And watch loads of creators lose a good portion of their livelihood and leave the platform?

This is part of Apple's argument why they think they are owed 30%. They have built and nurture the most affluent set of mobile users with a CC ready to charge. A company leaving Android is ho hum, but leaving iOS is business ending. How valuable then is it to be on iOS? 30%?

I'm not making a judgement on right or wrong, but I see many people just thinking about infrastructure and not realizing Apple sees iOS user base as one that would not exist without them. And, they want to get paid for access.

Should Microsoft get 30% of everything you do on a computer? That'd be utterly absurd. Apple already got paid for those users when the user bought the device. Why do they get a share of the profits of a completely independent transaction between two other parties? It's ridiculous.

> Should Microsoft get 30% of everything you do on a computer? That'd be utterly absurd.

This is what happens on consoles today. Apple views the iPhone as a closed and complete ecosystem where licensees are allowed to write apps - like a console. The hardware, OS, and App Store are viewed as a single entity and not distinct.

Not saying I agree, but it's important to understand Apple's argument. Given the ruling from the Epic case I think Apple will win the majority of any action taken against the AppStore (not a monopoly, business terms are irrelevant). IMO where Apple is vulnerable is interop like with messaging. I can only guess Apple's lawyers think the same, hence Apple's fairly recent push into RCS.

> This is what happens on consoles today.

Except no, actually, it isn't. Neither Xbox nor PlayStation attempt to collect a 30% royalty from any of the streaming apps nor block them from steering.

Consoles have a significantly more harmonious relationship with the developers, whereas Apple's is drastically more abusive. This is not an insignificant difference, both morally and legally.

One could create a web app based Pateron and use the web based push notifications. https://imgur.com/a/JccxAIs for the process for how to do this on an iPhone.

The challenge (as always) is accessibility and discoverability. The functionality is all there.

> The challenge (as always) is accessibility and discoverability.

And that's the challenge that actually matters, and is more or less insurmountable on iOS.

If they drop the app, then they are free to send users directly to the web site.

There's a decent chance they are about to watch the same thing

We don't have numbers on how much Patreon usage comes through the Apple app.

Patreon does.

I'm inclined to think the "write off the iOS app entirely" option was one of the very very first things they pondered, and the odds are that it's pretty clear that was going to be a very, very expensive option.