wrote:
| This is why holding Apple stock is almost a can't lose.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Imagine if Visa or Mastercard decided they were going to take a
| 30% cut as a merchant fee. Governments wouldn't allow it. Why
| does Apple get a complete pass?
| CivBase wrote:
| If I were a creator, I'd start looking into platforms other than
| Patreon. What does Patreon offer that makes them worth giving up
| 30% of my revenue?
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| Sounds ... like the mafia.
|
| You MUST use our billing system. Oh, btw, because you are using
| our billing system, we get 30%.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| Who pays for Patreon via iOS?
|
| if many people subscribe via ios then obviously apple is bringing
| creators more paying subscribers no so seems kinda fair to charge
| for access to that ecosystem?
| root_axis wrote:
| How does this work if I signed up to patreon on the web and have
| never used the app?
| tracker1 wrote:
| And this is a big part of why I don't own an iOS device, and
| likely won't be purchasing another laptop from them, despite
| liking the hardware generally.
|
| Not that I like Google much more re: Android and locking down
| side-loading more than before.
| ryukoposting wrote:
| I was considering GrapheneOS when I bought my latest phone 2
| years ago, but decided to stay with Android in the end. It has
| become very clear to me that I made the wrong choice.
| post_break wrote:
| If I buy a gift card through my banking app, using reward points,
| is Apple entitled to 30% of that?
| fruitworks wrote:
| Yes. You owe Apple and Patreon as much ad they want to charge,
| because you are a mental slave
| cedws wrote:
| There's a kind of dissonance here that Patreon should be allowed
| to take a cut, being a platform on which creators can earn money
| - but Apple should not be allowed to take a cut, being a platform
| on which companies can operate their business.
| kg wrote:
| There's "a cut" and then there's 30%. Pretending Patreon's cut
| is morally or even objectively equivalent to Apple's is a
| little bit of a stretch.
| cedws wrote:
| I agree that 30% is high but the arguments I see online are
| generally in favor of a cut to 0%, not a reduction. If you
| get into the weeds of what the cut _should_ be then it gets
| messy, who gets to decide? How do you determine what is
| actually fair for all parties?
|
| I would argue Patreon is far more parasitic than Apple in
| this case, they're shaving off 10% for a pretty simple
| service.
| kg wrote:
| Payment processors are generally really wary of services
| like Patreon. Cohost tried to set one up and was unable to
| find someone willing to stick by a commitment to process
| payments for an equivalent service.
|
| I think it's reasonable to say Patreon shouldn't take 10%,
| but you can't ring up Visa and get a regular 2-3% rate from
| them for something like Patreon, most likely, due to things
| like brand risk, chargeback rates, etc.
|
| Then there's all the administrative overhead involved in
| disbursing payments to creators from all sorts of different
| legal jurisdictions and reporting information to the right
| government agencies. I can easily imagine the operating
| costs of Patreon being something like 7-8% of the money
| they handle.
|
| I haven't seen anyone in this particular thread calling for
| Apple's cut to be 0%. I do think they could afford that,
| but a common refrain is that Epic's rate of 12% would be
| sustainable, and I agree with that. It's also the case that
| Apple moved to a gradual rate system where low-income
| developers only pay 15%, which kind of proves that they
| don't actually need 30%, they just want 30%.
| cedws wrote:
| Thanks, I didn't consider these things.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Apple has already been compensated in the form of $1,000-$1,500
| for the phone.
| kllrnohj wrote:
| Apple was also compensated by Patreon in the form of the
| developer fee.
|
| This is the triple-dip attempt.
| dbbk wrote:
| This is what I've never understood about Apple's argument
| that they need to be compensated for the R&D and ops costs
| of running the App Store. They already have this! It's the
| developer program fee!!
|
| As far as I can tell it wasn't even raised in the Epic case
| either.
| ajross wrote:
| The dissonance is conflating criticism of someone's fee
| structure with a demand that someone be disallowed from
| charging a fee. That's just dishonest spin.
|
| No one thinks Apple shouldn't be allowed to make a buck. No one
| thinks Patreon shouldn't be allowed to make a buck.
|
| But Patreon's fees are near-universally held to be reasonable
| and fair, and Apple's are some bullshit.
| artursapek wrote:
| Greed
| Insanity wrote:
| Man that should not be allowed. 30% (pre-tax) loss, plus taxes,
| plus platform cost. Thats insane
| ryukoposting wrote:
| If I'm patreon, here's what I'm doing:
|
| Jack up every Apple user's monthly payment by 30%.
|
| When they go into the app to figure out what the hell happened,
| they will find big red text saying "want to avoid the Apple tax?
| re-subscribe through our website! (Link)"
|
| They click the link, it opens a webpage where all the payment
| info has been auto-filled. They click "ok." Bam, fee gone.
| wbobeirne wrote:
| Much of what you suggested would not pass apple review, and
| would get your app removed from the app store if you tried to
| hide it during review.
| yearolinuxdsktp wrote:
| Happy to pay 42% higher Patreon fees in exchange for ease of
| subscription control, visibility, safety and ease of payment with
| in-app Apple payments.
|
| It's funny seeing people call 78% operating margin too high,
| while we all know that software VCs demand 90% margin from their
| startups, and if it wasn't Apple, people here would call that an
| excellent business.
| bfors wrote:
| So how do I avoid apple taking the cut? Unsubscribe from people
| in my ios app and resubscribe on the web? I subscribe to super
| small creators where this 30% cut makes a meaningful difference.
| cush wrote:
| This was a great reminder to me that I needed to cancel every
| subscription I have tied to my Apple account. I'll give it to
| them though, they do make it very easy - I just cancelled all 10
| of them in 10 seconds.
| yeezyszn wrote:
| I'm surprised at the comments here. Why should the government set
| the "right" margin?
|
| If you cap the margin, you're entrenching the monopoly forever.
| Allow them to charge what they want, and set tax rates on
| corporations commensurate with the size of their profits. Make it
| easier for competitors to start.
|
| The path to a sustainable marketplace does not come from top down
| enforcement of margins. It comes from competition
| josephcsible wrote:
| > Why should the government set the "right" margin?
|
| For monopolies, that is the least bad option. What would be way
| better, though, is mandating an end to that monopoly by
| allowing all users to install any apps they want on their
| iPhones without needing Apple's permission in any way, shape,
| or form.
| yeezyszn wrote:
| You're permanently entrenching them as the winner, and
| reducing the incentive for a competitor to emerge. The cost
| of developing these platforms is high and clearly it's hard
| enough to compete, why would you kneecap future competitors
| from the get go?
| boh144 wrote:
| And competition comes from creating a competitive market. Rent
| seeking behaviour is not new. This is monopolistic behaviour
| that should be regulated. I agree that capping fees is not
| solving the crux of the problem though.
| dfedbeef wrote:
| Insane PR move to further whittle down direct payments to
| people's favorite content creators
| blahyawnblah wrote:
| Can't they just link out to their site to do billing?
| mark_l_watson wrote:
| I think this is relevant, Cory Doctorow's recent speech to
| Canadian government and texh leaders:
| https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/29/post-american-canada/#ott...
|
| He talks about Apple's app store
| nuclearsugar wrote:
| For anyone seeking more info, check out these articles -
|
| https://www.patreon.com/posts/apple-has-its-on-148395613
|
| https://www.patreon.com/posts/128473586
| okokwhatever wrote:
| Tech companies are pushing their clients step by step out of new
| devices, platforms, subscription services, SaaS, ... Governments
| are pushing citizens step by step into Tech to control and tax
| their lives. At the end we, as simple humans, are always in the
| middle.
| franczesko wrote:
| With this logic, one should pay Google for making purchases in
| their browser or Netflix should pay e.g. Samsung a fee, as users
| consume content on their devices. Truly ridiculous.
| fennecbutt wrote:
| Ahaha.
|
| Ha ha ha ha ha.
|
| I mean, keep buying their phones or whatever.
| linuxhansl wrote:
| The regulator must step in now and allow installing applications
| outside of the AppStore! We are witnessing in real-time what a
| monopoly and a walled garden leads to.
|
| I'm not betting the US to do this right now. But look at the
| EU... Alternative app stores are allowed (forced by EU
| regulations), and it already lead to lower fees.
|
| The vast majority of people will continue find and install (and
| pay for) stuff via the AppStore.
|
| Let this be a cautionary tale for Google's plans with Android
| (developer verification, etc).
| siavosh wrote:
| I've heard it said that monopolies aren't a flaw of the system--
| they're its product. What else could perpetual, cutthroat
| competition lead to? This isn't an unintended consequence. In
| every new era, even when an industry is disrupted or reinvented,
| a small number of dominant companies work aggressively to prevent
| real upheaval--by acquiring smaller competitors, engaging in
| regulatory capture, and shaping the rules in their favor.
| Historically, governments have often served the interests of
| their corporate patrons. The system itself is built for maximal
| extraction, and there is no "invisible hand" waiting in the wings
| to protect consumers. There are no evil and good CEOs, just cogs
| in this machine doing what they're incentivized to do,
| accumulate.
| WheatMillington wrote:
| There is no monopoly here though. Android makes up a pretty
| substantial proportion of users. That users continue to use
| Apple devices despite this kind of greed (and that people on HN
| cheered when Apple defeated Epic in court) shows that users
| don't care, which is unfortunate.
| stfp wrote:
| Fair, but duopoly then, not much better
| bigyabai wrote:
| Cartel arrangements can still be a monopoly.
| WheatMillington wrote:
| ... but Google doesn't levy these charges.
| trinsic2 wrote:
| Didn't apple lose the case brought against them by Epic for this
| very reason? Are they still operating illegally against the order
| of the court?[0]
|
| [0]: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-
| arts/business/story/20...
| ajam1507 wrote:
| This is obscene.
| stainablesteel wrote:
| with the direction their hardware is going, that's not going to
| last another decade
| zac23or wrote:
| The Beggar Barons strike again!
| https://zedshaw.com/blog/2022-02-05-the-beggar-barons/
| NewUser76312 wrote:
| I don't understand, doesn't the market solve these issues? Here's
| what I figure would happen:
|
| 1. App creators will pass the extra cost over to the iPhone
| users.
|
| 2. Android (and other platforms that can host smartphone apps)
| will be more competitive and start to look better for both app
| creators and consumers.
|
| Sure, there's a bit of a context switching cost. Not everyone
| will just be able to automatically change over to an Android
| phone tomorrow. But it doesn't need to happen all at once. These
| phones get updated and replaced every 1-2 years. If iOS users see
| their app store prices rising too high, and they aren't OK with
| this, then they will switch to Android eventually, once it's
| worth it.
|
| Otherwise, I don't see any problem with Apple reaping the benefit
| of their powerful and well-built walled garden ecosystem.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| > _If iOS users see their app store prices rising too high, and
| they aren 't OK with this, then they will switch to Android
| eventually, once it's worth it._
|
| Or they'll stop buying as many apps, or stop supporting people
| on Patreon.
| rdedev wrote:
| There is a lot of stickiness associated with apple products. Be
| it their walled gardens or having better hardware or brand
| recognition. This is especially true in the American market
| GuinansEyebrows wrote:
| Look, I'm not switching to an Android just because I want to
| subscribe to a few podcasts.
| mrkpdl wrote:
| Not cool Apple, bad look, I like you less for this.
| aweiher wrote:
| Ok, cool - Apple is doing Apple things. And Patreon: will they
| comply?
| dudeinhawaii wrote:
| If a fan starts a $10/mo Patreon membership inside the iOS app,
| Apple's subscription terms imply $3/mo goes to Apple for the
| first year (then $1.50/mo after), and Patreon's platform fee
| still applies on top. Patreon says Apple is also forcing the
| remaining ~4% of creators using legacy billing to migrate to
| subscription billing by Nov 1, 2026 or risk the app being pulled.
| That's a meaningful hit to creator economics for something that's
| closer to "patronage" than a typical in-app digital good.
|
| I don't pay attention to all of Apples behaviors (still running
| an iphone 11) but this feels quite rent-seeky and creator
| hostile.
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