Apple's latest attack on creators hints at a fear its free-lunch era is coming to an end
Grassroots creatives breaking into the world of audience monetisation have had a rude introduction to Apple's treatment of content makers and owners.
Despite retaking its status as the world's biggest company by valuation, Apple has managed to keep much of its sheen of being the friend of the creator and artist, and of being much cooler and less creepy than firms like Google and Facebook who inhabit the same financial stratosphere.
During the years when people boggled at what social and search firms were up to with user data and monopoly-like practices - and only now does that era seem to be coming to an end - Apple consistently and expensively promoted a nice-guy persona and privacy-first aura which encouraged you to look the other way from what it might be up to behind the scenes.
Yes, it had a few run-ins with rivals and regulators. But it would quite effectively spin the narrative in such cases that they were fuelled by opportunism from disgruntled corporate rivals looking to cut into Apple's deserved margin, or misguided meddling from EU chiefs whose efforts to promote competition risked making iPhones less secure. As blatant as the evidence often was, Apple somehow managed to retain some moral high ground.
But it is now having a harder time retaining its homespun hero image with the sort of grassroots creators the tech firm loved to associate its brand with, who have been swept up in what looks like a blatant run-for-revenue by Apple before it too comes under irresistible scrutiny by regulators and courts a la Google and TikTok.
The current stramash centres on Apple's demand to Patreon, one of the highest-profile outlets for smaller creators dipping their toes into content monetisation, for 30% of their member's fan fees.
Here's how Patreon described it to their users. For audiences using Apple kit, soon if you are a new contributor to a creator an extra 30% slice of that payment will now sail to Apple, not the person you are supporting.
I call it a slice, but when people first got excited about sliced bread it was because it was cut into lots more than just three 30%-sized blocks and a few leftovers.
I'd call it an arm and leg, but according to Harvard even that only amounts to 22.45% of average human body weight. A full 30% is in fact two arms, one whole leg, and an additional shin and foot!
That's not a slice, it's a savaging! Doing business with Apple is statistically comparable to being a full meal for a starving lion. For, as app developers and content businesses ask, doing what?
The Savaging isn't new to publishers with subscription apps, or in fact anyone else with an iOS app, and it is The Savaging which lays behind the sometimes absurd sign-up processes and payment dead-ends found in many publisher and media apps.
Ever wonder why you can't buy books in the Kindle App and have to go through the oddball process of buying them elsewhere and importing them? Now you know.
After years of legal dispute, only yesterday has music giant Spotify worked out how to simply show its own prices inside its iOS app without being pulled from the App Store, and even that is only for EU-based users.
Even when Apple says it complies with new EU rules, the alternative seems even more predatory than what existed before. And that doesn't get missed by those who levy fines.
The slipped mask shows fear?
Unfortunately, I cannot offer an immediate liferaft of hope to Patreon creatives facing a catastrophic change to their income potential.
And that fear is spreading, as shown by this post and lively debate by the founder and many high-profile members of Substack.
They will - like many publishers and media businesses before them - have to weigh up the allure of Apple's easy payment management with the prospect of refusing Apple-based fans (which is most of their current audience, say Patreon), ramping prices significantly for App Store users, or simply taking a kicking on their income. None of those 'options' are good.
What I can suggest though is that this scenario might not last that long before it is reshaped by external forces.
Although this case is itself nothing new, except for Patreon who have somehow skirted this rule until now, it again highlights what looks like another very obvious cashgrab-before-regulation by a tech giant in a panic. And, as well as just not being cool, such actions have a habit of riling up regulators even more.
Just as Google's volte-face over its Privacy Sandbox may end up being seen as late-stage defiance to scoop up cash before regulators in the US and EU usher in reworked business models, it's now hard not to see Apple's moves here in the same light.
Hang on by your fingernails, if you still have them.
Master of migrations
It's not overegging it to say a full site migration is probably one of the most stressful moments in an SEO lead's working day. Or probably more accurately, their working year: migrations are not overnight things. When you're moving possibly tens of millions of items of content, assets, URLs, and other pieces of data, there's a lot that can go wrong, and the No.1 concern is not to do anything that can collapse your SEO visibility. Luckily, one of the best in the business is Barry Adams, who shares his wisdom in the latest edition of his must-read newsletter SEO for Google News, including why, err... "there is no such thing as a site migration"! Oops!
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Ireland vs X
Ireland's Data Protection Commission goes legal against X over the use of European users' posts for AI training, alleging lack of openness and GDPR breaches. Why Ireland particularly? Twitter International Unlimited Company, the data controller for all EU citizen's data, is based in Dublin.
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News Corp targets AI "aggressors"
News Corp inked a deal with OpenAI in May 2024 in a partnership hailed as pivotal to positioning the company for success in the era of AI titans. However, the media giant is also on the front foot in protecting itself against other unauthorised AI interlopers and is the latest to initiate legal proceedings against undisclosed "AI aggressors" and "egregious aggregators".
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X lawsuit silences industry voice
Mere days after X filed its antitrust lawsuit against advertisers, industry group World Federation of Advertisers has dismantled its voluntary ad standards body Global Alliance of Responsible Media (GARM). Was this the plan all along when X launched the suit which name-checked GARM? No comment from X owner Elon Musk, who was putting out other fires elsewhere. Advertisers generally, seem to be looking elsewhere.
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SEO Masterclass II: SEO Boogaloo
Some time ago we convinced SEO legend Barry Adams to come to London to join us and AWS for an SEO Super Clinic that gave publishers insight from one of the best there is and doing SEO better. It went so well, we're doing it again - only twice as big, and twice as legendary!
Come join Glide and AWS, Barry from Polemic Digital, and fellow SEO superstar John Shehata, CEO of Newzdash, for the SEO for News meet up at the Amazon HQ in London on December 3rd.
The one-day event will feature:
Discussion and insights from seasoned experts John and Barry
Panel discussions on newsroom SEO, tech SEO for news publishers, and more
Networking with industry experts and colleagues
Real-world insight and advice from those who have been there and done it
Free food and drink, and maybe even some merch!
Like last time, the event is free and we don't do sales pitches. But pre-registration is required, space is limited, and it's already running out.
Click here for more information and to reserve your seat.
Meta kills off lie-tracker tech
Despite a blizzard of opposition, bosses at Meta today shutdown one of the few roundly-lauded tools in existence whose role was to fight disinformation online. CrowdTangle was heavily used by journalists and researchers to pinpoint online chicanery, and is no more. The BIJ outlines what this means.
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Google's next act: Sutton on the web's future
Google losing the most important legal battle of its life and being ruled an illegal monopoly sent shockwaves through the tech world, and all eyes are now on the regulatory measures which could be implemented to rein in its market dominance. While the next chapter in this saga unfolds, Ricky Sutton outlines what might come next and explores the possibilities to radically alter the digital landscape as we know it.
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Betting on AI
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Publishers' Reddit goldrush
Major publishers are flooding into Reddit after the site rocketed in search rankings following a deal with Google. Aiming to tap into the platform's growing search visibility, outlets like Yahoo, Puck, and The New York Times Opinion have launched new accounts on Reddit, while 'old hands' like The Rolling Stone and The Philadelphia Inquirer are refreshing existing ones. Have you bagged your /u/ yet?
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SvD's audio experiment: human vs AI voices
Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet is embracing AI audio to increase user engagement and accessibility, echoing a trend among publishers leveraging text-to-speech technology to boost reader interaction. A good report by INMA accompanies a webinar on the subject, crammed with stats about effectiveness. (Similarly, it's a key reason why GAIA Voice is part of Glide's AI toolkit).
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