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Fair is what two consenting adults agree to in the market place. >does anybody want to argue that Apple hosting the Patreon app on iOS provides more value to P

Fair is what two consenting adults agree to in the market place. >does anybody want to argue that Apple hosting the Patreon app on iOS provides more value to Patreon subscribers and creators than the existence of Patreon itself does? I will. If most apple users refuse to go outside the app store for their content, Than clearly they care more about the ease of access than the content itself. I agree that the high proportion t of take between the two firms says a lot about the state of the market. It also says a lot about the users, and what they care about. I think people are shocked by these outcomes because they aren't used to thinking about transaction costs as meaningful. Transfer, trust, and triangulation are critical parts of an exchange, and their costs can be even greater than the good itself.

brigadier132 2y ago
> Fair is what two consenting adults agree to in the market place. This has been known to not be true since capitalism was first conceived. I am the biggest free market capitalism proponent and what apple has on their app store is not free market capitalism, its pure rent seeking. Apple users should be able to decide what software and stores run on the device that they own.
- gretch 2y ago
  > Apple users should be able to decide what software and stores run on the device that they own. They do decide, right when they buy their phone.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - brigadier132 2y ago
    And since we live in a democracy with laws where Apple's current arrangement can be voted to be made illegal, we can also decide to force Apple to open their device ecosystem (which may already be illegal).
    - gretch 2y ago
      Yeah we could. But just because we do, doesn’t mean it’s the right thing or the smart thing to do. Once upon a time alcohol was voted illegal and even now marijuana is federally illegal. I personally think it’s a shame when the government takes something interesting and working and makes it illegal. Patreon could easily not be an app on iOS, but they really want that money, so now the government has to make laws on apple. Doesn’t make sense to me
      - johnnyanmac 2y ago
        do we really call "give us your subscription money or get banned" an "interesting and working" system? That's pretty much peak antitrust fuel there. This is quite literally what Epic spent years in court fighing over.
        gretch 2y ago
        > "give us your subscription money or get banned" This is literally so many businesses. Are you kidding me? Get a membership at a gym. Then stop paying the subscription. And see if they kick you out or not. Or stop paying your netflix bill. See if netflix bans you. Btw, stop paying your patreon, see if you still get the videos. Every subscription business is literally give us your subscription or get banned. I don't care what Epic is fighting in court over. Why is that mega corp the good mega corp? Mcdonalds spent years in court fighting the responsibility to pay for some woman's burns.
      - kristiandupont 2y ago
        >it’s a shame when the government takes something interesting and working and makes it illegal. Do you also think monopolies should be allowed to operate uninterrupted, then?
        gretch 2y ago
        No I don't, but I get the feeling that you missed an assumption in the middle which is that Apple/iOS is a monopoly. It's clear to me Patreon is not forced into having an iOS app. They do so because they think they can make more money. But they could be web only. All of these entities already have a presence on Android + desktop/web and can operate just fine on those. They just want to make more money from the iOS audience.
  - EMIRELADERO 2y ago
    You know that's not what the OP meant. "Apple users should be able to decide what software and stores run on the device that they own." It should be able to be decided while owning it, not before. The point is that a phone that doesn't give the user the same level of control over the software that the manufacturer has simply should not exist. It should not be left to market forces.
    - gretch 2y ago
      Yeah I know that’s not what OP meant. The problem is OP is not fully thinking things through with principles. All these “problems” with walled gardens are well known and consenting adults keep opting into it time and again. I think it’s arrogant to look at a system you aren’t even participating in (can we assume op doesn’t have an iPhone) and say “no those people are doing it wrong”
      - johnnyanmac 2y ago
        I don't like this "you consent to the walled garden" approach for a very simple reason: you can do both. Jailbreaking has existed for over a decade but no one was complaining about the walled garden collapsing. Opening up IOS doesn't mean you need to open up too. The garden isn't going anywher. Take it from an android user that has had choice and google play is still the dominant platform. It's just nice that when/if I need to I can download open source stuff, or games in foreign languages, or just sideload some random apps I tinker with without paying $100 for something I don't plan on releasing to the app store anyway. These are all very niche uses and I don't understand how my existence inconvinences the garden. >I think it’s arrogant to look at a system you aren’t even participating in (can we assume op doesn’t have an iPhone) and say “no those people are doing it wrong” I do it with Russia and North Korea, so call me whatever you want. I'm not just going to dimiss it as "well its their culture" if their culture breaks fundamental principles I was raised on.
        gretch 2y ago
        > I do it with Russia and North Korea, so call me whatever you want. I'm not just going to dimiss it as "well its their culture" if their culture breaks fundamental principles I was raised on. Are you really equating the human rights atrocities of those nations with Apple business practices? Here's the difference - Putin kills people who disagree with him. If you want to leave Russia, people with guns stop you (see East Berlin). And you want to equate that with simply making a choice to not buy an iPhone and buy another phone instead?
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  I agree, under the assumption that users jailbreak their devices. In my mind Apple has zero obligation to enable it maximum leeway to obstruct it. The people don't want they locked down single function phone, they shouldn't buy one.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    >under the assumption that users jailbreak their devices if that didn't void warranty, I'd accept it as a reasonable workaround. But on top of that I'm pretty sure Apple acively fights with jailbreaking and jailbreakers in particular. >In my mind Apple has zero obligation to enable it maximum leeway to obstruct it. They might soon, given DMA. In my mind, Microsoft got dinged for antitrust decades ago and Apple has gone so beyond that line that I'm surprised Europe had to step in before the US. Even Mac OS isn't locked down this hard (helps that it started fundamentally as a BSD fork) so it just tells me this is exploiting its monopoly. >The people don't want they locked down single function phone, they shouldn't buy one. opposite argument works as well. An open world does not stop you from staying in the walled garden. If you really don't want to use anything other than the App store, that's fine. You just miss out on a few apps like you have for 16 years with Android stuff that Apple banned.
danShumway 2y ago
> If most apple users refuse to go outside the app store for their content, Than clearly they care more about the ease of access than the content itself. Does Apple's refusal to allow apps to tell users about lower prices elsewhere make this claim more likely to be true or less likely to be true? If this is a free choice that consumers are making, why does Apple need to hide it from them? I'm reminded of the same arguments that Facebook made about privacy before Apple (very much to their credit) made opt-outs a requirement for apps. And it turned out that lots of users did care about privacy when they were able to make an informed choice about it. Facebook's arguments ended up being mostly crap. Users, when educated and when given valid options, stopped making the choice that Facebook wanted them to make. But now Apple has flipped over to Facebook's line of reasoning and is arguing the opposite. I think your argument would have more weight if Apple didn't consistently demonstrate aggression and fear over their users being informed about the effects of app store fees. In this case, the vast majority of Patreon subscriptions for most users are going to become 30% more expensive. Apple appears to have an incredibly high vested interest in it not being explained to them why that happened. That doesn't sound to me like Apple itself is confident that users value their app store enough to pay that fee willingly.
- jcranmer 2y ago
  This is kind of the crux of the matter to me. Apple, in this instance, is basically a credit card with a 30% transaction fee, and it's using its dominance in the mobile phone market to force everyone who uses their phone (via their app store policies) to use their credit cards instead of ones with 3% transaction fees, which is pretty classic behavior outlawed by antitrust legislation.
- dwaite 2y ago
  > Does Apple's refusal to allow apps to tell users about lower prices elsewhere make this claim more likely to be true or less likely to be true? If this is a free choice that consumers are making, why does Apple need to hide it from them? In many markets, Apple does let a dev link users to external payments options. But the dev agreed to basically pay Apple an origination fee to publish an iOS app in their store. They require a dev to track purchases made on that external system and pay a (slightly reduced) fee. You agreed to be audited to make sure you are making the proper payments. You may have to pay Apple a cut in more scenarios since the payment system is no longer cleanly isolated. In-app purchasing is not an expensive credit card processor. It is Apple’s simplest method of collecting their contractually obligated royalties. So this link is not cheaper if you are following your contract. It is cheaper to buy on your site when those users aren’t coming from the app. Note that it can still be worth a dev using an external payments options system for other reasons - it is just that a lot of them are dark patterns. Things like variable rates for different people for dating services, no-consent charging for gambling apps, gathering additional tracking information so you have additional ways to monetize the user, making unsubscribing from a service more difficult than Apple makes it, etc.
hamandcheese 2y ago
> If most apple users refuse to go outside the app store for their content, Than clearly they care more about the ease of access than the content itself. You can't really argue that it's a fair choice when Apple does everything in their power to make going outside their walls a worse experience. Case in point, they hobble WebKit, but also forbid any alternative to WebKit. Are users choosing WebKit? Nope.

brigadier132 2y ago

> Fair is what two consenting adults agree to in the market place. This has been known to not be true since capitalism was first conceived. I am the biggest free market capitalism proponent and what apple has on their app store is not free market capitalism, its pure rent seeking. Apple users should be able to decide what software and stores run on the device that they own.

gretch 2y ago
> Apple users should be able to decide what software and stores run on the device that they own. They do decide, right when they buy their phone.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- brigadier132 2y ago
  And since we live in a democracy with laws where Apple's current arrangement can be voted to be made illegal, we can also decide to force Apple to open their device ecosystem (which may already be illegal).
  - gretch 2y ago
    Yeah we could. But just because we do, doesn’t mean it’s the right thing or the smart thing to do. Once upon a time alcohol was voted illegal and even now marijuana is federally illegal. I personally think it’s a shame when the government takes something interesting and working and makes it illegal. Patreon could easily not be an app on iOS, but they really want that money, so now the government has to make laws on apple. Doesn’t make sense to me
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      do we really call "give us your subscription money or get banned" an "interesting and working" system? That's pretty much peak antitrust fuel there. This is quite literally what Epic spent years in court fighing over.
      - gretch 2y ago
        > "give us your subscription money or get banned" This is literally so many businesses. Are you kidding me? Get a membership at a gym. Then stop paying the subscription. And see if they kick you out or not. Or stop paying your netflix bill. See if netflix bans you. Btw, stop paying your patreon, see if you still get the videos. Every subscription business is literally give us your subscription or get banned. I don't care what Epic is fighting in court over. Why is that mega corp the good mega corp? Mcdonalds spent years in court fighting the responsibility to pay for some woman's burns.
    - kristiandupont 2y ago
      >it’s a shame when the government takes something interesting and working and makes it illegal. Do you also think monopolies should be allowed to operate uninterrupted, then?
      - gretch 2y ago
        No I don't, but I get the feeling that you missed an assumption in the middle which is that Apple/iOS is a monopoly. It's clear to me Patreon is not forced into having an iOS app. They do so because they think they can make more money. But they could be web only. All of these entities already have a presence on Android + desktop/web and can operate just fine on those. They just want to make more money from the iOS audience.
- EMIRELADERO 2y ago
  You know that's not what the OP meant. "Apple users should be able to decide what software and stores run on the device that they own." It should be able to be decided while owning it, not before. The point is that a phone that doesn't give the user the same level of control over the software that the manufacturer has simply should not exist. It should not be left to market forces.
  - gretch 2y ago
    Yeah I know that’s not what OP meant. The problem is OP is not fully thinking things through with principles. All these “problems” with walled gardens are well known and consenting adults keep opting into it time and again. I think it’s arrogant to look at a system you aren’t even participating in (can we assume op doesn’t have an iPhone) and say “no those people are doing it wrong”
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      I don't like this "you consent to the walled garden" approach for a very simple reason: you can do both. Jailbreaking has existed for over a decade but no one was complaining about the walled garden collapsing. Opening up IOS doesn't mean you need to open up too. The garden isn't going anywher. Take it from an android user that has had choice and google play is still the dominant platform. It's just nice that when/if I need to I can download open source stuff, or games in foreign languages, or just sideload some random apps I tinker with without paying $100 for something I don't plan on releasing to the app store anyway. These are all very niche uses and I don't understand how my existence inconvinences the garden. >I think it’s arrogant to look at a system you aren’t even participating in (can we assume op doesn’t have an iPhone) and say “no those people are doing it wrong” I do it with Russia and North Korea, so call me whatever you want. I'm not just going to dimiss it as "well its their culture" if their culture breaks fundamental principles I was raised on.
      - gretch 2y ago
        > I do it with Russia and North Korea, so call me whatever you want. I'm not just going to dimiss it as "well its their culture" if their culture breaks fundamental principles I was raised on. Are you really equating the human rights atrocities of those nations with Apple business practices? Here's the difference - Putin kills people who disagree with him. If you want to leave Russia, people with guns stop you (see East Berlin). And you want to equate that with simply making a choice to not buy an iPhone and buy another phone instead?
s1artibartfast 2y ago
I agree, under the assumption that users jailbreak their devices. In my mind Apple has zero obligation to enable it maximum leeway to obstruct it. The people don't want they locked down single function phone, they shouldn't buy one.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >under the assumption that users jailbreak their devices if that didn't void warranty, I'd accept it as a reasonable workaround. But on top of that I'm pretty sure Apple acively fights with jailbreaking and jailbreakers in particular. >In my mind Apple has zero obligation to enable it maximum leeway to obstruct it. They might soon, given DMA. In my mind, Microsoft got dinged for antitrust decades ago and Apple has gone so beyond that line that I'm surprised Europe had to step in before the US. Even Mac OS isn't locked down this hard (helps that it started fundamentally as a BSD fork) so it just tells me this is exploiting its monopoly. >The people don't want they locked down single function phone, they shouldn't buy one. opposite argument works as well. An open world does not stop you from staying in the walled garden. If you really don't want to use anything other than the App store, that's fine. You just miss out on a few apps like you have for 16 years with Android stuff that Apple banned.

danShumway 2y ago

> If most apple users refuse to go outside the app store for their content, Than clearly they care more about the ease of access than the content itself. Does Apple's refusal to allow apps to tell users about lower prices elsewhere make this claim more likely to be true or less likely to be true? If this is a free choice that consumers are making, why does Apple need to hide it from them? I'm reminded of the same arguments that Facebook made about privacy before Apple (very much to their credit) made opt-outs a requirement for apps. And it turned out that lots of users did care about privacy when they were able to make an informed choice about it. Facebook's arguments ended up being mostly crap. Users, when educated and when given valid options, stopped making the choice that Facebook wanted them to make. But now Apple has flipped over to Facebook's line of reasoning and is arguing the opposite. I think your argument would have more weight if Apple didn't consistently demonstrate aggression and fear over their users being informed about the effects of app store fees. In this case, the vast majority of Patreon subscriptions for most users are going to become 30% more expensive. Apple appears to have an incredibly high vested interest in it not being explained to them why that happened. That doesn't sound to me like Apple itself is confident that users value their app store enough to pay that fee willingly.

jcranmer 2y ago
This is kind of the crux of the matter to me. Apple, in this instance, is basically a credit card with a 30% transaction fee, and it's using its dominance in the mobile phone market to force everyone who uses their phone (via their app store policies) to use their credit cards instead of ones with 3% transaction fees, which is pretty classic behavior outlawed by antitrust legislation.
dwaite 2y ago
> Does Apple's refusal to allow apps to tell users about lower prices elsewhere make this claim more likely to be true or less likely to be true? If this is a free choice that consumers are making, why does Apple need to hide it from them? In many markets, Apple does let a dev link users to external payments options. But the dev agreed to basically pay Apple an origination fee to publish an iOS app in their store. They require a dev to track purchases made on that external system and pay a (slightly reduced) fee. You agreed to be audited to make sure you are making the proper payments. You may have to pay Apple a cut in more scenarios since the payment system is no longer cleanly isolated. In-app purchasing is not an expensive credit card processor. It is Apple’s simplest method of collecting their contractually obligated royalties. So this link is not cheaper if you are following your contract. It is cheaper to buy on your site when those users aren’t coming from the app. Note that it can still be worth a dev using an external payments options system for other reasons - it is just that a lot of them are dark patterns. Things like variable rates for different people for dating services, no-consent charging for gambling apps, gathering additional tracking information so you have additional ways to monetize the user, making unsubscribing from a service more difficult than Apple makes it, etc.

hamandcheese 2y ago

> If most apple users refuse to go outside the app store for their content, Than clearly they care more about the ease of access than the content itself. You can't really argue that it's a fair choice when Apple does everything in their power to make going outside their walls a worse experience. Case in point, they hobble WebKit, but also forbid any alternative to WebKit. Are users choosing WebKit? Nope.