this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2024

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429

Patreon: adding Apple’s 30 percent tax is the price of staying in the App Store (www.theverge.com)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 119 points 2 months ago (5 children)

The "platform economy" is just another term for digital landlords.

Fuck 'em.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Techno feudalism is the term, look it up

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Oh I know, I just thought using landlords would be a more concise term since most people don't know the term techno-feudalism as widely.

I'll definitely try to incorporate it in my writing more though, it's a term that I think should be known much more widely.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

lol, the irony is patreon is also a platform. Its platforms all the way down. They take 12%. If Apple wanted to be the good guy, they’d take 30% of patreon’s 12%.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Middle man skimming off the top.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Pretty sure they are the top man

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[+] [email protected] 95 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 66 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Yeah, I actually think this policy is 100% correct and, if more services did this instead of eating the costs, we could have a real discussion about the harm caused by arbitrary fees.

It will likely result in Apple seeking a special deal with Patreon to avoid this mess though. It's really not a good look for Apple especially as they cater themselves to the creatives market.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago

Being as this is very similar to the apple epic legal fight that epic lost earlier this year, I doubt apple will make a deal. My understanding is that patreon can cave, choose to pay 27% commission, or make their own store.

Though skimming the news around epic's attempts to make a store, you "can" make a store in compliance with EU and UK laws, but apple made it kinda impossible to actually do and epic is fighting it in court again?

So patreon seems to have read the lay of things and said I guess we just have to make the best of a shitty situation and communicate everything to try to limit the pain.

It's almost like apple feels like they have the power to do whatever they want because they've created a market where they don't have competition...

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Until recently, apps were not even allowed to charge less outside their apps than on the app store or to link to outside stores.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago (3 children)

We should thank the European Union for that.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Thanks European Union

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago

They were allowed to charge less, just not mention or link to it in any way. Proton has been doing it for a while that the Apple in-app purchases are roughly 30% higher.

[–] about_13_13_unruly_goats 6 points 2 months ago

Yeah this is well overdue

[–] [email protected] 87 points 2 months ago (2 children)

This is a given for many kinds of services. Always purchase subscriptions on another device or direct through their website - never use your Apple devices' app store.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I'm just worried for the content creators on patreon. Their choices are a significant reduction in income, jacking up prices and pricing out some of their patrons (thus reducing their income), or if patreon pulls from apple there's a significant reduction in visibility and additional hurdles (thus reducing income).

So it seems that no matter the outcome, creators suffer the consequences of the Apple tax.

Fuck apple. Rotten to the core. Class action lawsuit in the very least.

Vote. We need House, Senate, and President to not be corporate fascists so that we can impeach at least 2 or 3 supreme court judges, replace them with rational human beings, reverse the overturning of Chevron Deference, and then let a stronger FTC gut these fucking companies.

Self dealing, competition buying, corporate fascists. The lot of them.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 months ago (1 children)

What we can work on is awareness. If iOS users are aware, they can choose to simply go to the website directly and make the purchase, instead of using the app. They can still use the app for consumption.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

Yep, that's what everyone I know with Apple devices have always done. I used to have a Nexus 7 (rip) and an iPhone, and the prices on the App store were always higher than the prices on Android Market (rip).

I'm wondering why it's being pointed out now by everyone, but I'm not gonna complain if it leads to some sort of price parity regulation across platforms.

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[–] [email protected] 67 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Someone's looking to get in on some anti-trust action.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I thought Apple's app store practices were found to be legal in the Epic Games trial? (unlike Google's)

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Which is kinda ridiculous since Apple's practices are what Google does but worse.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

To paraphrase an analysis that I read awhile ago, Apple’s practices were found to be legal because Apple applied the rules unilaterally whereas Google would make backroom deals to alter the rules on an app-by-app basis.

Please take this with a grain of salt because 1) IANAL and 2) it is the middle of a workday break and I didn’t take the time to search for a source, just basing this off of memory.

If you want I can research this after work to provide sources and update my comment.

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

I'm okay with paying 30% where the return on investment is worth it. Both the Appstore and Google Play do literally nothing for you, except distribution, and payment processing. These really don't deserve to take such a big cut, and I don't really want to hear any more excuses in their favor

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

This is not about the App Store service's quality, this is about option. They could charge 50% for all I care, if we had the option to buy iOS apps from another store other than Apple's.

[–] [email protected] 38 points 2 months ago (14 children)

i'm so glad i'm on android

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago

This couldn’t have come at a worse time, given their DOJ suit.

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