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a lower price elsewhere/on the vendor’s website (I don’t follow App Store policies very closely so my info is probably out of date).
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?
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
>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.
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.
>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.
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.
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.
> you're still stuck talking to your credit card company
AFAIK Apple still talks to it too, they just have a deeper/better experience on the platforms they own and provide a service where they can generate a virtual card for you, so you're shielded from the merchant, but not from your card issuer.
> Apple's app store payment percentage, the open/closed nature of their appstore, and the ability to sideload apps are 3 separate issues
Yes and no, because Apple wants to use the closed nature of their ecosystem to offer their solution as the only possible one, yet at the same time claim that they deserve their 30% cut because it's the best solution out there and they provide so much value.
It might've been HN weirdness. I was getting the one sentence in one view and the whole message in the other view. Re-loading didn't get them consistent. Hmm.
>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.
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
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..
> 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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
Case law isn't directly normative in civil law traditions like Germany and France in the same way it is in common law traditions like the U.S. and U.K. But court decisions that are deemed interesting do get picked up in journals, cited in academic literature, and cited by other judges in their own decisions. There is a herd dynamics psychology where judges and academic writers default to following along with the principles established in each other's decisions and academic writing, rather than go against that consensus. (Unless their conviction is very strong, and they are, depending on the gravity of the issue, willing to stake their reputations and careers on those convictions). -- I brushed over that distinction when I used the term “precedent”. In my mind it's pot-ay-toh po-tah-toh.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
They did lower them to 15% due to regulatory pressure for smaller vendors.
And for compliance with EU DSA, they've tried countless malicious compliance efforts, that have been struck down again and again.
The only reason they haven't been smacked with a billion dollar fine for their Bullshit (Core Technology Fee)yet, is because of Trump.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Looks like they took Peter Thiel’s animosity towards competition too literally by blocking BYD from the US market. Without competition, they had no incentive to innovate since they were selling into the wealthiest market in the world for their product, the US.
No innovation made them stagnate. Being blocked from the US made BYD innovate.
I can think of birthdays when even the most diehard asker turns into a guesser - they would never go out of their way and ask to be coddled on their birthday but still don't mind bit of a fuss being made on their behalf.
... You haven't met Colombians. It could be just my extended family or it could be cultural; they love celebrating birthdays, including your birthday and theirs, and will actively and overtly tell you what they expect. In a strange way they're asking, it's a negotiation of wants and needs.
It could be just between family. I should ask my wife what's the go.
Just like you aren’t in traffic, you are traffic, you aren’t part of the society, you are society.
Every idea like “let’s have icecream socials at..” started as one person’s pipe dream which they then acted on and executed. No one is coming to rescue us. There’s no secret hand guiding humankind.
You definitely can’t solve loneliness for society but you can solve loneliness for your immediate circle by organising activities and that’s already a huge improvement.
In contrast, sitting back and saying this needs to be solved at a higher level does nothing at all.
the parent's comment was what I have been thinking about though... The advice to not be the traffic is kind of just like saying "just try harder"...
I am thinking of a chain of causality like:
People do not plan things, or they flake on events because they're tired. Theyre tired because theyre working too many hours and are obese. They work/obese because because they consume too much. They consume too much because we're a spiritually empty society. (Just to put up an initial draft hypothesis).
I'm thinking if we can solve some of the nodes closer to the root we can have a higher impact than just burning ourselves out trying to deal with the leaf nodes.
I was thinking consume more like conspicuous consumption for clout. There's been lifestyle inflation, i believe due to social media, compared to times when society was more social. I'm running of general feelings here though, not specific datasets.
Somethings that come to mind: Expensive smart phones, fast fashion clothing spend, travel, tattoos, car feature creep leading to price increases and more loans taken, sq foot per person in housing, Food as an identity statement (more foreign/imported/, more protein are two trends I believe are true).
India has one of the most agrarian populations in the world, with a comparatively high prevalence of subsistence farming too. Its GDP per capita is maybe a tenth of Japan's.
One million is hyperbole, but Japan's more advanced economy and lower population vs India's less advanced economy and higher population is a strange comparison in some ways. The single number doesn't tell the whole story.
So you're basically talking about HDI. That's one metric. But I think equally important is also to consider the rote tech capabilities. That India still has a lot of people practicing susbistence farming and that China still has people living in caves, and that the US still has many homeless people living in tents, ... , all those aren't indicative of the rote tech capabilies of those respective countries.
Japan may have better human rights now, but was not the role model in the WW2.
People are an important component of growth. Japan is facing aging population negatively impacting their GDP.
What is greed for you? Building companies in the hope of becoming millionaire? If yes, then all the big economies have followed this path. Even China and Japan were greedy in that sense.
You can have growth without greed. This might sound crazy these days but you can build things and do things that make money and actually benefit people rather than exploit.
Japan is a capitalist country, their growth is as much based on greed as any other.
They do have robust social safety nets and a culture of civic mindnedness which improves quality of life over many other capitalist countries (particularly the US) but also "black companies" and salarymen working themselves to death.
I absolutely use it for this because lots of videos drone on and pad their length for the ad revenue, so I ask the AI to summarize and then I can click through exactly what I want to see. I found myself actually watching more videos now, not less, because I know I don't have to listen to them for 10 minutes and waste my time when they don't get to the point.
Oh I agree, I use it for the same reason. It just seems counterintuitive to YouTubes bottom line (ie discouraging folks like us from watching to video to give them ad money)
At the very least one must connect to people who would find it valuable (either inbound or outbound), and the value has to be communicated to the prospective buyers. People make their decisions based on how they perceive the product, not based on your view. And the value big enough to overcome friction involved in purchasing, including soft factors like people trusting you with their money. There might be habits and other pieces of inertia that has to be overcome also, and why would they pick your thing over the alternatives. And of course you must be able to charge enough to cover the costs of providing said value.
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).
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