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The semantics of the word "DONATION" are frankly irrelevant to the discussion. Conceptually, why should a "donation" be any different than a "payment" in regar

The 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 ago
  Taxing individual artists is far worse than stealing from the church lockbox imo.
  - justinclift 2y ago
    Like 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.
jobigoud 2y ago
At best Apple is entitled to 30% of whatever Patreon makes on that Donation, not 30% of the donation itself that's ridiculous.
- DataDive 2y ago
  Why would Apple have to do consider what another company makes? What's that got to do with anything. Not trolling - and I think Apple is greedy here. Still I need pointing out how your arguments is not logical. This is like saying you can only sell your product for a % of someone else profit. Apple should be allowed to charge whatever they want - as long as they don't have monopoly on the process. That is the crux of the problem here. Monopoly is the problem not the percentages.
  - jncfhnb 2y ago
    While Apple’s monopolistic practices should not be legal, it’s simultaneously true that Apple should not be able to inject itself into arrangements like this. It should absolutely illegal for a company to tax your revenues like this.
    - randomdata 2y ago
      Let's assume, for the sake of discussion, all parties involved voluntarily want to give Apple 30%. Why should that be illegal? It seems it only becomes a problem when there is external pressure that where accepting the giving of giving 30% to Apple is seen as the best of a bad situation. But that's what anti-monopolistic efforts are supposed to avoid.
      - jncfhnb 2y ago
        This argument is a poor foundation for legal reasoning. Suppose a guy wants to be a slave? Shouldn’t he have the right to be enslaved? Suppose a guy wants to sell his organs? Shouldn’t he have the right to sell his organs? Well, no, society is much better off with these things blocked off. There are immensely perverse incentives created. The main one here is just straight up collusion because there’s not many distributors by nature. It’s dumb as hell that steam takes as much as it does. It’s not helped by clauses about not charging less elsewhere even if the fees are lower which should also be illegal

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 ago
Taxing individual artists is far worse than stealing from the church lockbox imo.
- justinclift 2y ago
  Like 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.

jobigoud 2y ago

At best Apple is entitled to 30% of whatever Patreon makes on that Donation, not 30% of the donation itself that's ridiculous.

DataDive 2y ago
Why would Apple have to do consider what another company makes? What's that got to do with anything. Not trolling - and I think Apple is greedy here. Still I need pointing out how your arguments is not logical. This is like saying you can only sell your product for a % of someone else profit. Apple should be allowed to charge whatever they want - as long as they don't have monopoly on the process. That is the crux of the problem here. Monopoly is the problem not the percentages.
- jncfhnb 2y ago
  While Apple’s monopolistic practices should not be legal, it’s simultaneously true that Apple should not be able to inject itself into arrangements like this. It should absolutely illegal for a company to tax your revenues like this.
  - randomdata 2y ago
    Let's assume, for the sake of discussion, all parties involved voluntarily want to give Apple 30%. Why should that be illegal? It seems it only becomes a problem when there is external pressure that where accepting the giving of giving 30% to Apple is seen as the best of a bad situation. But that's what anti-monopolistic efforts are supposed to avoid.
    - jncfhnb 2y ago
      This argument is a poor foundation for legal reasoning. Suppose a guy wants to be a slave? Shouldn’t he have the right to be enslaved? Suppose a guy wants to sell his organs? Shouldn’t he have the right to sell his organs? Well, no, society is much better off with these things blocked off. There are immensely perverse incentives created. The main one here is just straight up collusion because there’s not many distributors by nature. It’s dumb as hell that steam takes as much as it does. It’s not helped by clauses about not charging less elsewhere even if the fees are lower which should also be illegal