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I remember reading that per-creation billing is a very important feature for Patreon creators, because it removes the moral obligation to produce content just t

by jprete 2y ago

I remember reading that per-creation billing is a very important feature for Patreon creators, because it removes the moral obligation to produce content just to justify a subscription. If Patreon really doesn't want to kill the feature itself, but is just responding to Apple's enforcement, then it seems like a really clear illustration of monopoly power - pushing unrelated markets to change their own structure and products just to fit Apple's preferred billing flow.

balozi 2y ago
Patreon also stands to gain from this change. Come think of it, the new arrangement is a win for everyone involved - except the actual patrons ofcourse.
- voiceblue 2y ago
  Is there any evidence that Apple has actually made this "threat"? I'm not seeing anything other than what Patreon has claimed (and it seems that they are only recently going to begin to allow iOS purchases, which might mean they are bringing this upon themselves). I am suspicious, because the specific change to per-creation billing is overwhelmingly positive for Patreon (and, as you pointed out, not for its users), from a business economics perspective (assuming they don't lose too many users over this). It also seems odd for Apple to press that point specifically.
  - Kwpolska 2y ago
    Apple has been on a crusade against all payments not going through them for many years. I absolutely believe this is Apple’s fault, although I would have expected this to have happened much sooner.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - egypturnash 2y ago
    I am a creator on the per-creation model and I got a very unambiguously worded email from Patreon this morning basically saying "if we want to be on the iOS store, Apple requires that we remove all billing methods that are not compatible with their payment method, and yours is not; in November 2025, you will be switched to the one billing method that Apple allows us to still have. If you would like to start earlier go to this link and hit this button to start the process." They used more words but they were very clear that this is a thing Apple is imposing on them as the price for being on the iOS App Store.
    - jzl 2y ago
      Right but just because they said it doesn’t mean they’re not playing fast and loose with the messaging. I’ve never heard of a single app where the off-app billing affected the inclusion of the app in the store. I mean maybe it’s true but that seems like it would be breaking new ground in App Store rules. I suspect Patreon is playing semantics here but would be happy to see evidence otherwise. To be clear, I’m taking about the case where Patreon could decide to show no billing details or links at all in the App Store, just like eg Audible. I think the problem is that Patreon still wants to offer billing options in the app.
      - johnnyanmac 2y ago
        > I’ve never heard of a single app where the off-app billing affected the inclusion of the app in the store. most apps don't do payments like this to begin with. >To be clear, I’m taking about the case where Patreon could decide to show no billing details or links at all in the App Store, just like eg Audible. To be frank, I don't think Patreon has the same market force as Audible. Audible can definitely appeal to apple and make a deal that others don't get. Maybe Patreon did desire some of this, but I do put the blame on Apple. This is hardly the first time they arbiriarily played hardball.
        jzl 2y ago
        Apologies, I somehow missed the memo three years ago that Audible turned on in-app purchases(1). I was thinking of the pre-2021 policy. I’m still pretty sure that if an app has zero financial interactions at all in the App Store that Apple has no limitations on how the app’s financials work outside of the app. But I can understand that once you want to do anything in app, Apple might have restrictions on hybrid models. 1 - https://9to5mac.com/2021/04/16/you-can-now-buy-audiobooks-directly-within-the-audible-app-using-audible-credits https://9to5mac.com/2021/04/16/you-can-now-buy-audiobooks-di...
- xmprt 2y ago
  Not really. There are a lot of creators I watch who only make content once a year. Sometimes they'll have 2 videos a year if they're lucky. With the per creation model, I have no problems supporting them but if it's billed monthly then the price becomes a lot steeper. Alternatively they could reduce the cost to support them but then the fees becomes much higher for both the creator and patreon (29c + 5% IIRC).
  - ncr100 2y ago
    Agreed - the market will respond to these higher costs in a predictable manner. A smaller market.
- tdb7893 2y ago
  Taking away the options is not a win for the creators
- Jeff_Brown 2y ago
  How can they gain after losing 30% to Apple?
  - borski 2y ago
    Relative to not having predictable monthly recurring revenue.
  - bluGill 2y ago
    Patreon doesn't lose anything to Apple - they give creators on Patreon a choice - charge Apple users more to cover the 30%, or eat the loss. I don't know what Patreon's take is, they are going to take the same either way. However they know their customers and users will lose from this and it is good for them to look out for their customers (it doesn't costs them much)
    - cyrnel 2y ago
      Customers leave when prices rise above their willingness to pay. Some customers will realize on their own that they can bypass Apple's fee by subscribing through the browser, but most won't (since Apple forbids even mentioning this trick).
      - theturtle32 2y ago
        This, imo is a solid argument for "fine then, we're just gonna pull our app and use mobile web exclusively."
        bluGill 2y ago
        Only if the users follow. If users decide they won't use the mobile web then patreon and the creators they represent lose. Nobody knows for sure, but there is a general belief that users will not follow (or at least enough won't follow).
        jachee 2y ago
- mitthrowaway2 2y ago
  Fewer patrons is a likely consequence, which would not be a win.
darknavi 2y ago
Maybe I am missing something but Apple supports consumable purchases. Think any game with purchasable virtual currency. Can't Patreon support a ton of different-priced SKUs and let creators use those SKUs for one-off purchases?
- Volundr 2y ago
  I think what your missing is that these aren't one-off user initiated purchases. I back a couple of patterns that are a per-video model, so if the content creator produces 2 videos I'm charged 2x $amount that month. If they produce nothing I'm charged nothing. Apple doesn't provide a way of doing this. In the scenario you described I'd have to monthly count up how many videos said content creator produced and manually submit an order through the app... And users aren't going to do that. Hell, I'm not going to do that.
  - darknavi 2y ago
    Ah yeah. I definitely was not aware that's how it worked. I was thinking user-initiated purchases, not purchase-on-demand.
- mattstir 2y ago
  That's distinct from the existing per-creation billing in a few ways, with the most obvious being that the existing method is automated while consumable purchases require user input. Trying to create a SKU for every possible per-creation price is also just incredibly janky and hacky in a fundamental way that would never scale and would probably make accounting next to impossible.
meagher 2y ago
Where did you read that? I worked at Patreon from 2018-2021 and per creation was a much smaller group than recurring during that time at least. (Think per creation was even disabled as an option for new sign-ups for a while.)
- burkaman 2y ago
  I'm surprised to hear this, I thought it was the main selling point of Patreon. I have per-creation subscriptions to a few people on Patreon who produce very high-quality stuff very infrequently, and I will probably cancel if they are forced to switch to monthly billing. Their stuff is great, but not so great that I'm willing to sign up for a monthly fee that I forget about and then realize 3 years later that they've stopped making stuff.
  - kalleboo 2y ago
    I don't follow one-off creators like that, to me the selling point of Patreon was that I could support 20 different creators each with $1-$2/mo, with 4000+ fans in aggregate it supported their lifestyle. And by billing monthly, it meant that the card fees were spread among all the creators so that 50% of the $1 didn't go to the bank/VISA, basically making microtransactions feasible. They're also killing the once-a-month billing so that use case is also gone. I'm not sure who Patreon is for anymore.
    - paulryanrogers 2y ago
      IIRC, Patreon now passes along full transaction costs to every creator, even if behind the scenes they may be consolidating transactions.
- jprete 2y ago
  I don't have the source anymore, but it was an article about why Patreon is successful and other similar platforms/systems aren't. The per-creation billing option was described as a way for creators to create on their own schedule without having a moral or business requirement to produce enough content every month to justify a subscription. (The business requirement coming from the problem of one-month paying subscribers getting much more value than the creator can afford to give away at that price.)
trollied 2y ago
The thing most aren’t thinking about is that per-creation billing is an absolute nightmare, and I don’t blame Apple for not supporting it. Can’t even begin to imagine the support nightmare/chargebacks etc. It’s not all about the 30% cut. If it was easy and trouble free, they would support it. Imagine what a great time apps would have if Apple let them charge you an amount whenever they wanted, without user authorisation?
- makeitdouble 2y ago
  > charge you an amount whenever they wanted, without user authorisation? It's a simple matter of user communication: you make it clear from the start that the billing will be unpredictable, and potentially provide a ceiling for monthly bills to let the user stop if it goes out of hand. I follow per creation billing creators and it's fine. Amazon also offers an option to auto buy new volumes of a series. The customer not knowing in advance how much they'll be billed isn't common, but it's not complex in itself.
- guyfromfargo 2y ago
  [dead]
egypturnash 2y ago
Patreon has been trying to kill it for like half the time I've been using Patreon. They haven't offered it as an option for new campaigns for years, and their last redesign completely removed what little data was available in the web UI - you wanna know how much money you can expect? Download a CSV and do it yourself, we can't be bothered to give you even the simplest data of "your next three posts will be worth $x, $y, and $z" any more. I am pretty sure there were people at Patreon who said "Oh god finally we have an excuse to kick everyone off this damn thing". The writing's on the wall for this model, no Patreon clone ever offers it, and I sure do not want to cobble together my own version out of Wordpress plugins, or get involved in making a Patreon-like that does offer it and recapitulating the whole growth cycle of "oh god nazis are using my platform, what do I do about it" to "oh god now I have to make enough money to pay all these moderators" to "oh god we're big enough for the payment processors to notice how much porn we have and tell us to stop", and finally to "oh sweet fuck we're big enough for Apple to inform us that we must pay their tithe or leave iOS, are we big enough to hook up with Epic Games's suits". Although if anyone on HN looks at that last paragraph of Growth Problems and says "sign me right the fuck up, convincing a bunch of VC money that they want to support the arts by running a Patreon-like at a loss for a decade and taking a couple tenths of a percent off of the top of the money flowing from fans to creators through my pipe sounds like a great way to spend a few years of my life", hey, I'll gladly give you input on your MVC, maybe even draw some art for your site or something.
- sa-code 2y ago
  Off topic: this was really entertaining to read, thanks
  - egypturnash 2y ago
    Thanks! If you think that last paragraph sounds like fun I be delighted to accept a lucrative position on the advisory board for this enterprise. :)
- mvdtnz 2y ago
  We can't know if they wanted to kill it because of Apple or for some other reason. I don't see why they would want to kill it if it weren't for Apple.

by jprete 2y ago

balozi 2y ago

Patreon also stands to gain from this change. Come think of it, the new arrangement is a win for everyone involved - except the actual patrons ofcourse.

voiceblue 2y ago
Is there any evidence that Apple has actually made this "threat"? I'm not seeing anything other than what Patreon has claimed (and it seems that they are only recently going to begin to allow iOS purchases, which might mean they are bringing this upon themselves). I am suspicious, because the specific change to per-creation billing is overwhelmingly positive for Patreon (and, as you pointed out, not for its users), from a business economics perspective (assuming they don't lose too many users over this). It also seems odd for Apple to press that point specifically.
- Kwpolska 2y ago
  Apple has been on a crusade against all payments not going through them for many years. I absolutely believe this is Apple’s fault, although I would have expected this to have happened much sooner.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- egypturnash 2y ago
  I am a creator on the per-creation model and I got a very unambiguously worded email from Patreon this morning basically saying "if we want to be on the iOS store, Apple requires that we remove all billing methods that are not compatible with their payment method, and yours is not; in November 2025, you will be switched to the one billing method that Apple allows us to still have. If you would like to start earlier go to this link and hit this button to start the process." They used more words but they were very clear that this is a thing Apple is imposing on them as the price for being on the iOS App Store.
  - jzl 2y ago
    Right but just because they said it doesn’t mean they’re not playing fast and loose with the messaging. I’ve never heard of a single app where the off-app billing affected the inclusion of the app in the store. I mean maybe it’s true but that seems like it would be breaking new ground in App Store rules. I suspect Patreon is playing semantics here but would be happy to see evidence otherwise. To be clear, I’m taking about the case where Patreon could decide to show no billing details or links at all in the App Store, just like eg Audible. I think the problem is that Patreon still wants to offer billing options in the app.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      > I’ve never heard of a single app where the off-app billing affected the inclusion of the app in the store. most apps don't do payments like this to begin with. >To be clear, I’m taking about the case where Patreon could decide to show no billing details or links at all in the App Store, just like eg Audible. To be frank, I don't think Patreon has the same market force as Audible. Audible can definitely appeal to apple and make a deal that others don't get. Maybe Patreon did desire some of this, but I do put the blame on Apple. This is hardly the first time they arbiriarily played hardball.
      - jzl 2y ago
        Apologies, I somehow missed the memo three years ago that Audible turned on in-app purchases(1). I was thinking of the pre-2021 policy. I’m still pretty sure that if an app has zero financial interactions at all in the App Store that Apple has no limitations on how the app’s financials work outside of the app. But I can understand that once you want to do anything in app, Apple might have restrictions on hybrid models. 1 - https://9to5mac.com/2021/04/16/you-can-now-buy-audiobooks-directly-within-the-audible-app-using-audible-credits https://9to5mac.com/2021/04/16/you-can-now-buy-audiobooks-di...
xmprt 2y ago
Not really. There are a lot of creators I watch who only make content once a year. Sometimes they'll have 2 videos a year if they're lucky. With the per creation model, I have no problems supporting them but if it's billed monthly then the price becomes a lot steeper. Alternatively they could reduce the cost to support them but then the fees becomes much higher for both the creator and patreon (29c + 5% IIRC).
- ncr100 2y ago
  Agreed - the market will respond to these higher costs in a predictable manner. A smaller market.
tdb7893 2y ago
Taking away the options is not a win for the creators
Jeff_Brown 2y ago
How can they gain after losing 30% to Apple?
- borski 2y ago
  Relative to not having predictable monthly recurring revenue.
- bluGill 2y ago
  Patreon doesn't lose anything to Apple - they give creators on Patreon a choice - charge Apple users more to cover the 30%, or eat the loss. I don't know what Patreon's take is, they are going to take the same either way. However they know their customers and users will lose from this and it is good for them to look out for their customers (it doesn't costs them much)
  - cyrnel 2y ago
    Customers leave when prices rise above their willingness to pay. Some customers will realize on their own that they can bypass Apple's fee by subscribing through the browser, but most won't (since Apple forbids even mentioning this trick).
    - theturtle32 2y ago
      This, imo is a solid argument for "fine then, we're just gonna pull our app and use mobile web exclusively."
      - bluGill 2y ago
        Only if the users follow. If users decide they won't use the mobile web then patreon and the creators they represent lose. Nobody knows for sure, but there is a general belief that users will not follow (or at least enough won't follow).
        jachee 2y ago
mitthrowaway2 2y ago
Fewer patrons is a likely consequence, which would not be a win.

darknavi 2y ago

Maybe I am missing something but Apple supports consumable purchases. Think any game with purchasable virtual currency. Can't Patreon support a ton of different-priced SKUs and let creators use those SKUs for one-off purchases?

Volundr 2y ago
I think what your missing is that these aren't one-off user initiated purchases. I back a couple of patterns that are a per-video model, so if the content creator produces 2 videos I'm charged 2x $amount that month. If they produce nothing I'm charged nothing. Apple doesn't provide a way of doing this. In the scenario you described I'd have to monthly count up how many videos said content creator produced and manually submit an order through the app... And users aren't going to do that. Hell, I'm not going to do that.
- darknavi 2y ago
  Ah yeah. I definitely was not aware that's how it worked. I was thinking user-initiated purchases, not purchase-on-demand.
mattstir 2y ago
That's distinct from the existing per-creation billing in a few ways, with the most obvious being that the existing method is automated while consumable purchases require user input. Trying to create a SKU for every possible per-creation price is also just incredibly janky and hacky in a fundamental way that would never scale and would probably make accounting next to impossible.

meagher 2y ago

Where did you read that? I worked at Patreon from 2018-2021 and per creation was a much smaller group than recurring during that time at least. (Think per creation was even disabled as an option for new sign-ups for a while.)

burkaman 2y ago
I'm surprised to hear this, I thought it was the main selling point of Patreon. I have per-creation subscriptions to a few people on Patreon who produce very high-quality stuff very infrequently, and I will probably cancel if they are forced to switch to monthly billing. Their stuff is great, but not so great that I'm willing to sign up for a monthly fee that I forget about and then realize 3 years later that they've stopped making stuff.
- kalleboo 2y ago
  I don't follow one-off creators like that, to me the selling point of Patreon was that I could support 20 different creators each with $1-$2/mo, with 4000+ fans in aggregate it supported their lifestyle. And by billing monthly, it meant that the card fees were spread among all the creators so that 50% of the $1 didn't go to the bank/VISA, basically making microtransactions feasible. They're also killing the once-a-month billing so that use case is also gone. I'm not sure who Patreon is for anymore.
  - paulryanrogers 2y ago
    IIRC, Patreon now passes along full transaction costs to every creator, even if behind the scenes they may be consolidating transactions.
jprete 2y ago
I don't have the source anymore, but it was an article about why Patreon is successful and other similar platforms/systems aren't. The per-creation billing option was described as a way for creators to create on their own schedule without having a moral or business requirement to produce enough content every month to justify a subscription. (The business requirement coming from the problem of one-month paying subscribers getting much more value than the creator can afford to give away at that price.)

trollied 2y ago

The thing most aren’t thinking about is that per-creation billing is an absolute nightmare, and I don’t blame Apple for not supporting it. Can’t even begin to imagine the support nightmare/chargebacks etc. It’s not all about the 30% cut. If it was easy and trouble free, they would support it. Imagine what a great time apps would have if Apple let them charge you an amount whenever they wanted, without user authorisation?

makeitdouble 2y ago
> charge you an amount whenever they wanted, without user authorisation? It's a simple matter of user communication: you make it clear from the start that the billing will be unpredictable, and potentially provide a ceiling for monthly bills to let the user stop if it goes out of hand. I follow per creation billing creators and it's fine. Amazon also offers an option to auto buy new volumes of a series. The customer not knowing in advance how much they'll be billed isn't common, but it's not complex in itself.
guyfromfargo 2y ago
[dead]

egypturnash 2y ago

Patreon has been trying to kill it for like half the time I've been using Patreon. They haven't offered it as an option for new campaigns for years, and their last redesign completely removed what little data was available in the web UI - you wanna know how much money you can expect? Download a CSV and do it yourself, we can't be bothered to give you even the simplest data of "your next three posts will be worth $x, $y, and $z" any more. I am pretty sure there were people at Patreon who said "Oh god finally we have an excuse to kick everyone off this damn thing". The writing's on the wall for this model, no Patreon clone ever offers it, and I sure do not want to cobble together my own version out of Wordpress plugins, or get involved in making a Patreon-like that does offer it and recapitulating the whole growth cycle of "oh god nazis are using my platform, what do I do about it" to "oh god now I have to make enough money to pay all these moderators" to "oh god we're big enough for the payment processors to notice how much porn we have and tell us to stop", and finally to "oh sweet fuck we're big enough for Apple to inform us that we must pay their tithe or leave iOS, are we big enough to hook up with Epic Games's suits". Although if anyone on HN looks at that last paragraph of Growth Problems and says "sign me right the fuck up, convincing a bunch of VC money that they want to support the arts by running a Patreon-like at a loss for a decade and taking a couple tenths of a percent off of the top of the money flowing from fans to creators through my pipe sounds like a great way to spend a few years of my life", hey, I'll gladly give you input on your MVC, maybe even draw some art for your site or something.

sa-code 2y ago
Off topic: this was really entertaining to read, thanks
- egypturnash 2y ago
  Thanks! If you think that last paragraph sounds like fun I be delighted to accept a lucrative position on the advisory board for this enterprise. :)
mvdtnz 2y ago
We can't know if they wanted to kill it because of Apple or for some other reason. I don't see why they would want to kill it if it weren't for Apple.