[danShumway]

Sounds like a fun experiment. I'd be interested in Apple allowing Patreon to test that theory by disabling purchases within the app. Is this really about access to a niche user group of users who would never sign up elsewhere?

Apple seems to be very invested in forcing Patreon to either not be in the app store at all (and given the limitations of web apps, this is a significant penalty), or offer exclusively Apple payments in the app. Then Apple goes a step further with rules blocking Patreon showing links to other purchase methods in the app. These are not the actions of a company that believes that its users can be trusted not to make a purchase elsewhere.

If these users would never give Patreon money by going to Patreon's website, Apple wouldn't be scared of a link to the website payment options inside of the app. But they are scared of that, because they know that many of their users would choose to pay less online if they were informed about the choice or if Patreon decided not to offer payment options in the app.

I think the fact that Apple is (according to Patreon) not offering a choice of whether or not to accept payments in the app pokes a lot of holes in the idea that iOS users would never use a website to subscribe.

[dwaite]

> Apple seems to be very invested in forcing Patreon to either not be in the app store at all

Does it? It seems like they are enforcing their developer agreement as written, and likely have been advised they need to enforce it uniformly due to regulatory scrutiny. I believe Google hit this in India where it was ruled they could not start collecting their royalty after several years of non-enforcement across certain categories as it amounted to a bait-and-switch.

[danShumway]

> and likely have been advised they need to enforce it uniformly due to regulatory scrutiny.

I'm not certain what the category difference is between Patreon subscriptions and Youtube/Amazon/Spotify subscriptions, all of which don't allow payment through the app.

This is actually something I would really genuinely love Apple to clarify because Patreon's statements on it are surprising; why is Patreon not allowed to stop offering payment options at all in the app. Are they lying about that? Why wouldn't they be allowed to turn it off when other companies clearly are?

> as written,

That being said: if their policy as written has these terms in it, then that doesn't make me feel better about Apple. I would still question why Apple is so scared of consumers being notified about payment options across the board.

An abusive policy designed to give customers less information about their purchases is still abusive even if it's applied uniformly. It still speaks a lot to Apple's priorities and about whether they are genuine when they say that they believe customers prefer their pricing schemes. You don't have to hide things from customers that they prefer.

[tshaddox]

> These are not the actions of a company that believes that its users can be trusted not to make a purchase elsewhere.

Well yeah, the charitable interpretation is that of course Apple thinks their users will have a worse experience on average with subscriptions outside Apple’s ecosystem than inside of it. And it’s hard to disagree!

[danShumway]

So... they would give Patreon money by going to their website?

Is this a niche market that would never have been available to Patreon that Apple is helping Patreon access, or is this Apple needing to en-mass protect its users from themselves as a result of them being too.. I don't know, weak willed(?) not to pay for Patreon using another method?

It's not both.

[tshaddox]

Well, for a popular and somewhat mainstream service like Patreon, it likely would be both.

Patreon likely gets some users who first discover Patreon via the iOS app and who would never go to the Patreon website but who would be comfortable making an iOS in-app purchase.

And Patreon also likely gets some users who first discover Patreon via the iOS app and would be comfortable going to the Patreon website to subscribe if the iOS app didn't have in-app purchases.

I was referring to that first group, which I suspect is a small portion of Patreon's total userbase, but I suspect it's a niche that Patreon is very interested in (both because Patreon can't engage them through any other channel, and because they probably have above-average discretionary spending).

The whole "protecting users from themselves" thing is just a very tired argument. You might as well say that an operating system implementing memory protection is "protecting users from themselves." Or a software vendor offering security updates is "protecting users from themselves."

[danShumway]

> but I suspect it's a niche that Patreon is very interested in (both because Patreon can't engage them through any other channel, and because they probably have above-average discretionary spending).

It's interesting that the existence of this supposed niche is entirely contained within the larger group of people who are kept unaware of the choice being made. Makes it a little hard to estimate or talk about what that niche actually is since they're always going to be an invisible subset of the users who are unaware of other payment methods or of the increased fees they're paying, and who are by Apple policy not allowed to be informed.

> You might as well say that an operating system implementing memory protection is "protecting users from themselves."

I guess readers can decide for themselves whether a store banning telling consumers about an alternative payment method is the same thing as memory protection.

I would suggest that one key difference between antivirus/memory protection and Apple's app store policies is that antivirus doesn't need to desperately try to hide the fact from me that it exists.

[tshaddox]

> It's interesting that the existence of this supposed niche is entirely contained within the larger group of people who are kept unaware of the choice being made.

I doubt a significant portion of this niche is “being kept unaware” that Patreon has a website. They probably would simply never, ever find themselves on Patreon’s website. This is basically the polar opposite of myself, who has used Patreon for many years but have never remotely considered using their smartphone app. Different people are different.

> I guess readers can decide for themselves whether a store banning telling consumers about an alternative payment method is the same thing as memory protection.

The question isn’t whether they’re “the same.” A better question to ask is how satisfied are Apple’s users compared to users of other competing products, and what can that be attributed to?

[danShumway]

> I doubt a significant portion of this niche is “being kept unaware” that Patreon has a website.

If this was true then Apple wouldn't have provisions against informing them.

People keep on saying that this is some informed choice. It's not. If it was an informed choice, Apple would not have a policy against informing them.

> A better question to ask is how satisfied are Apple’s users compared to users of other competing products, and what can that be attributed to?

We don't know how satisfied they are compared to others, because Apple has a policy against informing them about competing products.

This is an apple-to-oranges comparison. If your grocery store charges you $10 for a loaf of bread and the store down the street charges $5 and you don't realize that you could get the bread for $5, then you'd probably be satisfied with your purchase.

It doesn't mean you're not being exploited.

[tshaddox]

> I would suggest that one key difference between antivirus/memory protection and Apple's app store policies is that antivirus doesn't need to desperately try to hide the fact from me that it exists.

There is in fact an enormous industry of software and operating system features designed to make it as difficult as possible for the user to circumvent.

[danShumway]

> difficult as possible for the user to circumvent.

But not as difficult as possible for the user to be aware of. If an antivirus installed itself on my computer without my knowledge and hid the fact that it existed from me, we would call that malware.

Apple doesn't have a provision that makes it difficult for the customer to use other purchase methods, it has a provision that makes it difficult to inform the customer that alternate purchase methods exist.

And again, there is no reason for Apple to care so much about that unless they think it's beneficial to Apple for the customer not to know what choice they're making. Apple's policy is not the equivalent of an antivirus program or a security measure, Apple's policy is the equivalent of a car salesman trying to make it impossible for you to comparison shop or look up competing prices.

Because "you'd have a worse experience" if you used a competitor. Sure. That's definitely why Patreon can't inform users in the app that they're paying 30% more per-subscription. /s Also I'd have a worse experience with another Internet provider and that's why Comcast needs to make it difficult to compare price rates with other companies. Come on.