Mastodawn

This is gross, and further confirms Apple’s transition from innovation to rent-seeking, but there is a good solution: Stop having an app. Patreon would work just fine as a web site, no?

https://mas.to/@carnage4life/112950113668058280

Dare Obasanjo (@[email protected])

Attached: 1 image Apple has informed Patreon that it will be kicked out of the App Store unless it pays the 30% tax for all donations. Patreon has started a migration process that will take until November 2025 to transition all creators to the Apple billing system and making less money. https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/12/apple-says-patreon-must-switch-to-its-billing-system-or-risk-removal-from-app-store/

mas.to

Lee Fife - old account Aug 12, 2024

@timbray mumble mumble PWAs mumble

suldrew 🚲🏳️‍🌈Aug 12, 2024

@timbray it's ONLY a website to most users

Jeri Dansky Aug 12, 2024

@timbray All my Patreon memberships are already through the Patreon website. I don't have the app installed.

"The company reminded creators that Apple’s fees only apply to the iOS app and that creators can continue to offer the same prices on the web and Android."
https://techcrunch.com/2024/08/12/apple-says-patreon-must-switch-to-its-billing-system-or-risk-removal-from-app-store/

Apple says Patreon must switch to its billing system or risk removal from App Store | TechCrunch

Apple has threatened to remove creator platform Patreon from the App Store if creators use unsupported third-party billing options or disable transactions

TechCrunch

David Fi&er Aug 12, 2024

@timbray they can even have an app, just never try to collect money from it. Never subscribe to anything through an app store, Apple or Google, always go direct to the source

jwz Aug 12, 2024

@timbray Do not let Patreon off the hook on this. This is their decision.

Jeff Atwood Aug 12, 2024

@jwz @timbray I can't see how "stop having an iOS app" is letting them off the hook?

jwz Aug 12, 2024

@codinghorror @timbray Patreon decided that not having an iOS app was so unacceptable that they're fucking over their customers instead. This is as much Patreon behaving badly as it is Apple behaving badly.

Jeff Atwood Aug 12, 2024

@jwz @timbray how many bigcos intentionally forgo an iOS app, though? Like who could you point to that has done this before?

jwz Aug 12, 2024

@codinghorror Why should I give even a fractional fuck about that? Do I look like a VC or a Patreon board member to you?

Jeff Atwood Aug 12, 2024

@jwz these large companies are herd animals. None of them want to be the first to do anything interesting or progressive, so there has to be a smaller new herd forming, somewhere. The best way to motivate them is to point to "you don't wanna be left behind like [other company], right?"

jwz Aug 12, 2024

@codinghorror It is not my job to fix Patreon's business model.

Jeff Atwood Aug 12, 2024

@jwz true, but "you suck and should do what I want" is less effective than "well, the other guy is doing it a whole lot better than you" in my experience. I mean, best case, we get new Patreon competitors we can support, right? Choosing a 30% tax rate for everyone over simply having a website and not an app is kind of insane to me, but I don't know the numbers their iOS app produces..

dirb Aug 12, 2024

@codinghorror @jwz
"Choosing a 30% tax rate for everyone over simply having a website and not an app"
I think that's just bad reporting by the techcrunch, the original patreon blog post makes it clear this only affects subscriptions through the iOS app, subscriptions done through the web or the android app will remain the same

jwz Aug 12, 2024

@dirb @codinghorror That is not all they're doing. https://jwz.org/b/ykXg

Patreon screws me over, says a big Apple did it and ran away

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 ...

Alex Markley Aug 12, 2024

@jwz @codinghorror as one of the (barely) affected Patreon creators, I sure would love to have a toggle that just opts my creator page out of the iOS app completely and forever. The fact that that toggle does not exist definitely says a lot about the amount of respect Patreon has for my business.

Joe Aug 12, 2024

@alex @jwz @codinghorror Perhaps, but Patreon may also be constrained by the draconian app store rules. Apps have been banned just for letting Apple folks know that there are other payment options.

But yes, just leaving the app store is an option.

jwz Aug 12, 2024

@not2b @alex @codinghorror "We no longer have an iOS app, we have a web site" was a choice that was always available to them. Instead of the open web, they chose complicity.

Joe Aug 12, 2024

@jwz @alex @codinghorror Agreed. And they might eventually do that.

Alex Markley Aug 12, 2024

@not2b @jwz @codinghorror That doesn’t make sense to me. I have jumped through the Apple App Store hoops, I know how they work.

If my Patreon supporters are MY customers, then I should be able to have all traces of my content omitted from the iOS app. The only mental model where that doesn’t work is if they are customers of Patreon FIRST and my customers second.

Maestro Mushi Aug 12, 2024

@codinghorror @alex @jwz you could always troll the owner’s bands on YouTube, but that’s kind of rude… I actually think that it’s one of the few platforms that still works with the actual creators in mind (except for that little stint where they tried to expel sex workers)

Alex Markley Aug 12, 2024

@Mushi @codinghorror @jwz I agree, that would be a rude approach and not something I would endorse.

Tim Bray Aug 12, 2024

@codinghorror @jwz Unusual, yeah, but for 30% of gross income? Unusual measures might be on the table.

jwz Aug 12, 2024

@timbray @codinghorror Is that 30% costing Patreon anything? They're just going to pass that cost on to creators, who will now earn 30% less depending on how people sign up.

Boyd Stephen Smith Jr.Aug 12, 2024

@jwz @timbray @codinghorror I was really hoping cryptocurrency would have freed us from having %age based middlemen siphoning off my earnings that I want to direct at creators. Instead, even the "best" cryptocurrency just completely fails at being a good way to transfer my resources to someone else digitally. :(

#ChokepointCapitalism (from Apple and Google, but ALSO Valve and Patreon) is driving everyone towards #enshittification and #TechnoFudalism and I hate it. :(

Uberbrady Aug 12, 2024

@codinghorror @jwz @timbray Shortcut.com (formerly 'clubhouse’) used to have a web app and just gave up on it, now just does web views. Kinda crappy on the phone, but the app wasn't ever very good. Prolly VC-funded, not sure?

Jono Aug 12, 2024

@codinghorror @jwz @timbray

fuck me, I am this || close to switching to an iPhone and Apple have decided to go full Larry on us.

maybe they will sell it as being retro and iphone 1.0 where there was no app store?

suldrew 🚲🏳️‍🌈Aug 12, 2024

@codinghorror @jwz @timbray I am convinced that the REAL reason they are doing this is that they have less churn from "subscriptions" (daily charging) because people don't review their subs monthly as often. Otherwise they'd let us co-term our licenses.

jwz Aug 12, 2024

@suldrew @codinghorror @timbray They clearly have some incentive (which I do not fully understand) to get away from "charge bundling", which seemed at first to be their biggest strength. This is absolutely a play that accomplishes that. See the last half of: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1824441.html

Captcha Check

Jes Wolfe Aug 12, 2024

@jwz @suldrew @codinghorror @timbray when I worked at Patreon ten years ago, it was well understood that payment bundling was the major platform advantage, and that it meant that network effects of everyone joining the same service meant transaction fees went down. features that caused one-off charges were very rare for that reason

Jes Wolfe Aug 12, 2024

@jwz @suldrew @codinghorror @timbray I bet it makes the payment processors uncomfortable, though, and Patreon has never been big enough to stand up to pressure from Paypal or Visa (or, now, Apple)

jwz Aug 12, 2024

@jes5199 @suldrew @codinghorror @timbray Right? Pressure from the interchange mafiosi seems like the only possible explanation?

suldrew 🚲🏳️‍🌈Aug 13, 2024

@jwz @jes5199 @codinghorror @timbray they gotta get their vig

J. Blake Aug 12, 2024

@timbray Exactly. I never downloaded the app as the privacy policy states it tracks location. Safari works fine.

Paul Houle Aug 12, 2024

@timbray somehow the discussion has to move from "we can't afford not to have an app in the app store" to "we can't afford to have an app in the app store"; it has to be linked to the common experience that brand ecchs (e.g. reddit) always wants to install some app which is always worse than the web site, not better

Brian Dear Aug 12, 2024

Agreed.

Frankly I didn’t even know they had an app. The occasional times I’ve visited the website seemed normal and uneventful and I’m still wondering, why bother making and supporting—technically and financially—an app?

mathew Aug 12, 2024

@brianstorms @timbray Add me to the list, I have multiple Patreon subscriptions active and didn't know they had an app.

Hubert Figuière Aug 12, 2024

@timbray exactly what I was saying. to pull the app.

Old Hippie Ⓥ Resistance!Aug 12, 2024

@timbray I've been searching for Google Play policies without success. Do you know if they do the same ?

Tim Bray Aug 12, 2024

@old_hippie No idea. But it'd be interesting to find out.

InsertUser Aug 12, 2024

@timbray
Haven't they been charging ridiculous cuts for apps for over a decade?

Patrick Cherry Aug 12, 2024

@timbray Why can’t they redirect all sign ups to a website, like Netflix does?

https://www.tomsguide.com/news/joining-netflix-on-iphone-just-got-a-whole-lot-easier-heres-how

Joining Netflix on iPhone just got a whole lot easier — here's how

Netflix sign-up on iPhone is now much easier thanks to Apple's new rules

Tom's Guide

Ivor Hewitt Aug 12, 2024

@timbray exactly, the correct solution here is "don't have an app"