Jon Gruber, on the recent news that Apple is demanding a 30% cut of fan payments in the Patreon app (read about it here):
“How do you put a price on the number of Patreon iOS users — who are all, by definition, Apple customers — whose view of Apple will shift from “Apple is a company that supports small indie creators and artists” to “Apple is a company that uses its position of power to extract exorbitant rent from small indie creators and artists” because of this change?
I’ve been a Mac user since 2003, so that’s 20 years. I had an iBook laptop, and marveled that I could take it to a Borders book store and surf the web.
I had a U2 iPod, and bought songs via iTunes.
If I remember correctly, I stood in line for a 3G iPhone at the Apple Store on 5th Ave.
I bought several more Apple laptops – at least five or six, and now own a M3 MacBook Pro which I love.
Apple’s “services” category (stuff like Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Care) reached $24.2 billion last quarter. Not year, but it took just three months for Apple to make just over $24,000,000,000 on digital goods.
And now, well, they need more. Like I said, growth is cancer. There must always be more money to squeeze, and now they’re going after the somewhat beloved Patreon.
This only applies to new subscriptions in the iOS app, so at least for now, direct your fans to sign up on the web.
As Derek Sivers wrote in ‘Use the Internet, Not Companies,’
“It’s so important and easy to have your own website. Instead of sending your fans to some company’s site, send them to yours. Get everyone’s direct contact information, so you don’t have to go through any one company to reach them.”
It was true seven years ago, it’s even more true today.
