#iOS fees

[allidrawscomics]

Apple soon charging 30% on Patreon subscriptions through iOS

This is the email Patreon creators woke up to today. Patreon is asking us to either raise our prices on the iOS app so that Apple can slurp up 30% of the subscription price, or we can keep our prices as they are and have that 30% come out of our own earnings. Either way, this fee is hidden from potential subscribers so they don't know they're paying 30% to Apple when they could be avoiding that by subscribing on Patreon's website as opposed to the app.

I find this to be a disgusting cash grab on the part of Apple because if they felt like their fees were fair then they would simply tack it on themselves at the point of checkout, not baking it into the prices of creators who had no say in this to make it look like we were the ones asking for more. If you find yourself wondering "Why are Patreon creators all raising their prices?" this is why. Please avoid transactions through iOS apps.

[kficc]

join my patreon and be exposed to a fascinating range of images

[14dayswithyou]

There's recently been an overwhelming demand for it (on Itch especially), and I'm happy to look into creating an APK version for Android users!

However, please keep in mind that I will still prioritise PC/Mac/Linux builds above everything else — so any future Android builds may be a little behind in receiving major updates. This will also be extremely experimental!!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Apple faces criminal sanctions for defying App Store antitrust order

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me at NEW ZEALAND'S UNITY BOOKS in AUCKLAND TODAY (May 2), and in WELLINGTON TOMORROW (May 3). More tour dates (Pittsburgh, PDX, London, Manchester) here.

Epic, makers of the wildly popular Fortnite video-game, have waged a one-company war against the "app tax" – the 15-30% rake that the mobile duopoly of Apple/Google take out of every penny we spend inside of apps.

Epic's own digital practices are hardly spotless: just this year, the company was caught cheating players – many of them children – with deceptive practices and had to refund over $72m:

https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/refunds/fortnite-refunds

But in this fight, Epic is on the side of the angels. The 30% that Apple/Google sucks out of the mobile economy is a brutal tax, and not just on app makers. Patreon performers recently raised a stink when the company announced that it would be clawing back 30% of the money pledged by their supporters – that 30% surcharge is passed straight through to Apple/Google:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/12/24218629/patreon-membership-ios-30-percent-apple-tax

From independent news outlets to crafters selling their work out of small storefronts, all the way up to massive entertainment services like Disney Plus and Fortnite, the mobile cartel takes 30% out of every dollar, a racket they maintain with onerous rules that ban apps from using their own payment processors, or even from encouraging users to click a link that brings them to a web-based payment screen.

30% is a gigantic markup on payment processing. It's ten times the going rate for payments in the USA, already one of the most expensive places in the world to transfer money from one party to another. In the EU, payment processing typically runs 1%…or less.

But crafters, Patreon podcasters and small-town newspapers are in no position to fight Google and Apple. Instead, we get Epic, a multi-billion-dollar company that's gone to the mattresses to fight these multi-trillion-dollar companies. Personally, I dote on billionaire-on-trillionaire violence.

Epic was wildly successful. It mopped up the floor with Google, securing an especially punitive award from a judge who was furious that Google had destroyed evidence:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/12/im-feeling-lucky/#hugger-mugger

Epic also won against Apple, though not as thoroughly as it had with Google, because Apple had the commonsense not to get up to the kind of shenanigans that make federal judges very, very mad. In the Google case, the court found that Google had acted as a monopolist and ordered it to open up the payment system in Google Play, a direct blow to the Android app tax.

In the Apple case, the judge did not find that Google had acted as a monopolist, but did rule that the App Store's payment processing racket violated the law, and ordered Apple to end its own app tax:

https://techcrunch.com/2025/04/30/epic-games-just-scored-a-major-win-against-apple/

That's where things get gnarly. Apple is addicted to corrupt sources of income – like the tens of billions it illegally receives every year in bribes from Google make it the default search:

https://apnews.com/article/google-antitrust-search-engine-verdict-apple-319a61f20fb11510097845a30abaefd8

And it really, really loves the app tax. When the EU ordered Apple to allow third-party app stores (as a way of killing the app tax), the company cooked up a malicious compliance plan that was comically corrupt:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/06/spoil-the-bunch/#dma

So, the mere fact that a federal judge had ordered Apple to open up its app store to competing payment processors was not going convince Apple to actually do it. Instead, Apple cooked up a set of rules for third-party payment processing that would make it more costly to use someone else's payments, piling up a mountain of junk fees and using scare screens and other deceptive warnings to discourage users from making payments through a rival system:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/judge-rules-apple-executive-lied

That's the kind of thing that is apt to make a federal judge angry – and, as noted, angry federal judges can make life very hard for tech monopolists, a lesson Google learned when it destroyed key evidence in its Epic case. But Apple didn't just flout the court order – they lied about it to cover it up, and Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers is furious. She held that Alex Roman, Apple's Vice-President of Finance, "outright lied under oath," and she has raised the possibility of criminal contempt penalties for Apple:

https://regmedia.co.uk/2025/05/01/pacer_epic_vs_apple_injunction_judgement.pdf

The judge further wrote:

This is an injunction, not a negotiation. There are no do-overs once a party willfully disregards a court order. Time is of the essence. The Court will not tolerate further delays. As previously ordered, Apple will not impede competition. The Court enjoins Apple from implementing its new anticompetitive acts to avoid compliance with the Injunction. Effective immediately Apple will no longer impede developers’ ability to communicate with users nor will they levy or impose a new commission on off-app purchases

In other words, any junk fees, any impediments to opening up third party payments, will be switfly and harshly dealt with. As of right now developers can start to build third-party payments into their apps and Apple cannot block them. It's the end of the app tax, a source of about $100b/year for Apple:

https://www.theregister.com/2025/05/01/apple_epic_lies_possible_crime/

The world is on fire and everything is terrible, but we are also living through the most consequential season in the history of the war on corporate tech power. Google has been convicted three times of being a monopolist and is almost certainly going to have to sell off Chrome, most of its ad-tech stack, and possibly Android. Meta just put up a pathetic showing in an equally serious antitrust case that could see it forced to sell off Instagram and Whatsapp:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/11/it-is-better-to-buy/#than-to-compete

Countries around the world have passed big, sweeping, muscular antitrust laws specifically aimed at smashing corporate tech power, like the EU's Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act:

https://www.eff.org/pages/adoption-dsadma-notre-analyse

Most importantly, all of this is happening from the bottom up. There is no dark money campaign to fuck up the tech companies. The politicians and enforcers who are taking on Big Tech are being shoved from behind by billions of everyday people who are furious and refuse to take it any longer:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/04/10/solidarity-forever-2/#oligarchism

I am deeply grateful for the public servants who have championed this cause, but I also know that these people are the effect of our movement, not the cause. When Kier Starmer fires Britain's brilliant and effective top competition enforcer and replaces him with the former head of Amazon UK, that does nothing to tamp down the political outrage that Britons feel towards America's tech giants:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/22/autocrats-of-trade/#dingo-babysitter

All over the world, countries that passed IP laws to protect US tech interests in exchange for tariff-free access to US markets are grappling with the end of free trade with America. This represents a generational opportunity to pass laws that enable local technologists to jailbreak US tech exports and liberate their people from the extractive practices of Big Tech forever:

https://archive.is/CiBIz

There is nothing harder to stop than an idea whose time has come to pass.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/05/01/its-not-the-crime/#its-the-coverup

Image: Alex Popovkin, Bahia, Brazil from Brazil (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Annelid_worm,_Atlantic_forest,_northern_littoral_of_Bahia,_Brazil_%2816107326533%29.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

--

Hubertl (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2015-03-04_Elstar_%28apple%29_starting_putrefying_IMG_9761_bis_9772.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[getvalentined]

The Big Patreon Breakdown

Okay, Patreon's Discord Q&A ended on the 16th, and I've been waiting to see if anything else happened—like maybe a a public announcement from Patreon instead of emails sent exclusively to creators and a video hidden on the CEO's personal YT page—but nothing has happened, so I'm gonna do a breakdown of what we're looking at.

This is an EXTREMELY long post. I am not putting it behind a cut. I'm not sorry.

Short attention span version here.

—

I. The iOS processing fees are a smokescreen covering up the actual devastating changes that Patreon is forcing creators into.

The iOS fees are trash, 30 percent is extortion and we all know it—but that's not the biggest issue at hand here. Patreon is using this event as an excuse to change the entire structure of the creator side of their platform, and blaming Apple to avoid getting backlash.

They tripled their platform and processing fees in 2017, passing it on to patrons without notice, and the subsequent hemorrhage of paying users forced them to walk it back. They tried to force everyone onto their rolling billing model in 2021, and the entire community pushed back so hard they were forced again to walk it back.

This time, they're doing both and insisting it's Apple's fault, and everyone is taking that at face value because Apple sucks. And Apple does suck, but Patreon is getting what they've wanted for years by catering to Apple.

Oh, also, they're forcing creators to notify their patrons of the billing model changes (with a suggested template that explicitly refers to it as a decision made by the creator, even though nobody is making any decisions here except Jack Conte) rather than doing it themselves.

II. Patreon is not going to change course for any reason. This is set in stone.

There are multiple proofs for this, including but not limited to:

One-on-one calls between the platform's top earners and the CEO, Jack Conte, wherein the vibe was apparently not "What can we do to support your business in order to retain your place on our platform?" but rather "We know that the only way this works is if we don't do it, but how can we keep you from complaining about it any more than you already have?" One creator explained in granular detail how they run their business through this platform and why changing their billing model would ruin literally everything, and Conte responded with "Is this an essential part of your offering?"

The Patreon Team on Discord has continued to shut down all discussion of alternative options with assertions that Apple won't allow it, even if those alternatives were suggested based on legal precedent set by lawsuits against Apple, and the declaration that they will not be allowing the app to be removed from the App Store no matter what because it's the single most important and integral avenue of creator growth on the platform. (Put a pin in that.)

The platform's top earner is on the pay-per-creation billing model, the one that is going to be hit the hardest; creators on this model stand to lose literally 90 percent of their income overnight. This creator and his team were as blindsided as the rest of us, and they've been offered no assistance except for a complex math equation to try to calculate how much they should be charging people on fixed-price tiers, and no assurance except "the iOS app is the platform's highest source of engagement and is necessary to help you continue to grow."

Pay-upfront (PUF) and pay-per-creation (PPC) billing is going away for new accounts and anyone who doesn't opt out via Patreon's convoluted backend before November 1 of this year, and anyone who doesn't manually switch over to their rolling billing cycle will be automatically pushed into it on November 1, 2025. This means that PUF creators no longer have the promise of a steady paycheck when they need it, early enough in the month to pay rent and bills, while PPC creators are losing their entire business model all at once, which has resulted in a loss of 75 to 90 percent of income for multiple PPC creators who have tried to switch to the rolling billing structure in the past. They are killing these people's livelihoods and they know it, they have seen the data to prove it, but they will not be swayed.

III. Patreon claims the iOS app is the highest source of engagement on the platform at 40 percent—but will not define what "engagement" means, and staff refuse to share detailed analytics or data on the revenue share coming from the app.

Several creators, some with a couple dozen patrons and some with thousands, polled their audience to get a feel for how many of them used the app. Consistently across every creative industry, genre, and form of media, the answer was 2 percent or less. The average across a dozen-plus polls of actual active patrons, numbering into the thousands, is that around 85 percent of patrons access the platform exclusively via the web, whether on desktop or mobile. The majority didn't even know there was an app.

Further, Patreon would not explain what "engagement" means, but did not deny the possibility that dismissing an app notification on your phone counts as an "engagement."

When Patreon was asked for data on how often people pledged to support a creator via the iOS app, the only response was the claim that information is "sensitive to [Patreon's] business" and can't be shared. In a creator-exclusive server. With the people who bring that revenue onto the platform in the first place. And have our own analytics that we can look at individually, which show an average of 0 to 0.5 percent revenue from the iOS app.

IV. Patreon does not have a refund policy in place to work with Apple, and has given no implications of intention to work with Apple to shorten the time it takes for funds from iOS purchases to be paid out to creators, which is currently 75 days.

Yes, you read that correctly: at the moment, it takes 75 days before creators can cash out funds processed via iOS. On top of that, Apple's refund policy is 60 days, and the creator is not involved in the process whatsoever—if a malicious actor pledges to your page, downloads all your work over the course of a month, and then pings Apple for a refund? Apple gets to decide whether or not they get that refund.

Patreon's general refund policy is that it's up to the creator 99.9 percent of the time, with very rare cases of fraud requiring Patreon's intervention. In the case of pledges and Commerce sales via iOS, the creator has no say, and Patreon currently has no policy to protect them. They've stated that they're working on a refund policy that will work with Apple's guidelines to keep everyone happy, but at this point we all know what that means—they're just going to use Apple's refund policy.

They also wouldn't say whether or not creators would be on the hook for Apple's added processing fees, as is usually the case with other big payment processors, but it sounds like we are! So if someone pays $14.50 on the iOS app, the creator gets $10, can't pay it out, and then the malicious actor can call for a refund weeks later and the creator will owe $14.50—in spite of only ever having seen $10 and never being able to pay it out because the 75 hold hadn't passed. Sounds great!

V. Patreon's own graphics meant to explain why this is necessary and how the new fees work are not correct.

I'm gonna let these mostly speak for themselves:

The sale price listed on this graphic is $10, but adding together the three fees listed gives a total of $11.35. This is likely a copying error, as 4.35 is clearly not 30% of 10, but the lack of attention to detail on one of the only two pieces of official material that we have which refer directly to the numbers on which Patreon is signing away our livelihoods is slightly concerning.

This one totals up to 103 percent! (Actually closer to 104, since I rounded Android and Mobile down by about a quarter percent each.) The 40 percent figure on the iOS bar is based on the figure given to us by Patreon staff, and was used to place the markers to denote individual percentages on the other three.

Patreon made these and gave them to us with the assertion that they were proof that the iOS app is indispensable—why should we trust anything they say about numbers if the charts they gave us are literally impossible?

VI. Patreon refuses to offer any promises to 18+ creators that they will not be removed from the app in order to adhere to Apple's content guidelines.

Instead, Patreon staff's response to this request for reassurance is "We have no plans to remove 18+ creators from the Patreon app." You may note that's phrased very specifically, and leaves a hole big enough to drive a freight train full of iPhones straight through. They have no plans to remove 18+ creators from the app. When asked for clarification on this, confirmation that they would not be removing us from the platform if Apple pushed them to do so regardless of whether or not they have plans, this sentiment was simply repeated in more words and with more apologies, along with a reminder that Patreon has had to change their terms for 18+ creators several times already in order to keep up with laws and competition.

VII. All the features Patreon is insisting are integral for creator growth are inaccessible to 18+ creators, and questions about this were either dismissed, redirected, or ignored.

Remember how the iOS app is the single most important and integral avenue for character growth on the platform? Well, 18+ creators are not discoverable on the platform, regardless of the avenue of access. We are not visible on the app unless you have it installed, are logged in, are already following us on the platform, and click an external link to be directed to our pages from somewhere else via a mobile web browser. There is no way to find us on the platform itself.

Other features that staff insist are necessary for growth to which 18+ creators do not have access:

Patreon creator search (on web, Android and iOS apps)

Mass post editing (now called the "Library," which reads as "Something Went Wrong" for me and other 18+ creators who tried to get to it)

On-platform video hosting

Built-in cross-creator recommendations

All on-platform "commerce" features (both digital and physical goods)

The ability to market ourselves by linking to Patreon from our social media and vice-versa (we're basically not allowed to do this or risk being banned)

Yeah, about that first and that last point. We're hidden from searches on the platform, and we can't link to our pages from social media or risk permanent suspension. We cannot grow in this fashion at all, and in fact 18+ creators are getting all the downsides of this switch (except maybe for the app fee, since you can't fucking find us to pledge on the app) with none of the benefits. Nothing they are doing here will help us grow, because they've kneecapped us already. Now they're going after our capacity to obtain a steady paycheck at the beginning of the month, too.

VIII. Patreon's iOS app is currently (as of August 18, 2024) in violation of Apple's guidelines for app ratings; staff did not state any intention to become compliant by raising the app's rating as needed to maintain their 18+ creator community.

The App Store guidelines on creator apps state that they must be rated equal to the highest rated creator content on their platform. In spite of hosting 18+ content, which requires a 17+ rating per Apple, Patreon is rated 12+ in the App Store. Increasing the rating to 17+ would cut out the entire market of wealthy teenagers with iPhones, and since everything else being done here is intended to please Apple, it's unlikely this will be the point that Patreon finally gives an inch for its creators. The exact response from staff on this was "We hear and acknowledge your inputs on the app rating and are exploring our options there." Their "options" on this are to increase the rating, or to remove all 18+ content from the platform. That's it. Those are their options. Why do those need exploring, if they really give a shit about the 18+ community?

I know a lot of people out there are going to say that it would be nice if Patreon would "get rid of the porn," but you need to understand something: 18+ content is not all sexual.

18+ content can and does also include:

Horror (particularly body horror, which is explicitly or implicitly banned on all current adult-specific creator platforms, leaving me nowhere to go when Patreon kicks me)

True crime (murder, violence, theft, etc., is all 18+)

Health (blood/discussion of blood is 18+ regardless of context)

Education (what if you learn about war? that's 18+)

Trauma recovery (the word "r#pe" makes everything around it 18+)

Profanity (ko-fi marks creators 18+ for saying "fuck")

Languages (because you might learn profanity)

Weaponsmithing (because weapons are dangerous)

Leatherworking (because leather can be a fetish)

Shoemaking (feet can also be a fetish)

...even more I'm not bothering to list here.

Implying that they somehow didn't know about this extremely important part of the guidelines—which are being used as an excuse to force the top earner on the platform to ruin his entire business model—is absolute nonsense. Patreon knows about this requirement, they haven't taken any steps to comply based on their current creator population, and I will be shocked if they do. Much easier to just kick us all off, since we can barely use the damn platform as it is.

—

The entire thing makes no sense. Patreon is losing out on so much money by doing this—they're crippling all their highest-earning creators to keep the iOS app running, and it's going to hurt everyone except for Apple. The only reason I can think that they would refuse to budge on this is that there's something else going on behind the scenes between Patreon and Apple. That, or the company is intentionally throwing itself into an extremely drawn out death spiral. But we all know which of those is the more likely scenario here.

[dandelionsprout42]

This week's very rare Disney Fairies media discovery

While looking through an IGN page that mentioned when and why the old iPhone game Fairies Fly was delisted from App Store in October 2015, I came across something that seems to be very obscure, and which was somehow obscure even back when it was available for 2½ years.

Apparently called «Disney Fairies: Art», it was purportedly an educational game about a newly(?) arrived painting-talent who tried to get her(?) art added to the Great Hall (which I can only presume is the entry hall of the Home Tree…?). The app was tied to a project called "Disney Connected Learning" that in itself only last around 1½ years, and to something called "Disney's Parent App" that was purportedly only on Facebook.

I'm attempting to chronicle what little info I can find on it tonight on a new page at the wikia, but I can at least say that I had never even once heard of that game before.

[sentience-if]

seeing the ask where the anon keeps forgetting Io isn't Io's forename (tangent: Io Io is the Moon Moon meme of this game lol) and you said "well, i keep thinking Io's first name is $Name", genuinely made me want to share my Io's forename and i hope other people feel compelled to share their Io's names because i LOOOOOVE name-meanings and made-up names and everything in-between

(also, i apologize if i have already shared my Io's name on this tumblr; i have chronic memory loss and do not remember doing that. i searched the blog, it said nothing, but tumblr's search-engine is ass. so. i assume i havent shared mine yet. but i wouldnt be surprised if i already had, period, or even just off-handedly or something. anyway)

my Io is named ✨️Promethea✨️

it is a feminine version of the Ancient Greek legend of Prometheus. a God who had so much sympathy for humanity's plight that he shared sacred fire from Mount Olympus with humanity (what was once as godly-only a thing as ambrosia, until Prometheus shares it with humans) so as to save these hairless/fur-less creatures from the cold and give them an advantage over other creatures. and Zeus, out of anger for this mutinous act of compassion, proceeded to punish Prometheus by chaining him to a rock where eagles (Zeus' symbol was eagles btw) would eat out Prometheus' liver everyday, then due to immortality, Prometheus' liver would regrow the next day to be clawed and pecked out yet again come morning. it is important to note now that, for the Ancient Greeks, where WE see the heart as "our soul" metaphorically, they saw the stomach-liver as the same in terms of poetics, because of the feelings of knots in one's stomachs or butterflies or so on. so, if we were to translocate Prometheus's punishment to our current era and poetic cliches: Prometheus' HEART would be eaten by an eagle everyday for punishment for, well, having a heart. this went on from the dawn of humankind all the way until Heracles (or Hercules, if you prefer) freed him. there's different reasons why Heracles freed Prometheus, but basically, Zeus wanted Heracles to free Prometheus for Zeus' own selfish gains (usually, it was because Prometheus had some kind of secret and used that as a bargaining chip; but what the secret was, depends on the storyteller). i do also always play an Io who turns off the sun for Klaus, so that fire/sun connection feels important, to me, for that event specifically lol

the other big reason i picked Promethea is because of Mary Shelley's book, "Frankenstein", whose full title is actually "Frankestein; or, the Modern Prometheus". the book equates Frankestein's creature to be the equivalent of an abandoned Adam and Frankenstein himself to be Prometheus, as he gifted the "spark of life" and deciding life/death (as the Creature is made up of corpse pieces) when all of that's ✨️God's thing✨️ and thereby commited blasphemy like Prometheus and the fire. personally, i always saw the Creature as more akin to Prometheus than Victor Frankenstein. because Prometheus didn't abandon humanity unlike Frankenstein, and the Creature had to metaphorically steal his own fire so to say. and Victor isn't immortal, but Prometheus and the Creature are. and the Creature uses the artic as its own "chained to a rock with an eagle" punishment. and i could explain more, but I dont want to start bringing out quotes and page-numbers lol

lastly, the name "Prometheus" itself famously means "foresight, forethought". and i like the idea of "thinking ahead" paralleling Io's whole understanding of magic, of "You don't need a formula to count to ten"; or how Io argued with the lecturer about said lecturer not understanding magic well by not "seeing" magic the way Io did. and, rather similarly, if you look up the word "Promethean" in the dictionary, not only does it mean "relating to Prometheus" but it also means "especially creative or daringly original"

i also checked myself just now to see if there were any other "Prometheus"-related meanings and, besides a moth, there is also a type of Lucifer-Match called the "Promethean" which is having a match be lit by breaking a glass tube containing acid. which. idk, i only learned about Lucifer-Matches in general and Promethean Lucifer-Matches 5 minutes ago, but that now reminds me of a certain explosion? sure. Prometheus has connections to fire and explosions anyway, why not ALSO THIS lmao

anyway, i just love researching names, being intertextual, and stuff. i hope more people share their Io names, because i was happily kicking my feet thinking of $Name Io and Io Io, just rotating them both in my head (i do genuinely find them clever. Io being named after a bit of coding?? amazing. i love that for them, unironically. and Io being named the equivalent of 1010, which means "ten"/"10". so, legit, Io Io = 1010 = 10, which i see "Io" as being binary for "10". so. that's so funny and faacinating, "Io Io" means "Io" lol). so id love to hear people's other name ideas for their Ios!!

I am ALWAYS hungry to hear about people's Ios. and this is delicious. little italian chef's kiss. it's even extra triple delicious because of things I know you that you don't 😏

also whenever binary comes up all I can think about is my friend's dad who has a shirt that says "There are 10 types of people in the world, those who understand binary, and those who don't" and it makes me laugh every time

[mehmetyildizmelbourne-blog]

When Apple Takes a Bite Out of Your Wallet  & Your Privacy

Informed Opinions How One Court Ruling Against Apple Shakes Up the Creator Economy What Apple’s Legal Defeat Reveals About Big Tech’s Grip on Creators, Consumers, and the Future of Digital Markets Disclaimer: This essay is for informational purposes only, based on public sources as of May 16, 2025. It is not intended to defame or adversely affect any individual, company, or organization. It…

[the-pen-pot]

IOS users and Patreon. Big old heads up.

"Apple is requiring that Patreon use their in-app purchasing system and remove all other billing systems from the Patreon iOS app by November 2024. This means that starting in November, new memberships purchased in the iOS app will be subject to Apple's 30% App Store fee.

First, we want to be clear about one thing: this will not impact your existing memberships at all. Apple's App Store fee only applies to new memberships purchased in the iOS app beginning in November 2024."

Apple users, if you make your pledges through your browser you can dodge this fee.

This is just apple doing its usual nickel and diming to take a slice of every pie.

[doodlemancy]

Hey, so, Patreon is lying to you about Apple forcing their hand.

Patreon is getting rid of 1st-of-the-month/per-creation billing, claiming a new decision by Apple has forced their hand. This will hurt a lot of creatives, and their excuse is bullshit. Allow me to explain.

In 2018, Patreon tried to impose a new ill-considered fee structure on everyone that would have cost creators a lot of smaller pledges. They ended up apologizing for this profusely; they have now deleted this apology from their website and unfortunately I was unable to find it on the Internet Archive. This was shameful, but to their credit they backed off quickly when things got ugly.

Back in 2021, Patreon discussed plans to force all creators into a rolling bill structure and get rid of first-of-the-month/pay-up-front billing. The community once again very decisively shouted them down, and they had to walk it back again. This whole fiasco damaged the already shaky trust between Patreon creators and staff.

This week, Patreon announced that, along with extra fees, Apple's policies were supposedly forcing them to move everyone over to the rolling fee structure that they first tried to get us to agree to in 2021. Patreon will tell you they are not happy about this. As a person who spent a long time watching Patreon make terrible decisions, I can tell you-- they are probably very happy about this, because it's exactly the smokescreen they needed to do what they've been trying to do for years, which is pull ALL Patreon creators away from 1st-of-the-month and per-creation billing.

The spin in the news I've seen so far is "Apple bullies Patreon, boo hoo hoo poor Patreon". This is very obviously not what's happening. Mind you: Apple does suck, and they are doing something bad here. Fuck apple. But Patreon and Apple are BOTH the asshole in this situation; Everyone Sucks Here. Patreon has options: they can make the iOS app a reader app and do billing through the browser to avoid the restrictions and the extra fees (Netflix and Amazon, notably, both do this), or they can allow creators to opt-out of iOS billing if they want to use billing models that don't work with it.

It seems most likely to me that the Apple situation is a real fire that Patreon has chosen to use as a convenient smokescreen to do what they've been wanting to do since at least 2021, and maybe since 2018.

What do we do?:

They have a feedback form specifically about this.

They also have a creator discord.

And they have lots of social media pages where they probably really, really hope that this doesn't blow up again, because they never learn. The incidents I've described here aren't the only two other times Patreon has pissed off their creators. They know if they don't contain the noise it'll be harder to get away with it, so make some noise. They've done a lot of work to spin this cleverly so you'll have sympathy for them and they won't get the kind of backlash they know they deserve.

Please don't misuse these links and make threats or spam or something. All you have to do is give well-reasoned feedback. Patreon hates feedback. Make sure they get a nice heaping helping of their least favorite vegetable.

[slocotion]

Giving away a tooth fairy doll this month, through a "name to win" contest over on my patreon.

Open to all current and new $6 Jester Jackpot tier supporters; who can suggest up to FOUR names for a chance to take this doll home.

(Ends May 30th. I ship internationally from Ireland, at no extra cost to the winner)

[lackadaisycats]

A little bit of rough Rocky animation for Season 1, by Sam Kessler and Hyrika!

There's a longer animation preview available on Patreon and for YouTube Channel Members.

------------------

We've recently opened up YouTube Channel Memberships as a Patreon alternative because, unfortunately, Apple is forcing some changes to Patreon that are likely to be detrimental to a lot of Creators in garnering new pledges.

Starting in November, Apple will be charging its 30% App Store fee on top of new pledges made through the Patreon iOS app. If you're an existing Patron, this won't affect you. You won't incur any new charges. If you're looking to sign up anew to support anyone's Patreon, though, you can bypass the extra Apple fees being charged to you or to the Creator by signing up and managing your account via desktop or mobile browser. The Lackadaisy Patreon will continue updating numerous times each month as it has always done. Still, we expect this to have an overall detrimental effect to support, especially when it comes to garnering new pledges, so we decided we best branch out a little. If you're interested in YouTube Channel Membership, visit the Lackadaisy YouTube Channel and click on the 'Join' button (next to the Subscribe button) to view a breakdown of the perks!

[luckymuttz]

A Trip to the IT Department. [18+]    8 PAGES OF WORKPLACE YURI!!!! you can view all 8 pages here on patreon! (fyi for those using IOS, if you can try to join on desktop! to avoid the apple store fee/hold... :3 ok love u bye)

[meanbossart]

Good lord. Well, here is further reason to please avoid subscribing to artist's patreon pages through the Apple store/iOS since the policy changes (subscriptions made prior to Feb 26th are fortunately unaffected by this).

I am incredibly fortunate in that these $100 that will apparently be held back for over two months do not spell a financial detriment to me at all - but If I were new to the platform, really needed that $100, or the majority of my supporters happened to be iOS users, that could have been a huge issue.

So please, and especially when you go to support small artists that you want to see thrive who opened their patreon accounts recently, go through desktop so that they won't be hit with apple's extra fees and actually receive the funds in a timely fashion!

[littlestpersimmon]

Hi guys. Am sick rn, but had wanted to post this before I go and sleep.

Some of you may already know that patreon sent out an update that charges anyone using ios to subscribe to artist's patreons 30% more.

I immediately feel this impact mere hours later, and now, days later. I'm hemorrhaging patrons & have less income. It would mean the while world to me if you guys could please reblog this.

If you use the desktop version or the android app? you will not have to pay 30% more. Needless to say this decision of apple has completely fucked me over months and months to come, unless I somehow make up for my loss by other means.

My patreon is only a dollar a month!

I have around 400 exclusive artwork on it :)

I am working on uploading more art there, and more comics once I am done with my current contract as a comic artist.

I am currently partially homeless- so being alive in general is hard ;y; I wanted to focus more of my work on patreon, until this update- I only have one tier.

I am working as hard as I can, every month ♡ I am also the caretaker of three disabled people- as my dad, who used to do all the housework, is now too sick with a swollen liver that could possibly be connected to his heart problems, and my mama who has limited movement- she "died" of sepsis many years ago after giving birth to my sister, and was revived with nerve damage. I don't know the medical terms, but she was brain dead for however long, and was successfully brought back in a different hospital. She was comatose for months; this event has lead to my family losing everything in hospital bills, our car, our house (literally we became homeless) ah. But long story short, I am the only person in my family who works- as my sister is a teenager, and she is autistic with a very, very low frustration threshold, as she is also a picky eater and still going to school! I'm sorry, many of my followers already know this story by now, I have already doxxed myself multiple times trying to avert crisis after crisis, ahaha. But yes. Patreon added to my cart of Sorrows, and would love to have more folks who aren't using apple, or are using android and the web to come on over and maybe enjoy some of my private art up there. I post around 3-6 art a month, if I am lucky 7. I want to keep making art, and my patreon was what was giving me a semblance of stability until that silly update. Sorry for the long post, and I appreciate everyone helping, reblogging, saying kind words to me, praying for me. G-d bless you all, and stay safe

My patreon:

Direct tipping jar:

My print shop!

[getvalentined]

The Short Patreon Breakdown

Basic version of this post, for people with no attention span. For details on each of these points, please see the original post.

1. The iOS processing fees are a smokescreen covering up the actual devastating changes that Patreon is forcing creators into—including doing away with the two billing models used by most of the highest-earning creators on the platform, regardless of the impact this will have on their livelihood.

2. Patreon is not going to change course for any reason. This is set in stone. CEO Jack Conte himself has been having one-on-one meetings and calls with the platform's top earners, and clearly has no interest in their actual grievances or how their businesses operate—only in getting them to stop complaining.

3. Patreon has offered no proof of their claims that the iOS app is responsible for 40 percent of the engagement on the platform—and also refuse to define what "engagement" means. Staff rebuff all requests for detailed analytics or data on the revenue share coming from the app, but did not refute the possibility that dismissing an app notification counted as "engagement."

4. Patreon does not have a refund policy in place to work with Apple in order to protect creators from malicious chargebacks, and has given no indication of any intent to work with Apple to shorten the time it takes for funds from iOS purchases to be paid out to creators—which is currently 75 days.

5. Patreon's own graphics meant to explain why this is necessary and how the new fees work are not correct: the fee structure graphic features a copying error that results in incorrect math, and adding together everything on the bar graph showing the daily active users by avenue of access comes to a total of 103 percent. They are woefully unprepared to share this information, and are putting it on us for "not understanding."

6. Patreon refuses to offer any promises to 18+ creators that they will not be removed from the app in order to adhere to Apple's content guidelines, instead only saying they currently have no plans to remove us from the app. Questioning this was met with a reminder that they've had to change the TOS for 18+ creators before.

7. All the features Patreon is insisting are integral for creator growth are inaccessible to 18+ creators, and questions about this were either dismissed, redirected, or ignored. 18+ creators can't even be found on either app, but we're being forced to cater to iOS' terms anyway, with claims that it's because all creators need the app in order to grow. Even though we can't utilize it.

8. Patreon's iOS app is currently* in violation of Apple's guidelines for app ratings; staff did not state any intention to become compliant by raising the app's rating as needed to maintain their 18+ creator community, only declaring that they're "exploring options." Per Apple's guidelines, the "options" are to either raise the rating to 17+, cutting off access for the wealthy teenagers with iPhones to which the platform is so dedicated they'll kneecap their top earner in order to court, or kick all 18+ creators off the platform. (This includes horror, true crime, health, trauma recovery, and more, not just sexual content.) *Current as of August 18, 2024.

Do not let the 30 percent App Store fee distract you from what's really going on here. Patreon is crippling a huge portion of their creators, including a horde of their top earners—and the single most profitable creator on the entire platform—and offering no legitimate reasons why. The amount of money they're losing from these creators restructuring or leaving altogether totals in the millions within a single month of activity. This isn't even about money, it's about something else—and there's no way to know what, because Patreon is giving us nothing.