Comment by silvestrov
5 hours ago
You could make the argument that Patreon isn't much more than a banking app.
It just focuses on the receiver of the money than the sender.
I think Apple is slowly killing apps with this policy. Everybody will slowly move to "web only" as 30% would kill their ability to compete with anybody else. This will likely be much stronger in countries where iPhones do not have the same market share as in the US.
> Everybody will slowly move to "web only" as 30% would kill their ability to compete with anybody else.
This is why Apple makes PWAs so miserable in Safari and disallows other browsers unless they're just Safari with lipstick.
You couldn't make that argument because Patreon is also a platform to host content, not just send money. If it was something like a twitch donation app the argument would make more sense
Apple users seem to be fine with everything being much more expensive. Not only the 30% apple tax itself, developers know Apple users pay more and specify higher prices on Apple.
30% is also the cut google takes on the google play store. This is not an apple only issue. This is a regulatory one.
Google allows out–of–store installation (for now...) so it's much easier to argue there's competition. Apps installed through F–Droid don't have this tax.
> Everybody will slowly move to "web only" as 30% would kill their ability to compete with anybody else.
Frankly, yes, please. I mean, I'm biased as my whole career is in web app development, but there are so many things these days that do not need a whole native app. They're just communicating with a server backend somewhere, using none of the unique native functionality of the phone (much of which is available in browser APIs these days anyway). I can block ads in a web app much more easily. It's much harder to do customer-hostile things like block screenshots in a web app.
Native apps definitely have a place, but I think they're very overused, mostly for reasons that benefit the business at the expense of the customer.
> I think they're very overused
I disagree, native apps on iOS have important abilities that no web application can match. The inability to control cache long-term is alone a dealbreaker if trying to create an experience with minimal friction.
Service workers allow you to control cache in web apps; you may be a bit out of date.
There are hardware APIs for some stuff that only works in native (cors, raw tcp), but 99% of apps don't need those.
Those same elevated controls are used to steal PII and sell to data brokers. Again, it's the companies that are trying to force apps on their users. If it were genuinely a much better UX, they wouldn't have to do that.
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Apple makes sure it's not practical.
You still can't have a "share to" target that is a web app on iOS. And the data your can store in local storage on safari is a joke.
Of course, forget about background tasks and integrated notifications.
In fact, even on Android you miss features with web apps, like widgets for quick actions, mapping actions to buttons and so on.
And no matter how good you cache things, the mobile browser will unload the app, and you will always get this friction when you load the web app on the new render you don't have on regular apps.
Service workers solve the cache issue; web apps can run permanently offline after initial load. You may be a bit out of date on the state of the web.
> You could make the argument that Patreon isn't much more than a banking app.
Don't give them any ideas.
Next up, Apple starts taking a cut of every money transfer you do with your banking app.
Isn't that exactly what this is? Except they're targeting a single app.
Honestly I wouldn't be that shocked if Apple tried demanding a 30% royalty on bank deposits and bills paid using iPhone apps. They've decided the future of their company depends on being huge assholes about it.
I would be surprised by that because iPhone users would notice that. I think the App Store model relies on their fee being invisible to consumers, and the increased price you’re paying not being linked to them. AFAIK apps aren’t allowed to explain that they charge more if you subscribe on iPhone to users either, or why they do so.
True, hard for bank deposits where the user sees both ends of the transaction.
For bill payments though, they'd just insist on taking 30% of your electric bill payment and if the electric company's margins aren't high enough to absorb that then "Haha that sounds like a you problem" - Tim Cook, probably
Apps are allowed to link to web services to offer payment as an alternative to IAPs and offer a discount for doing so, thanks to Apple v Epic.
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When you use Apple Pay, Apple collects ~0.15% (15 bps) from the issuing banks for credit. $1B in transaction volume = $1.5M
In 2022 the total volume was estimated at $6T * .15% = $9B. Real number would be maybe half due to lower fees on debit, but it's hugely profitable for Apple, and carries zero risk.
They'd much rather have 30%.
Something interesting is that Apple and Google Pay charge a tiny commission (don't have the number at hand). Which banks didn't like, so at least on Android they created their own NFC payment stacks for a while. Only to then discover that maintaining such a stack cost them more per year than the commission.
I think Google Pay does not charge a fee.