Apple—which cracked $1 trillion in market capitalization six years ago, reported $21.4 billion in profit, and has $25.6 billion in cash and cash equivalents—apparently thinks it deserves financial help via the creator-funding platform Patreon.Apple isn’t seeking this backing by launching a page on Patreon—through which, perhaps, fans might back such future breakthroughs as a mouse that doesn’t require charging via a Lightning cable—but by compelling Patreon to use Apple’s in-app billing in its iOS and iPadOS apps.As Patreon warned creators on Monday in emails, a blog post, support notes for creators and fans, and a 16-minute YouTube clip from CEO Jack Conte, that means Apple will take a 30% cut of new subscriptions opened in Patreon’s iOS app starting in November. “Apple is requiring that Patreon use their in-app purchasing system and remove all other billing systems from the Patreon iOS app by November 2024,” the email says, with bolding in the original. “This means that starting in November, new memberships purchased in the iOS app will be subject to Apple’s 30% App Store fee.”This mandatory fee already applies to sales of digital products through the iOS app.Conte, a musician who co-founded Patreon in 2013, said in the video that Apple left his company no choice. “If we don’t do this, Apple might kick us out of the App Store,” he said. “Which would be terrible for creators and terrible for Patreon, because iOS is actually now the most-used platform for communities on Patreon.”Apple’s move is also forcing a change for Patreon creators (I am one, having set up a page there in 2019) and fans who never touch the company’s iOS app. It will end first-of-the-month billing and per-creation billing, both of which allow tighter control of benefits by creators, in November 2025 to comply with Apple’s requirements and then switch all creators then to a subscription-based system.“This is not how we want to roll out changes,” Conte said in the video. “This is very frustrating, and we would not be rolling out changes like this if it weren’t for these mandates.”Apple PR did not return a request for comment sent Monday afternoon. Patreon is letting creators choose between eating this 30% cut or adding it to their listed rates for subscription tiers through which they offer escalating extras for fans willing to pay more. The default, listed as “Recommended” in my account’s “Billing and payouts” settings, is to dump what iOS developers often unfondly call the Apple Tax on fans. Apple has required that 30% cut of subscription and media purchases through its App Store since early 2011. In recent years, it has relented somewhat, lowering the cut to 15% for developers with under $1 million in sales on the store, allowing “reader apps” to link to external sign-up pages for media subscriptions, and finally allowing outside payment options while still charging a commission on those transactions almost as high as the regular fee.
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(Apple has liberalized things far more in the EU due to Digital Markets Act regulations of “gatekeeper” companies; bills that might impose similar rules in the US have yet to get anywhere meaningful in Congress.) None of those exceptions seem to cover Patreon creators–for instance, the company confirmed Monday that it’s not eligible for the 15% rate–even though many of the benefits you’ll see creators offer shouldn’t qualify as digital goods. For example:The $5 tier on DC Beer’s Patreon page mainly gets you access to events around Washington where you can enjoy tasty beer and meet fellow beer drinkers. The $1 tier for my friend and fellow tech journalist Glenn Fleishman (which I’m happy to pay) provides only whatever good feelings may come from “helping to underwrite research, travel, and other expenses.” Science-fiction writer Mary Robinette Kowal provides different kinds of real-world merchandise–for instance, a sticker or a coffee mug–at various tiers.I offer a $25 tier (for which only one person has ever signed up) that includes one free tech consultation a month. Patreon does charge fees of its own that fall well below Apple’s. It takes 8% of subscription payments (a lower 5% rate applies to creators who signed up by May of 2019, a deadline that motivated me to try out Patreon by then despite not being sure what to do on it); a 2.9% processing fee plus 30 cents for most credit card, Venmo, and PayPal payments (about what most online credit card processors charge); and a 25-cent fee for each direct-deposit payout. Patreon’s support note for creators says it “will not charge payment processing fees for in-app iOS purchases,” meaning that the company “will typically generate less revenue from in-app iOS transactions compared to non-iOS transactions.”Monday’s mess seems far removed from the zany sales pitch I saw Conte give for Patreon at the XOXO 2013 conference in Portland, when he testified to how little money his band Pomplamoose and other creative types made from YouTube ads and said he wanted to give capitalist creators a better platform for their basic task: “You have to make good stuff and convert it into money.”
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