Fan-funding platform Patreon’s CEO Jack Conte is the guest on the latest podcast from The Verge. He’s been talking about an under-reported aspect of his company: the fact that Apple does not take a 30% cut of money paid by users of Patreon’s iOS app to creators.
“I wish we had some special contract with Apple. We don’t… Why don’t we have to pay fees? I think it’s because, for whatever reason, we’re within Apple’s guidelines, and we haven’t had to pay fees,” said Conte.
He goes on to explain that when someone subscribes to a membership in Patreon’s app “we kick you to a web flow. If you try to subscribe, we don’t have an in-app purchase button”.
Kicking users to a web flow is one of the things Spotify would have liked to do on iOS with its own subscriptions, while recently fan-funding platform Fanhouse claimed it was being forced to add an in-app purchases button.
News that Patreon hasn’t is likely to ruffle some feathers, especially given that Facebook has recently been banging the drum for not taking a cut of money paid to creators on its own platform.
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