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Tim Sweeney: " Now Apple is demanding a 30% cut of all Patreon DONATIONS
- kgbcia 2y agoTime for that breakup
- DataDive 2y agoIt made me wonder, is supporting an author on Patreon ever a "DONATION"? If you derive satisfaction from a product, expect someone to produce it, and support that process, then it is a purchase regardless of what someone calls it.
- jawns 2y agoYou're completely correct. It's a voluntary tip, but it still counts toward a person's income. It's totally different than donating to a 501(c)(3) charity.
- dzhiurgis 2y agoDamn. 30% to apple, 30% to patreon, 30% to government that leaves you with 0.7^3 = 0.343 = 34.3%.
- lnxg33k1 2y agoThat is for the landlord
- stahtops 2y agoDamn. 30% to apple, 30% to patreon, 30% to government that leaves you with 0.7^3 = 0.343 = 34.3%. I mean pretty much every part of this is incorrect. Lets say they are single in the USA and made $150k on Patreon: (12% * 47150)+(22% * (100525-47151)) + (24% * (150000-100526)) = $29,3000 -> 20% <https://support.patreon.com/hc/article_attachments/28849202071565 https://support.patreon.com/hc/article_attachments/288492020...> WEB * $10.00 sale -> $0.80 Patreon + 0.59 Fee, $0.00 to Apple, $6.89 to creator, $1.72 to gov't [FED] * $10.00 sale -> $0.80 Patreon + 0.59 Fee, $0.00 to Apple, $6.02 to creator, $2.58 to gov't [FED+10% State] IAP + default price bump * $14.50 sale -> $1.15 Patreon + 0.00 Fee, $4.35 to Apple, $7.19 to creator, $1.80 to gov't [FED] * $14.50 sale -> $1.16 Patreon + 0.00 Fee, $4.35 to Apple, $6.29 to creator, $2.70 to gov't [FED+10% State] Users who care about the cost increase will go to the website. The others will pay in app and be stoked that they can just go to one place to cancel any iOS subscription. If they use their Apple Card, they can literally click any transaction in the Wallet app to see exactly what sub they were charged for.
- Terretta 2y ago> stoked that they can just go to one place to cancel any iOS subscription So much of these anti-console anti-appliance threads boil down to: Value-adding experiences consumers want enough to pay for (such as peace of mind that anything bought here can be cancelled no questions asked) should be prohibited, because I don't want to offer that experience.
- lern_too_spel 2y agoIf consumers really want to pay that much more for that convenience, why won't Apple allow the merchant to say that the price is lower elsewhere?
- Jensson 2y agoApple is allowed to offer that feature, Apple isn't allowed to force you to buy that feature (depending on jurisdiction).
- warkdarrior 2y agoIf you pay after you receive and consume the product in full, I'd call it a donation (unless the creator plans to send your debt to collections.)
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- high_na_euv 2y agoI dont think it is purchase because there is no guarantee/promise that you will receive anything (usually)
- xz18r 2y agoIn reality it does often offer perks (seeing creative work before release, exclusive behind the scenes stuff, etc.) so I think you can see that as a purchase, no?
- frumper 2y agoBelonging to a church often has perks, yet we don't consider offerings purchases. I do think some Patreons are setup closer to a shops, but not all.
- RIMR 2y agoWe probably should tax churches, since many churches require tithing and offer a pretty outstanding benefit for membership. It's hardly a donation when you're donating to an establishment central to your everyday life. It's basically a social club that gets a pass on taxes because they believe in magic.
- gpm 2y agoIsn't patreon basically always "pay in order to access (current and future) paywalled content"? And while there may not be (or may be) a promise of future content, there is current content.
- mrgoldenbrown 2y agoIf I give money to the apache foundation am I "buying" software or donating? Some of the artists I support post everything they make outside the paywall and just use patreon as a convenient tip jar.
- gpm 2y ago
- ncr100 2y agoIDK > If you derive satisfaction Semantically, would The Church also qualify, (if it weren't already legally exempted)? You take yourself to the church, talk to the church people, they tell you things, you think and behave in Their mental framework, you feel better in your life, deriving satisfaction.
- adolph 2y agoOftentimes a 501(c)3's receipt will include a "fair market" value of whatever benefit the donor got. When religion gets reclassified as 501(c)3, I wonder how they will do receipts. Officient salaries / (number of services * average participation) = FMV
- mminer237 2y agoChurches are already 501(c)(3)s
- adolph 2y agoThis is an nuanced topic that might not be worth going into. The IRS automatically considers a church as tax exempt under 501(c)3. However, churches do not have to apply for that status (although some/many do), and do not have to follow IRS annual filing rules.[0] 0. https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/churches-integrated-auxiliaries-and-conventions-or-associations-of-churches https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/churches-integrate...
- akira2501 2y ago> is supporting an author on Patreon ever a "DONATION"? It depends. Is the author giving away content for free or is it paywalled? There are both types of authors using patreon. > then it is a purchase regardless of what someone calls it. I'm comfortable saying that the authors who give it away for free and ask for donations are, in fact, receiving donations.
- DataDive 2y agowhen you donate, you are not the one who personally receives the benefit, right? if you donate a car, you are not also using that car every once in a while. to me that is the main distinction, who is benefiting from making that monetary contribution otherwise, it is just an issue of timing, did I pay up front or later after a tried and liked the product
- mcphage 2y ago> when you donate, you are not the one who personally receives the benefit, right? if you donate a car, you are not also using that car every once in a while. If you donate to a church, you often also enjoy the perks that that church offers, paid for by donations. If you donate to a public radio station, you probably also enjoy listening to that radio station.
- mrgoldenbrown 2y agoI absolutely personally benefit when I donate to a web comic artist and they are able to continue making comics that I enjoy reading via my RSS feed. I don't consider this a purchase.
- pessimizer 2y agoUsing the word "product" is begging the question. You could just as easily say: "If you derive satisfaction from an series of artistic works, and you know the person who creates those artistic works, and you decide to send money to support that person..." ----- edit: and this is closer to the reality, because plenty of people subscribe to someone's patreon (or donate to them in other ways) for "products" that they have already consumed, or because they want other people to consume those products. For an example of the latter: when financing journalists with mostly or completely open newsletters on substack. People generally aren't paying journalists because they want to read exciting stories. They're paying journalists because they want certain stories and types of stories to be investigated and written. They're not people who are paying to consume.
- adam_arthur 2y agoThe semantics of the word "DONATION" are frankly irrelevant to the discussion. Conceptually, why should a "donation" be any different than a "payment" in regards to the Apple tax? Regardless of their current legal agreement attempts to disambiguate these, they are conceptually quite the same. In one case you receive a good, in another you receive good-will. Should Apple be entitled to 30% of these voluntary payments? Some of you will say "yes", but I'd bet pretty strongly the vast majority of the public would say "no". And legislation will follow eventually, in my opinion, despite the US government/courts moving very slowly here. Continued acts like these will only move up the timeline and increase the number of lawsuits which will eventually tip against Apple.
- DataDive 2y ago> The semantics of the word "DONATION" are frankly irrelevant to the discussion. I don't think the word DONATION is irrelevant at all. Tim Sweeney is using the word "DONATION" deliberately to make Apple look like someone that steals even the "donations". You know like someone stealing from the church lockbox. I am not supporting Apple here at all, I am just pointing out the attempt to manipulate public opinion.
- jncfhnb 2y agoTaxing individual artists is far worse than stealing from the church lockbox imo.
- justinclift 2y agoLike people sometimes ask "if money is the root of all evil, why does the church want it so much?". :)
- wpm 2y ago>Should Apple be entitled to 30% of these voluntary payments? Apple believes so, because Apple is so arrogant as to think that the payment wouldn't have occurred had it not been for their hard work on the platform. It's false, of course. It'd be like Bell Telephone asking for a cut of your profits because you negotiated a business deal over the phone. Or the cell phone carriers forcing you to pay them $7 for a 20-second ringtone. We traded one villain for another.
- efsavage 2y agoIt possibly could be, if they were organized as a non-profit that paid them a reasonable salary (which is probably an overambitious goal for most authors). After all, IKEA is a non-profit.
- SahAssar 2y agoComparing almost any corporate structure to IKEA is like comparing a children's alphabet book to the tower of babel. IKEA is a non profit owned by for profits partially owned by non-profits owned by dutch companies that license IP from Irish companies (who license it from IoS (IKEA of Sweden) in a small Swedish village called älmhult) owned by non-physical, non-personal entities that are "legal residents in Switzerland" that might or might not be controlled by certain people named Kamprad (in non-exclusive partnerships with other interested parties that might be controlled by companies owned by said dutch companies). And after that we have the whole ROIG, INKGA, etc. structures.
- ncr100 2y agoMore discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41224853 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41224853
- ChrisArchitect 2y ago[dupe] Discussion on official post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41224853 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41224853
- ElevenLathe 2y agoAll I can think of when I read about things like this in the App Store is one of my first jobs: I was a busboy at a country club. Waiters would get tipped (usually pretty generously, as these were wealthy people who were repeat customers and developed relationships with the wait staff over many years), and they would usually in turn tip out the bussers pretty generously too. Until one day, when tipping was "replaced" by a 15% "service fee" that was tacked onto the bill. This was sold to members as a convenience: rather than need to carry cash to tip the waiter, you can sign for it and take care of it with your monthly bill. This was misleading because the "service fee" did not go to the waiters (or the bussers), but instead was simply kept by the business office. To make this all legal, we did all get a raise to the actual minimum wage (rather than the "tipped" minimum wage). This was still a big wage cut, and they lost most of their long-time staff, leading to huge churn. I left shortly after this happened for a better job, but the club closed down completely a couple years later (after 80+ years in operation). I suspect but can't prove that these things are related -- most likely they drank the waiters' milkshakes out of desperation, knowing they were eating their seed corn (to mix a metaphor).
- somenameforme 2y agoI'm quite curious if there is some tenet of MBAology that essentially comes down to a more sophisticated version of 'ignore the side effects and likely future consequences of your actions.' It's so weird seeing so many companies just implode by carrying out actions that are negative to the point of verging on antagonistic towards their employees and customers.
- JohnMakin 2y agoI don't know, but it seems pretty easy to come up with a theory here - a large portion of executive compensation is from company stock, and short term actions that drive up the value of that stock will always be preferred, because as long as they aren't holding the proverbial hot potato when the thing collapses, they'll be fine - (and likely even if they are left holding it, they'll be fine - golden parachutes and all that). So people making the decisions tend to incentivize the things that will maximize the return for their time.
- crazygringo 2y agoAs someone out of the loop -- what changed that they weren't before? I'm not interested in whether this is good or bad, I just want to know -- why now? I thought all of these app store policies had been established for many years now.
- simlevesque 2y agoThere are policies and then there is enforcement.
- marcosdumay 2y agoThey did change the terms of the app store a few months ago to say they are entitled to a cut. It was a big story. And they did change their posture now in that they started demanding the payment. What prompted the change on the term was a decision on one of those monopoly investigations. But I can't remember if it was the US or the EU one.
- arghwhat 2y agoHow dare they take creator income! That was Patreon’s job! Patreon takes 8% fee + 2.5% currency conversion fee + 2.9%-5% and 0.1-0.3 USD transaction fee. That, and everything you create on any platform will need to live up to their requirements to not get kicked off. Crooks, all of them.
- jobigoud 2y agoBut clearly Patreon is the market maker here. Apple should only get 30% of Patreon's 8%.
- arghwhat 2y agoI wouldn’t call Patreon a market maker - it’s closer to PayPal than being a content site. You don’t find creators on Patreon and interact with them there, you find them elsewhere and have them point you to Patreon for one-time or subscription payments. The issue is not in how the fee is calculated, it is jusy that both Patreon and Apple have far too high fees. Having the EU shake this up at least the Apple side is great.
- squigz 2y agoPersonally, I've never found Patreon's fees to be unreasonable. Would it be nice if it were less? Sure, but the platform needs to make money too.
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- DueDilligence 2y ago[dead]
- paxys 2y agoIf it isn't going to a nonprofit it isn't a donation. Call it tip or "set your own price" or whatever else, but donation is not the word.
- jncfhnb 2y agoSo if I give ten dollars to a guy begging for money that’s not a donation because he didn’t register as a non profit?
- inerte 2y agoYes. It's a gift, not a donation. You can't write off $10 to the homeless. In the giver's mind it's a donation but not technically afaik.
- jncfhnb 2y agoAnd why are you asserting the technical tax framework is relevant here?
- esquivalience 2y agoThe concept of 'gift' is inherent in the meaning of donation and has been understood that way for centuries: https://www.etymonline.com/word/donate#etymonline_v_31787 https://www.etymonline.com/word/donate#etymonline_v_31787
- 3np 2y agoDo you similarly hold that Nix v. Hedden decided whether we can refer to a tomatos as fruit or vegetable? Words can have different specific meaning in different specific contexts. Even within the legal context of one country, you may for example be "a resident" by immigration law while "not a resident" by tax law, or vice-versa. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nix_v._Hedden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nix_v._Hedden
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- tibbydudeza 2y agoAll your base are belong to us - play the Apple game and pay the piper.
- sureIy 2y agoDon’t forget that this is the same Epic Games guy who recently said that tracking thieves via Find My is creepy.[1] Dude’s still sour that Apple didn’t let him get away with breaking App Store rules and that judges sided with Apple too. Note that “donations” are taxable income, so Apple is not out of their element for doing this. [1]: https://x.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1818258637413835199
- justin66 2y ago> Don’t forget that this is the same Epic Games guy who recently said that tracking thieves via Find My is creepy How... ridiculous? And totally relevant to the subject at hand?
- mvdtnz 2y agoThere's absolutely no context on the tweet which seems to be a continuation of a conversation non-logged in users can't access. It's impossible for anyone without a twitter account to understand what you're talking about.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoBreak up Apple (and Google and Microsoft and Amazon). Heavily tax all trillion dollar corporations. Regulate their services as utilities.
- otterley 2y agoKeep in mind that Tim Sweeney doesn't care about the public; he cares about Tim Sweeney. At the end of the day, the purpose of this controversy is to get Epic Games the money that Apple is collecting instead. Customers won't win, and are merely pawns in this battle. So, anything he says should be treated with the skepticism it deserves. He's no hero, and shouldn't be treated as one.
- lern_too_spel 2y agoIf Sweeney wins here, consumers win. Creators keep more donations, and patrons increase their support for the same cost. I don't think you'll find anybody who says they'll side with Sweeney no matter what, so your point doesn't seem relevant.
- HDThoreaun 2y agoNo one cares about the public. Everyone is looking out for themselves. Life is about finding people whose interests align with your own.
- otterley 2y agoThere are a lot of people who care about the public, from social workers to teachers to city planners to the Dalai Lama. Let’s not be overly cynical here.
- DoreenMichele 2y agoSort of a dupe. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41224853 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41224853
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Dowwie 2y agoso just use a browser rather than an app
- smsm42 2y agoSo why would anybody use patreon as app at all? Normal website still works, doesn't it?
- htk 2y agoThe discussion on Apple's cut is important, but calling Patreon charges as "donations" is just disingenuous by Sweeney, as always.
- braza 2y agoAs someone who saw the DoJ and some European regulation authorities in the 90s it is bonkers to see how Apple operates ruthlessly in their ecosystem and how the regulators are sleeping in the wheel about how harmful this company is to the creativity industry (e.g. indie games, creators, etc).