Apple to soon take up to 30% cut from all Patreon creators in iOS app
(macrumors.com)1103 points by pier25 4 days ago
1103 points by pier25 4 days ago
Many banks require you to two-factor authenticate with an app on your phone.
Never.
Popular apps have been exempt from these rules since the beginning of time - not that I agree with this.
If their app didn’t exist on iOS,
would it be weird/embarrassing for Apple?
That’s what “popular” means, in this context.
That’s how they make their decisions.
They will, the moment your bank starts selling media inside the app.
Some countries still charge for SMS. That's why WhatsApp is so popular in many places of the world.
in a lot EU countries, still today telco contracts are marketed with "...and unlimited number of SMS into all networks..."
Its still widely used :-D
There's basically two mobile worlds in India. The middle class has mobile plans basically like the rest of the world, while the poor (especially the rural poor but also to some extent the urban poor) have a pay-per-use account that also functions as their bank. So sending a text might cost 2 rupees, and an MMS might cost 6.
Honestly… if we implemented $0.01 charge on every message, post and etc. the world would become an amazing place.
1. This would not deter bad actors in any way, spammers already have no issue paying for junk mail. An 0.01 cost means nothing if the action they're taking generates more than 0.01 for them (it generally does). In fact this essentially incentivizes bad actors; you get punished for not profiting off your messages, so people would be more inclined to find ways to monetize their posts.
2. The costs for this would be ridiculous. I have probably sent over a million public messages on Discord in the decade I've been using it. $10,000 is a pretty steep fee to do some chatting.
3. This is essentially a digital ID scheme with extra steps, and requires ceding privacy completely to communicate on the internet.
I understand your comment was probably an off-hand joke and not to be taken seriously but if you think about it for very long it becomes apparent that it would actually make the problem worse.
It costs to mail physical letters, somehow I still get "spam" addressed to homeowner/resident in my physical mailbox.
Today out of curiosity, I tried looking at what is the cost of one PVA (Pre-verified account) of google. I found it to be around ~$0.03 (3 cents) or it could be an amazon account idk or maybe an youtube account
Like my point is that atleast for amazon/yt, these bots usually cost this much ~$0.03 to buy once.
Then we probably see a scammer buy many of these accounts and then (rent it?) on their own website/telegram groups to promtoe views/ratings etc./ comment with the porn ridden bots that we saw on youtube who will copy any previous comment and paste it and so on.
So technically these still cost 3 cents & scammers are happily paying the rate.
Take from the poorest to give to the richest of the rich -- that is the new way of doing business.
I feel like I've just watched a man in a $4000 suit wresting the change jar out of the hands of a homeless person
Me? I'm working to help people get elected to Congress to help regulate this mess.
True but people need to understand there is a wide public acceptance on this issue. No one likes big tech fleecing both users and businesses alike, people want action. If you aren't collectively organizing to exert toward this action how do you honestly expect things to get better? Because the opposition has no issue throwing hundreds of millions behind a super pac to enact the law as they see fit.
It doesn't have to be like this.
Also, contrary to current political environments, Congress is more than capable of doing multiple things as once.
Why would you want to give the government such power? That always amazes me... when there is an issue, people jump on "let's vote for government to regulate this", but then they are surprised when a new government gets to power and uses this new regulation/capability against you.
>Why would you want to give the government such power?
Because the government is the only body equipped to create and enforce consumer rights laws. Do you think we'd have refund policies if the government didn't regulate them?
>then they are surprised when a new government gets to power and uses this new regulation/capability against you.
Okay. How is the act of forbidding platforms from banning alternative payment processors going to backfire?
I want them to use antitrust regulation against everyone, including me. That's what having values is like.
Markets without competition degenerate. Markets are also artificial and always rely on government enforcement to exist - Apple sues people who try to get around its market manipulation. You just prefer that governments help enforce trusts and destroy competition that those trusts denote as unfair.
https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/media/1344546/dl?inline
Apple is already getting sued by the DOJ for their abusive business practices. They should be regulated.
Google is also making Sideloading harder "to protect users"
Walled garden is marketing speak.
Its a walled prison
Can we please just have cheap/affordable linux phones at this point.
I am so close to having raspberry pi phones but even rasp pi 's are getting expensive because of AI dammit
What's the big barrier stopping Linux from becoming a viable mobile OS? Or at least some completely de-googlefied AOSP?
Hardware. Mass manufacturing, plus the deep pockets of a corporation, mean that we've come to expect cheap prices for inanely powerful hardware. Yes I'm calling an $1,800 iphone cheap for what you get. That's cheap for what you get because if you're a tiny company, you can't get a phone of that level manufactured that you can still for anywhere near that price, and that's a super high end model. How many people are going to shell out $1,000 for a model with the specs of a $500 model just because it runs Linux? And that's before you even actually deal with the software. Specifically, driver support, battery life, and app support are the three big show stoppers there. The best option this second is a Pixel running GrapheneOS, and that's based on Android on Goolge hardware. (They did just announce getting off Pixels tho.)
A Linux smartphone has been tried before. That's not too say someone shouldn't try again, but just to say there are lessons to be learned from those attempts.
GrapheneOS is already a viable de-Googled and significantly hardened and improved fork of AOSP. It runs on Google Pixels at present, with an OEM device planned for release in 2027.
I guess yeah, Most of my concerns were with Privacy but yea looks like grapheneos is a tradeoff I might have to make some day
but honestly its also the fact that I love cli tools and yea I can and I have used termux in the past but I really wish for a more first class for cli tools as well and I don't know but I just really wish to support linux tools.
Like I am just not satisfied with the current options we have right now and you can look at fragmede's comment as to why I mean that. I mean I just want a cheap affordable linux phone with just decent specs nothing too fancy. By decent I mean that I used to be on a dumb phone for a year with 32 mb ram iirc so perhaps my specs can be considered to be minimal but I feel like 2-4GB ram might be a good start. (prefer the 4gb option as to favour both me anad the masses)
Can framework or some other company go ahead and create a linux phone too please?
It is more clunky and less polished than android. On the other hand, it is far more secure.
I was a user of android for 15+ years, and I had been using a pixel 4a when the battery issue came up last year. Google handled that so terribly I bought a used pixel 7a and installed Graphene.
Installation is quite easy. The lack of native voice-to-text was a pain; I installed a 3rd party utility (FUTO) for that, but unlike the native one where it translates while you talk, FUTO waits for you to finish then translates everything.
The messaging app is less integrated too. Android finally fixed things up with Apple such that emoji responses (heart, thumbs up, +1, etc) would appear as an annotation after the text message I sent, but now I'm back to getting "So and so likes your comment <full text of my comment>".
Some of the other pain was because I have tried to cut down on other google properties. I use "here we go" for mapping instead of google maps. Due to the scale of things, the real time traffic updates on google maps is far better than on here we go. I use fastmail instead of gmail and I'm 100% happy with that solution.
Well. I own an iPhone, a Macbook, Airpods, Apple Watch. I'm in the Apple ecosystem since the last 16 years.
Unfortunately, due to their behavior in the latest years, I'm not going to buy anything Apple anymore.
Fortunately for me, I prefer Linux to MacOS so I never have been totally tied in the Apple ecosystem and I know how to leave the boat without a lot of hassle.
I'm really saddened because they know how to make great products when they want to. It's just infuriating that everything that is shitty in their products is never due to randomness or bugs or whatever, but ALWAYS because they decided to fuck you.
This means Apple is literally going to take nearly 3x in fees from Patreon's customers than Patreon is taking from their own customers.
My understanding is that the reason the number 30% is so magical is a historical anomaly. When software was physically distributed back in the day, 15% of the MSRP was reserved for the distributor and another 15% for the retailer. When these digital marketplaces were set up, the companies just said "well, we're the distributor and the retailer, so we'll keep both". Forgetting the fact that the cost to distribute and retail the software is literally pennies on the dollar of what it used to be.
I think the irony in this case is that this is a greed problem of their own making. When Steve Jobs announced that apps on the original iPhone would only be $1-$3, he set off the first enshittification crisis in the software industry. In 2008, Bejeweled cost $19.99 if you wanted to buy it on the PC. On the iPhone it was $0.99! This artificially low anchor price is what kicked off the adoption of ad and subscription driven software models in the first place.
My understanding was that the retailer margin was 50% and the distributor margin was 10%. So Apple/Steam/etc went "half of 60% is a great deal".
Of course the retailer margin is never actually 50%. That's theoretical if 100% of product is sold at MSRP. Actual retail margins are about 25% because of sales, write-offs, et cetera.
OTOH when there's a sale in Steam, they still get their full cut (of the reduced price).
I remember writing apps for PalmOS (long time ago) distributors like PalmGear took over 60% from international developers like me, plus they held your earnings until you hit a minimum payout threshold. Add bank fees on top of that, and it was basically not worth developing for the platform. 30% felt like a godsend in comparison. (I'm not defending the Apple / Google tax)
its agency model vs retail model. Recall - Amazon hated the agency model, where the publisher sets the price (and 30% cut goes to app store - Jobs sold this as amazing deal). Retail model the retailer sets the price, and the publisher is guaranteed the wholesale price. Amazon preferred the latter because they competed on dynamic price setting. this was so long ago we forget.
It coupled the small floor space with high prices, and an extreme overall easiness of management (low weight, resistance to small impacts, possibility of stacking, etc).
So that margin not only had to pay for small management costs, and had small opportunity costs on the floor space, but it also was divided by a large unitary price.
Had no idea about the history and the 15%/15% split but when the topic comes up I just remember how good the 30% seemed back in, what, 2008?
It made perfect sense that this shiny new iOS platform would take 30% of a cheap app to ensure that it matches the high quality of iOS. These were little productivity apps and games at the time.
This however - I just don't understand what the need is for an app at all for Patreon. Isn't this a website/platform kind of thing? Wouldn't an app just be an additional window into the Patreon platform?
What's next - 30% of my pizza price goes to Apple because I ordered it on my phone?
> What's next - 30% of my pizza price goes to Apple because I ordered it on my phone?
You joke but this already happens with places like DoorDash. They take 30% of the order from the store owner after adding their own additional fees to the order that customers pay.
Someone I know owns a pizza store and his prices are 30% higher on DoorDash but some people still pay. The big difference is it's not a monopoly. He offers regular delivery at normal store prices and 95% of his deliveries go through that.
I was working for a small software company at the time and we thought it was outrageous. We were selling our software online direct through our own web site and the cost was far lower. A few percent for credit card processing fees, and the server/bandwidth cost was inconsequential.
>This however - I just don't understand what the need is for an app at all for Patreon. Isn't this a website/platform kind of thing? Wouldn't an app just be an additional window into the Patreon platform?
That's the other part of the surrogate war happening with mobile. The web was unregulated and hard to profit off of, so Jobs took great strides to push the "there's an app for that" mentality that overtook that age. This had the nifty side effect of killing off flash, but it's clear the prospects didn't stop there. Not to mention all the other web hostile actions taken on IOS to make it only do the bare minimum required to not piss off customers.
It very much could just be a website with no reliance on IOS as a dependency. But Apple clearly doesn't want that.
>What's next - 30% of my pizza price goes to Apple because I ordered it on my phone?
I'm pretty sure Apple has discussed things exactly like this.
Their upper management really does tend to think that 30% of any monetary transaction on an Apple platform belongs to them. Too bad our government is too busy being ran by the billionaires to do anything about these abuses from billionaires.
Really hope the 2nd wave of Sherman hits these bit tech companies hard if/when this regime inevitably falls. I just hope there's something left of America when it happens.
That's wild I had to look up if anyone bought it. Apperantly 8 people did!
> https://www.latimes.com/archives/blogs/technology-blog/story...
30% might be fair when you have a choice of either marketing and selling your app yourself, or just using an app store to do everything for you. But when you are forced to use the app store, things get really stupid really fast.
Apple still insists that the app store "provides value" for developers. They simply can't comprehend the harsh reality that these days, for most developers, the app store isn't the godsend service that helps their app get discovered, but instead an asinine bureaucratic obstacle they have to clear, and then regularly attend to, to have an iOS app at all.
The Mac app store, being optional for developers, is a good example of how much people actually want something like this.
> Apple still insists that the app store "provides value" for developers. They simply can't comprehend the harsh reality that these days, for most developers, the app store isn't the godsend service that helps their app get discovered, but instead an asinine bureaucratic obstacle they have to clear, and then regularly attend to, to have an iOS app at all.
Oh, no, they can comprehend, they just don't care. Apple controls access to a valuable pool of business, and they are going to extract as much value as possible from people wanting access to that pool. And, of course, they are going to try to burnish it with marketing speak, but that doesn't mean they believe their own marketing.
Question for the indie developers here; do you get more paying users from Apple devices?
I’ve never even considered publishing apps for other platforms as my gut tells me juice wouldn’t be worth the squeeze. Or to put it another way, I would prefer customers who already proved they have deep(er) pockets and are price insensitive.
Yes, I have the same app on iOS and Android, and for a long time it brought in half the revenue on Android for twice the effort (really messy SDK combined with too many OS versions and devices). Lately the gap has been closing, but it's still roughly 40% Android and 60% iOS, though I have slightly more installs on iOS.
The amount of people defending this because it's apple in here is astounding. This is possibly the least consumer friendly thing apple has done in a while, and that's saying something.
Didn't apple lose the case brought against them by Epic for this very reason? Are they still operating illegally against the order of the court?[0]
[0]: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/20...
I was considering GrapheneOS when I bought my latest phone 2 years ago, but decided to stay with Android in the end. It has become very clear to me that I made the wrong choice.
To keep their growth rates going, these mega companies soon need to swallow the whole country’s GDP. I really wonder where this is going. They can’t keep growing at some point.
This might become technocracy at some point, if the corporations become stronger than the state govs. In that case, the entire NOAM region will become a so-called technate, ruled by a form of ToS. I'd say, technocracy is way worse than even autocracy.
I think you may have fundamentally misunderstood what a technocracy is: it has nothing to do with tech companies whatsoever. From literally the article that you have linked:
> The technocracy movement proposed replacing partisan politicians and business people with scientists and engineers who had the technical expertise to manage the economy.
Technocracy is probably not the right word for what you mean. Oligarchy is probably a better one. This will probably evolve into idiocracy if you have seen the similarly named documentary .
I’m surprised at the comments here. Why should the government set the “right” margin?
If you cap the margin, you’re entrenching the monopoly forever. Allow them to charge what they want, and set tax rates on corporations commensurate with the size of their profits. Make it easier for competitors to start.
The path to a sustainable marketplace does not come from top down enforcement of margins. It comes from competition
> Why should the government set the “right” margin?
For monopolies, that is the least bad option. What would be way better, though, is mandating an end to that monopoly by allowing all users to install any apps they want on their iPhones without needing Apple's permission in any way, shape, or form.
I don't understand, doesn't the market solve these issues? Here's what I figure would happen:
1. App creators will pass the extra cost over to the iPhone users.
2. Android (and other platforms that can host smartphone apps) will be more competitive and start to look better for both app creators and consumers.
Sure, there's a bit of a context switching cost. Not everyone will just be able to automatically change over to an Android phone tomorrow. But it doesn't need to happen all at once. These phones get updated and replaced every 1-2 years. If iOS users see their app store prices rising too high, and they aren't OK with this, then they will switch to Android eventually, once it's worth it.
Otherwise, I don't see any problem with Apple reaping the benefit of their powerful and well-built walled garden ecosystem.
> If iOS users see their app store prices rising too high, and they aren't OK with this, then they will switch to Android eventually, once it's worth it.
Or they'll stop buying as many apps, or stop supporting people on Patreon.
Look, I’m not switching to an Android just because I want to subscribe to a few podcasts.
I’ve heard it said that monopolies aren’t a flaw of the system—they’re its product. What else could perpetual, cutthroat competition lead to? This isn’t an unintended consequence. In every new era, even when an industry is disrupted or reinvented, a small number of dominant companies work aggressively to prevent real upheaval—by acquiring smaller competitors, engaging in regulatory capture, and shaping the rules in their favor. Historically, governments have often served the interests of their corporate patrons. The system itself is built for maximal extraction, and there is no “invisible hand” waiting in the wings to protect consumers. There are no evil and good CEOs, just cogs in this machine doing what they're incentivized to do, accumulate.
There is no monopoly here though. Android makes up a pretty substantial proportion of users. That users continue to use Apple devices despite this kind of greed (and that people on HN cheered when Apple defeated Epic in court) shows that users don't care, which is unfortunate.
I miss the old school monopolies, where MS was a bad guy because they dared to include browser.
And yes, I do legalese details of that are much more complex. But it just makes no common sense.
Apple also includes a web browser on iOS, but forces every other browser you can install to use their browser engine. It's one of the many reasons they are being sued by the DOJ for anti-competitive practices.
Apple also sits on a board that approves new web technologies for standards formalization, so they can squash adoption of anything that might make web browser APIs as capable as a native application, so that they can force people to make native apps where they can extract a percentage from it (they can't do that with a web application). Rather than work out reasonable ways to support things other browsers allow, they just say "no thanks" and then there is no standard allowed to move forward.
It's extremely abusive and anti-competitive. I hope the DOJ continues to pursue litigation against Apple for this and many other things.
https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/media/1344546/dl?inline
Like try to break the internet and the java programming language? The former being most successful for years
IE was not just used to break the internet. It also had advantages. It supported features other browsers didn't.
Without IE, we wouldn't have had XMLHttpRequest, which means we wouldn't have had Gmail, which means we wouldn't have seen the bloom of "web 2.0" websites.
As for Java, Microsoft's C# is way ahead of Java in terms of language features. No idea how the runtime performance compares these days (both are very fast), but I'd rather have Microsoft Java than Oracle Java.
Microsoft's intent was always to break the competition, but they did it by offering features others wouldn't or couldn't. Evil Microsoft's Windows was the most feature-packed operating system out there because they threw every possible feature at the wall, kept what sticked front and center, and bothered to maintain what didn't stick. Microsoft Agents, the shitty Clippy things, were supported well into the Windows 7 era despite dying out the moment Bonzi Buddy was found out to be malicious. But Microsoft dared to break backwards compatibility with .NET 1 to fix the typing problem with generics that Java has to this very day; they just ended up supporting both, side by side.
I have a theory that they've actually succeeded with the latter too. I mean, look at Java now, and look how many mini-Javas (all those JIT-compiled languages and their runtimes) have emerged since. The point of Java was to unify, we've got more division than ever instead.
The point of Java was write-once, run everywhere, and that is perfectly viable these days. I don't want to live in a world where everyone is a Java programmer, and I don't think there is really any reason to suppose that unifying on a single programming language would be desirable for developers. IMO, Javascript already shows the dangers of over-unification; you get an ecosystem so full of packages that a significant portion of the language's developers are only capable of developing by stacking 1000 packages on top of each other, with no ability to write their own code and accordingly no ability to optimize or secure their programs according to the bespoke needs of the project rather than using general purpose off-the-shelf libraries.
If you mention Java, I think you may only incite more nostalgia for the monopolies of yesteryear. Was Microsoft's approach to Java evil and ill-intentioned, yes, absolutely. But it eventually resulted in .NET and C#, so I'd say that particular battle was a net benefit to humanity in the end. .NET is even truly cross-platform now, and open-source. Meanwhile Apple achieves interesting technical advances with their new hardware but I will never benefit from the existence of it because I will not use hardware that is locked to a prison OS.
You mean the web right? Or did Microsoft ever roll its own BGP code?
For some reason I am assuming that they are talking about dot net web servers with the servers running windows (though I can be wrong and I am a little confused by what they mean break the internet as well in this context as well)
It gets real depressing when you compare the recent case of Google to what was done to AT&T in the 80s.
I'd love to be proven wrong, but it feels like over the past couple of decades we've gone from clever guys coming together with an idea and starting companies like Microsoft, Google, and Apple, to celebrating buyouts of startups by large behemoths—that's how low the definition of success has dropped. Is competition law even a thing anymore?
Wait a minute, there is a payment surface you can build in iOS(e.g. iirc a stripe demo video from the epic ruling last year), where one can pay outside the apple in-app payment method. The surface could specifically get you to your own web view(i.e. your own domain or stripe's surface) for payments. The bigger idea, I thought, would not let apple figure out a company's take was, to ask them to pay up.
How does this shakedown work for companies/orgs that have large number of paying iOS DAUs?
What am I not getting here?
> "According to TechCrunch, only 4% of Patreon creators are still using the platform's legacy billing system, with the rest having already switched over."
The very last line of the article.
Incoming "please pay on webpage, else you have to pay 30% more" banner in the app
This is actually against their App Store rules, and likewise the article has the following bit:
> Patreon gives creators the option to either increase their prices in the iOS app only, [...]
it would totally not fly with Apple. They don't let this 30% commission to be visible by users, just like every other company that does such commissions. You don't see that the creator only gets about half of your donation on YouTube or Twitch, you never see that Visa takes 1% of your payment in a store, etc. Even governments do that. I don't see the value of VAT in the price of goods in stores. The US sales tax is an exception.
A lot of people would complain about how high those fees (or taxes) are if they saw them spelled out for them.
Boycott Apple services. It’s the only way they will listen.
Yea, that won't do much. How about convict Apple of monopoly practices.
I really don’t understand this attitude. Of course it will. If enough people do it. This is how corporations change not through protest and we’re certainly not going to get any antimonopoly anything going on soon.
They make literally about 40% of their profit off of Apple services. Do you really think if people on mass stopped buying Apple TV, Apple Pay, Apple Music, an iCloud, they wouldn’t care?
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2026/01/2025-marked-a-record-...
I mean the minute people started talking a general worker strike in Minneapolis all of a sudden all these companies freaked our and wrote a letter protesting about IVE’s behavior in Minneapolis.
>I really don’t understand this attitude.
It's not an attitude, it's an observation. Corporations almost never change their behaviors because of protests and people bitching about them. It's one of the least effective ways of implementing change, especially when said company holds a locked in/monopoly position.
The thing is the end consumer is mostly hidden from the problems of Apples over charging, it deeply affects the companies selling services on the Apple platforms. What would affect Apple far more is not consumers not buying, but a huge part of the people offering on Apples market pulling out. But, Apple has that game rigged to. Particular suppliers get special deals with far lower costs. The competitors to those suppliers are now screwed. Apple will not offer them lower costs (again, Apple hides these contracts until they eventually get disclosed in court), every other company ends up paying a huge Apple tax because pulling out hand the competitor a huge market.
Honestly I'm fine with Apple charging whatever it wants for on its store. I am not fine with Apple selling you what should be a general purpose device and saying only its store can be used. Competitive stores on the device would quickly break Apple of it's monopoly behavior.
I do think it will work. I also think most people won't even know this is a thing, and that many who do know won't be clamoring to ditch their tech anytime soon. I never owned an apple service, so I'm just paying lip service if I say I'm "boycotting apple". I can't do much more on my front as a customer.
I can do a bit more as a voter, but not in this current administration. It's sadly not even a top 10 pressing issue compared to what BS is going on right now. But I won't forget this.
>I mean the minute people started talking a general worker strike in Minneapolis all of a sudden all these companies freaked our and wrote a letter protesting about IVE’s behavior in Minneapolis.
Yes. And it took not one, but two blatant murders on the street to do that. Tech is much more ephemeral in its evils.
I refuse the purchase any apple products (I was never a fan and don't like paying premium for a walled garden) but it's impossible to offer an app if you don't also make one for apple devices.
There is no way around it especially in an apple dense market like Switzerland.
They have a clear monopoly and together with Google a duopoly.
I can thankfully continue with my refusal to purchase from HP perfectly fine.
If a fan starts a $10/mo Patreon membership inside the iOS app, Apple's subscription terms imply $3/mo goes to Apple for the first year (then $1.50/mo after), and Patreon's platform fee still applies on top. Patreon says Apple is also forcing the remaining ~4% of creators using legacy billing to migrate to subscription billing by Nov 1, 2026 or risk the app being pulled. That's a meaningful hit to creator economics for something that's closer to "patronage" than a typical in-app digital good.
I don't pay attention to all of Apples behaviors (still running an iphone 11) but this feels quite rent-seeky and creator hostile.
seems that 96% are already doing this:
> According to TechCrunch, only 4% of Patreon creators are still using the platform's legacy billing system, with the rest having already switched over.
I've never used the Patreon app even once -- those creators I support, I set it up on the website.
Why can't Patreon hike up prices in their iPhone app?
It would not only shift the cost to the user, it makes them cover the 30%, while discouraging the use of the iPhone app itself.
They could add a banner before the payment is processed that says "you could be paying less for the same benefit to the patron if you pay from our website. The price is higher here because of Apple, and you're covering the fee."
Well, I certainly won't sell my fiction to Apple for them to turn it into a series in the future.
Unless they pay me 30% of all hardware and software revenue because popularity is a vehicle to sell more under the Apple brand.
With this logic, one should pay Google for making purchases in their browser or Netflix should pay e.g. Samsung a fee, as users consume content on their devices. Truly ridiculous.
The regulator must step in now and allow installing applications outside of the AppStore! We are witnessing in real-time what a monopoly and a walled garden leads to.
I'm not betting the US to do this right now. But look at the EU... Alternative app stores are allowed (forced by EU regulations), and it already lead to lower fees.
The vast majority of people will continue find and install (and pay for) stuff via the AppStore.
Let this be a cautionary tale for Google's plans with Android (developer verification, etc).
I thought that already happened :)
But from past threads in a Linux Forum, seems this only applies to people using the Apple IOS App for Patreon. Not sure if using Apple Laptops.
But if you use Patreon's WEB Site directly, the fee cannot be collected by Apple.
That was my take anyways.
> But from past threads in a Linux Forum, seems this only applies to people using the Apple IOS App for Patreon. Not sure if using Apple Laptops. But if you use Patreon's WEB Site directly, the fee cannot be collected by Apple.
Moreover, the fee only applies to the subscriptions made using Apple's payment system. That being said, in most jurisdictions their payment system is the only one developers can use in an app. IMHO, this is the real problem.
Per the article it's already happened for 96% of creators and this is the deadline for the remaining 4%.
Yep, the tax comes from using the Patreon's in-app purchase system. Using a browser on an iPhone/iPad or any other device will not be taxed. Seen many creators putting in their bios suggesting people use the browser instead of the in app purchase.
Patreon fought this for a while but Apple has all the leverage unfortunately.
I can’t remember being more enraged than when I learned my YouTube premium was more expensive per month than it needed to be because I had signed up on iPhone, so many people wasting money every month, and YouTube isn’t allowed to mention the option to pay on web
If they weren’t a public company, you’d think they were the mob. I’ll never trust the Apple ecosystem ever again
So weird, why do you need Patreon dedicated app in appstore?
There is really so many people visiting Patreon, only because it's in Crapple appstore?
Or is this because they want to support as many payment methods as possible. And Apple Pay support requirements is to have an app?
Would be great, if they simple take a hit and gutted the app and redirect all people into website.
If they have good PR team, with proper messaging, they could make even more money, since people on Patreon usually don't like corpos.
If I'm patreon, here's what I'm doing:
Jack up every Apple user's monthly payment by 30%.
When they go into the app to figure out what the hell happened, they will find big red text saying "want to avoid the Apple tax? re-subscribe through our website! (Link)"
They click the link, it opens a webpage where all the payment info has been auto-filled. They click "ok." Bam, fee gone.
For anyone seeking more info, check out these articles -
Can someone explain how much of value the iOS app is to users? I'm a noob at Patreon, aren't creators receiving their support through the website's payment gateway already? I'm not really against a company setting the rules if it's their platform, if the market cannot accept it then alternatives (competitors) will eventually find new ways.
Probably the only added value is direct notifications of new content.
Patreon is probably going to shut down the payment feature from the app and orient people to the website. That's what I'd do... And bad mouth Apple.
Given Patreon's clients is influencers, this is a fairly bad PR move by Apple, for probably zero return...
> Patreon gives creators the option to either increase their prices in the iOS app only, or absorb the fee themselves, keeping prices the same across platforms.
I'm curious what percentage of creators chose which
Tech companies are pushing their clients step by step out of new devices, platforms, subscription services, SaaS, ... Governments are pushing citizens step by step into Tech to control and tax their lives. At the end we, as simple humans, are always in the middle.
If I buy a gift card through my banking app, using reward points, is Apple entitled to 30% of that?
Yes. You owe Apple and Patreon as much ad they want to charge, because you are a mental slave
The Beggar Barons strike again! https://zedshaw.com/blog/2022-02-05-the-beggar-barons/
Isn't Patreon effectively a sort of payment processor? So how is this different from Apple demanding a 30% cut of transactions conducted by (for example) Paypal? (Assuming Paypal has an iOS app ofc, I have no idea.)
They also host and serve videos. Not sure about other media
Good point. That makes them a combined platform and payment processor. So it seems to me the logical question would be, shouldn't they just break the platform part out then? But isn't that exactly what their percentage fee amounts to? So Apple should be entitled to 30% of their (IIRC) 5%, right?
Really they ought to further split that out into "processing fee" and "platform services fee" and Apple would then be entitled to 30% of the latter.
Really shitty to see how greed and money corrupts everything.
"Use our payment system"
"No thanks, our current system works just fine"
".. or get kicked off our store"
"Okay, I guess I'll do it then"
"Okay you're on our payment system; we take 30% off all purchased using our payment system."
"Get fucked"
Yeah. I get charging for hosting an app in your store, that requires work to build the ecosystem and security and stuff. But you have to draw the line on a platform and ecosystem and vetting that someone else has done. What did apple do to build kindles library of books? What did apple do to attract creators that patreon's users would like to support? Nothing. They should get 30% for installing paid apps that they are vetting and hosting, but nothing for things third parties are hosting and vetting
Who pays for Patreon via iOS?
if many people subscribe via ios then obviously apple is bringing creators more paying subscribers no so seems kinda fair to charge for access to that ecosystem?
The core problem is still the same.
Until there will be a broad regulation that enforce any general purpose computing device to allow installing non-provisioned apps, we'll be in those situations.
Does this apply to creators that aren't even in the Apple ecosystem or is it only for the patreons paying through the iOS app? What if everyone moved to the website?
The dark side of your walled garden is they can abuse you as they see fit, and when they become a giant, your options are to like it or leave.
> Note: This image has been edited to include a pile of cash.
I giggled
every system that gets too greedy eventually gets squashed (e.g. regulations) or kills its host (e.g. cancer).
I've noticed watching blood money on Netflix that greedy systems tend to get greedier and greedier, and this is the best way to catch bad actors.
On the other hand, criminals that try not to become too big and remain low-profile are the ones that never get caught.
I call this the Apple "idiot tax" - 'cos you have to be an idiot in letting Apple exploit you (the developer and the user) this brazenly.
This is counterproductive. The only alternative to letting Apple exploit you is letting Google exploit you. There are differences, Google is somewhat better on this specific point, but there's enough things Google is worse at (such as privacy) that choosing Google isn't exactly without downsides.
Your mindset results in Apple users thinking "the problem is those stupid Android idiots who accept being in an ad tech company's spyware garden" and Android users thinking "the problem is those stupid Apple idiots who accept that 30% of literally everything they do goes to Apple". In reality, we have a common enemy in the big tech duopoly and extremely lacklustre regulation which lets them keep doing this shit. You calling me an idiot for making a different shitty trade-off than you helps nobody.
> This is counterproductive. The only alternative to letting Apple exploit you is letting Google exploit you.
Or allowing users to control their hardware and software and give them the freedom to install the hell they want on it?
We've been using computers for eternities where we still have the possibility, yet, as soon as it is about phones then "no way, we protecting you from bad actors".
Give me a break, you want to help protect me from bad actors implement proper software/hardware jails/containers for third party software and that's it.
You do have an alternative to both Google and Apple, which gives you the best of both worlds - it's called the Sailfish mobile OS - https://sailfishos.org/ . (As for my snarky post, read my other comment in this same thread to understand why I posted what I posted.)
Every time you spend money, you are casting a vote for the kind of world you want. - Don't most of you here tell me that corporates don't need regulations as smart people "vote with their wallet"? If this is what some want to spend money on, the term "idiot" sounds justified ... anyway, the point was not to offend; just to embarrass some mildly to introspect their purchasing decision.
Yes, which suggests internal metrics show this to still be the better path.
web is now so good that mobile apps lost any meaning to exist - unless you need to access some local hw or data on consistent basis(the app must run as daemon or something like that). in other words, if you app is a service, just use web. if it is not a service, then you just sell it as you would a desktop program.
Sounds ... like the mafia.
You MUST use our billing system. Oh, btw, because you are using our billing system, we get 30%.
Apple has an Apple Pay for Donations[1] program, which doesn't apply for rent seeking entities like Patreon. I wonder if Patreon's 10% fee is commensurate with the negligible value that they provide?
Yes but you cannot restrict content or features based on whether or not someone is a donor, which is basically what Patreon is for.
Source I run a non-profit and we have an app that takes donations via Apple Pay
Happy to pay 42% higher Patreon fees in exchange for ease of subscription control, visibility, safety and ease of payment with in-app Apple payments.
It’s funny seeing people call 78% operating margin too high, while we all know that software VCs demand 90% margin from their startups, and if it wasn’t Apple, people here would call that an excellent business.
They work to make Apple rich. It's a bit like the mafia, but not as rememberable.
Can't they just link out to their site to do billing?
Those greedy artists and creators depriving Apple of their profits.
Some people say that Apple is wildly profitable and has more money than it can spend. But if profit goes down, even if it remains huge, then Apple stock takes a blow. And stockholders are who really this is all about. So really increasing profit a few percent a year is truly just barely keeping the head above the water.
I think I’m old enough to have experienced this cycle so many times with so many businesses that I just feel kind of silly to hate on Apple or Microsoft or whoever. They’re all just maximizing profits as designed.
I think people find it easier to scowl at the villain du jour than to dig into the deep complex issue of when capitalism doesn’t work, when the government isn’t doing enough, and what we could do about it… or the feeling that we really can’t do much.
> feeling that we really can’t do much.
That's why people don't dig into the deep complex issues. Because it's uncomfortable, and forces one to confront the potential reality that their worldview, and everything they've known about how our society works is wrong, broken, and collapsing in front of them.
It can be a very distressing and depressing state of mind. There's a reason "ignorance is bliss" is a common trope, because there's some real truth to it. For some, it's better for emotional and mental wellbeing to ignore the problems of reality and remain ignorant.
> For some, it's better for emotional and mental wellbeing to ignore the problems of reality and remain ignorant.
I think it isn't just some, it's effectively everyone, the nature of being human. Instead, there's a group of people who are willing to sacrifice their emotional and wellbeing to face these problems of reality, and try to use the limited power they do have to improve them, for the greater good.
>or the feeling that we really can’t do much.
We can do a lot if we pressure the company or the regulations around it. Maybe not right now in this current regime, but tides will shift.
The issue is that people's attention spans on this are much too short. The fervor around this may not even last to the end of this month, let alone until a change in power allows a new administration to properly go after the company.
Complaining about it is part of the system operating the way it operates. It’s factored in already. I just think that it’s not really interesting. It’s reasoning about the instance, not the class.
I'd rather they garner a few dollars this way than look to actually shady monetization practices, like most other big tech companies do.
Not a bit deal really, a tiny minority of people will be a few dollars out of pocket, because the loophole most of us don't enjoy has been closed.
With only two mobile OS providers, they should be highly regulated. But given Tim Cook gave Trump a golden award and attended the premiere of the Melania documentary, I doubt they’ll get any antitrust trouble. Disappointing rent seeking behavior.
> rent seeking
This goes way beyond rent seeking, it is much closer to outright theft, for rent you get something in return. This is just a nice form of robbery and I'm sure it is all legal by some stretched definition of the word but it makes me sick.
Yesterday we had the monthly Woz adulation article, I really like the man but would like him even more if he told Cook to his face that this is not the Apple that he had in mind when he co-founded the company. It's not like he has anything to lose.
On the contrary. There is an ongoing DoJ antitrust case against Apple with a long list of grievances. Most of those were already addressed by Apple (since the case was filed a pretty long time ago) the rest will be tested in the courtroom in the following years.
Those cases take a long time.
Yeah, I don't understand this at all. I use Patreon and I support a couple of tech content creators. But my use of Patreon intersect in no way with iOS and I'm not sure how it would. Can someone please explain?
Okay so basicially apple users are dumb as rocks which is why iOS is so profitable in the first place, and they are corraled into installing apps and making in-app purchases.
Users are gonna do what's best for them, and if they install apps then it's also what's best for Apple shareholders ;)
Trump fired Lina Khan on day one of his adminstration, so there's a start.
Epic didnt really win. If i recall correctly the ruling ended up being that 3rd party payment processors are allowed but 27% of app revenue is still owed to apple if that route is taken. So you can save 3% by using 3rd party payment processing but thats around how much those services cost anyway so no real saving
They tried that. The judge, correctly, went "uh the fuck you will".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games_v._Apple
> While Apple implemented App Store policies to allow developers to link to alternative payment options, the policies still required the developer to provide a 27% revenue share back to Apple, and heavily restricted how they could be shown in apps. Epic filed complaints that these changes violated the ruling, and in April 2025 Rogers found for Epic that Apple had willfully violated her injunction, placing further restrictions on Apple including banning them from collecting revenue shares from non-Apple payment methods or imposing any restrictions on links to such alternative payment options. Though Apple is appealing this latest ruling, they approved the return of Fortnite with its third-party payment system to the App Store in May 2025.
That judge's ruling was essentially overturned last month on appeal.
> Even though Apple was no longer prohibiting linked-out purchases, the district court held that this new approach effectively prohibited linked-out purchases, and it violated the spirit of the injunction. The district court then enjoined Apple from imposing any commission or fee on linked-out purchases. However, the Ninth Circuit panel found that the complete ban was overbroad and punitive. Apple should be permitted to charge a commission based on costs that are genuinely and reasonably necessary for its coordination of external links and linked-out purchases, but not more.
"Genuinely and reasonably necessary", not being defined, will naturally be taken by Apple's malicious compliance department to mean "26%", I'm sure, and we'll get to enjoy a continued round of show trials in court with no meaningful effect for years to come.
Epic lost on 9 counts out of 10 in the original lawsuit. The one they won is being appealed and in the process Fortnight was ordered to be reinstated in the US. I wouldn't bet that this arrangement will survive appeals.
Nostr is a decentralized social protocol where people can send btc tips, called zaps, directly to creators.
I believe what you're saying is the benefit of Bitcoin (or other crypto) to get around gatekeepers.
I don't believe Patreon at this time supports any crypto. If they wanted they could open this up. Not sure if Apple would allow this (on an store app) without their 'slice' of the pie.
Am I the only one that dislikes phone apps?! For example, I do NOT want to install an app for my power company. Just text/email me if you need to reach me and I can do anything else through their website.
I do support apps that support unique phone features: Phone, camera, GPS, etc.
That's why the DSA is a good idea that should be replicated worldwide.
Too many parasites between creators and consumers
Imagine if Visa or Mastercard decided they were going to take a 30% cut as a merchant fee. Governments wouldn't allow it. Why does Apple get a complete pass?
What is the strategy for “app” distribution for the mobile market that bypasses iOS / other vendors ? Is this even possible?
So
- the devs all need to get licesnses and specific hardware to develop for IOS
- They spin up their own servers to manage all the finances coming in
- They work on their payment processing solution separate from Apple. And Patreon still pays some fee to apple over the app.
- the model of Patreon only takes 5% off of creators, so that's not enough for Apple. It also wants a cut at the customers of the website who provide services. Customers not beholden to any one platform.\
- And to force them to do that, they are kicking the other processing plan off as an option, leaving only them to work with.
And it's somehow not evil? If I let a friend sleepover at my apartment, is the landlord in the right to demand a day of rent from them too?
A service that Apple is mandating everyone to use or else get kicked off their operating system...
This would be an entirely different conversation if Patreon was still allowed to use other payment systems outside of Apple's IAP service. No, this is Apple forbidding competitors on their platform.
with the direction their hardware is going, that's not going to last another decade
Ahaha.
Ha ha ha ha ha.
I mean, keep buying their phones or whatever.
I think it’s not that simple. These are not my words and I cannot only post the link [0] as the author uses the referrer to hide his articles from HN, but here’s the text:
Once again, Patreon is going to strong-arm all of us into "charge at the moment of sign-up" instead of "charge on the first of the month." They have wanted this for years, and once again they are saying that Apple has given them cover to demand it. Here's what I wrote when they tried to pull this shit a year and a half ago and then chickened out:
Patreon has two billing models, monthly (bills on the first of the month, or whenever they get around to it) and daily (charges you the moment you sign up.)
For several years now, they have been trying really hard to get creators to switch to daily billing whether they like it or not, with a series of intrusive nags and dark patterns. E.g., the "Settings" tab always has an "unread" alert on it reminding me that I have not made the "recommended" change.
Now they're going to force everyone to switch, and they're blaming Apple for it. And, to be clear, fuck Apple, but also fuck Patreon, this is their choice and it's going to mean that I can no longer use their service.
Here's a support request I just sent them, again, after clicking 15 levels deep into their FAQ before finding the thing that might contact a human. Since the email alerting me of this change came from a "noreply" address because of course it did.
Feel free to send your own:
---
Subject: Subscription billing is unacceptable
You recently sent mail saying that you're going to force me to switch from monthly billing to subscription billing.
Subscription billing is unacceptable for my Patreon. It does not work.
I sell monthly memberships to a physical nightclub. The memberships begin on the first of the month. I fulfill and mail the physical membership cards on the first of the month. If you make me switch to daily billing, that means I will have to do merch fulfillment on a daily basis instead, and I simply cannot do that.
If you force me to switch from a monthly cycle to a daily cycle I will have no choice but to stop using Patreon.
To be clear: I do not give a shit about the iOS app. Not one fractional fuck is given. If the solution to this problem is that people cannot sign up for, or access, my Patreon from the iOS app, that is 100% acceptable to me.
I know for a fact that none -- zero, 0% -- of my patrons have signed up using the iOS app. I know this because I had to warn them away from it, due to the 30% Apple Tax, and all of them complied. All of them. The iOS app is utterly meaningless to me and to my patrons.
(Also you are blaming this on Apple's bullying, which is simply not credible. You've been nagging me to change to subscription billing for years, with the little red error icon appearing everywhere. This is your decision. You are transparently using Apple as an excuse.)
---
I said this same thing to you a year and a half ago, the last time you tried to pull this nonsense. Second verse, same as the first. Last time, support replied that they "completely get why this change would be upsetting" and "will bring my feedback to the team." Uh huh.
Patreon's absolutely awful level of service and support has been a huge problem for quite some time, but I am really not looking forward to having to figure out how to implement recurring monthly billing on my own.
Patreon, YOU HAD ONE JOB.
[0] https://www.jwz.org/blog/2026/01/patreon-is-lying-again-and-...
Patreon's whole shift away from the bulk billing never made sense to me.
I subscribe to like 10 patrons each at $1-$3/month. Right now they can just charge me once, $20/mo, pay 3%+30c card fee on that, they pay a buck in fees, get $19, great.
Instead they want to charge me $1, 10 times a month, hit with a 30c fee every time, instead paying a total of $5 in fees, getting way less proportionally.
They must really make their bulk on big patrons paying like $20+/month to a single patreon
Why do you have to do merch fulfillment on a daily basis? Just inform people before signup that you only send out membership cards on the first of the month and if they sign up at any other time they'll have to wait until the first of the next month to get their card sent in the mail.
Alternatively, they could show up at the nightclub in person and bring their phone with proof of purchase and the bouncer could hand them a membership card and cross their name off a list.
> Why do you have to do merch fulfillment on a daily basis?
Because the "daily" billing model is prorated IIUC. Seems a bit unfair not to be given access to something you've paid for.
> bring their phone with proof of purchase
One does wonder.
Because the "daily" billing model is prorated IIUC. Seems a bit unfair not to be given access to something you've paid for.
It’s a physical club. You can’t get access to the building without physically going there. If someone buys a membership on a Monday but doesn’t show up until Friday, that’s on them!
The what and why of the nightclub memberships are explained pretty well on the patreon's about page: https://www.patreon.com/dnalounge/about
The person in question is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Zawinski
Always hated apple for their putrid business practices. Add this to the pile.
I've been trying to find a decent 16'' laptop (to replace my thinkpad x1 carbon).
Been running linux (popos) for donkey years and I entertained the thought I should go back to Apple and get the MacbookPro-16 (which is probably the best laptop you can buy imho).
Then I remembered all this crap that Apple does and dismissed it.
The Services version of apple is the worst. Tim Cook might actually be the worst ceo apples had
When the App Store first launched I think 30% was pretty fair fee for Apple to collect, but that was a long time ago, and before IAP/Subscriptions. Apple might still be entitled to some percentage but they've expanded to cover more and more things (like this Patreon change or Kindle back in the day) and now we have moved far, far beyond the pale.
Apple (perhaps like all corporations but I'm focusing on Apple) is a greedy company that has massively lost it's way. Tim Cook support fascists and/or anything to improve the bottom line, especially if it increases "services" [0]. Alan Dye (thank god he is now busy screwing up Meta) shipped the worst UI revamp I've seen in a while from a company Apple's size and the iOS/iPadOS/visionOS/macOS software is all in dire straits. And they managed to do all of this while alienating developers left and right and playing chicken with governments around the world [0] instead of relaxing their hold on their platforms.
But who cares? The stock price went up. /s
I was overjoyed to see Alan Dye leave (and Jony Ive) and hope that we don't have to wait too much longer to bid Tim Cook adieu. Whoever takes over next has a lot of work ahead to dig out of the hole Tim Cook dug for Apple.
Tim Cook might be the best thing for shareholders but he has been horrible for product quality (software and hardware) and for democracy.
[0] Pay no attention to how much of services revenue came from the Google search deal with the majority of the rest coming from casinos for children and adults alike.
[1] Like the EU DMA, which, I have publicly and privately voiced my dislike of parts of it but Apple has no one to blame but themselves. By keeping a white-knuckle grip on their revenue they forced governments across the world to pass laws (often bad IMHO) that fragment and confuse the entire iOS market.
30% was always excessive.
I suspect developers are looking for these workaround because of the 30%. If Apple had asked for, say, 10%, would there be as many developers looking for loopholes?
I don't know. Apple perhaps should ask for compensation for "vouching for" the developer's app, hosting the app, distributing the app. But Steam shows us another model where the developer themselves pay a modest up-front cost to have their app hosted ($100) and then Steam steps out of the way.
I wonder if this would go a long way too to thinning the herd so to speak from the Apple App Store—perhaps improve the overall quality of the apps submitted.
I think a lot of developers were willing to let it slide when App Store was a luxury market. You could just ignore it and make regular webapps and/or desktop software.
But now iOS is the most popular computing platform in the US. We no longer _have_ an option to ignore it.
And 30% is just crazy. And it's _on_ _top_ of all other expenses: Apple hardware that you need to buy to develop for iOS, $100 per year subscription fee, overhead of using Apple's shitty tools, etc.
That's the issue, though. These aren't the Patreon devs running the app. These are creators using Patreon. It's 2nd level rent seeking.
Tim Cook has been horrible for software, but the hardware under his regime has been incredible.
May I introduce you to years he let Jony Ive control that. Which brought us things like the butterfly keyboard, thinness at all costs (battery life), and loss of ports (in part due to thinness) that had to be walked back.
Apple doesn't have huge sales volume for Macs because of macOS and their astronomical pricing schemes, but it's not because of the hardware. Macbooks are easily the best laptops you can buy for most purposes, and they have been since the M1 came out. That has never been true of Apple computers before.
I agree that the early days when every app was a single purchase and the prices were much higher it made more sense. A lot of people got rich from the App Store. So 30% wasn't a huge piece when you were seeing consistent growth every year in the user base.
I think the most annoying thing is how unevenly the policy is applied. Some megacorps pay the 30% and others like Amazon get sweetheart deals. So it unfortunately comes down to who benefits more. If you have something Apple really wants then they will cut a deal. But if not then you pay the high tax. They've at least cut it down somewhat for smaller devs and teams, but the whole industry needs to change. IAP/Subscriptions shouldn't just inherit the pricing systems of old.
I have a feeling Tim is just going to tank the Trump stuff and then peace out next admin so he gets all the blame. Much like Ive and Dye have been.
> I think the most annoying thing is how unevenly the policy is applied. Some megacorps pay the 30% and others like Amazon get sweetheart deals.
I agree, there were deals down to 15% I think (maybe lower) but I don't think that's still happening? I mean, Netflix finally gave up but only after increasing their IAP fee to cover the difference for many years. I might be behind the times on this but I didn't think they still had better cuts for larger corporations. I do know not all developers are treated the same (see Meta still being on the app store after all the shenanigans they pulled with enterprise certs, or Uber), and that does suck. It means that if you are big enough you can break the rules while an indie dev can have everything taken due to an automated system or mistake, even when it's not their fault.
> I have a feeling Tim is just going to tank the Trump stuff and then peace out next admin so he gets all the blame. Much like Ive and Dye have been.
I agree that's likely, though the thought of him staying till the "end" of that is not attractive.
Oh, I 100% agree. I was wrong, I thought they got in trouble for doing that but I think I am only remembering things that came out in discovery for the Epic case, which didn’t center on that or prevent Apple from having such arrangements.
There's little assurance of safety or 'fitness for purpose' for apps in the App Store. Apple takes 30% for distribution, and you're basically on your own.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-betrayed-trust-says-iph...
It was the opposite. US mobile operator stores charged upward of 50% to sell stuff on their feature phones, with cherry on top in the form of paid submissions.
I'm replying to the statement that 30% was always a bad deal, by providing an example that shows that it was a clear improvement on the market of mobile development (as others did the same in this comments section).
In your cavemen logic the closest example would be that nobody killed the first guy; he was forced out of business because a new cave opened nearby and they were selling rocks much cheaper.
Patiently waiting for a mandatory 30% fee on every transaction made with iOS banking software. Maybe that'll put a definitive stop to forcing mobile "apps" with jailbreak detection on customers and have banks think twice before crippling the functionality of their websites.
Please Apple, make this happen.