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Patreon creators will need to make some changes soon, thanks to Apple. On Wednesday, Patreon said Apple has renewed its requirement that all Patreon creators must move to subscription billing. The deadline to do so is November 1, 2026.
Patreon's blog post announcing the change made it clear that it had no other choice. "We strongly disagree with this decision," the company wrote. "Creators need consistency and clarity in order to build healthy, long-term businesses. Instead, creators using legacy billing will now have to endure the whiplash of another policy reversal — the third such change from Apple in the past 18 months."
Up to this point, Patreon's billing model has operated in a gray area, allowing its creators to charge fans outside the App Store without paying Apple's fees. This was because some of the content people were paying for could be consumed in-app, while others couldn't.
But now Apple has reimposed its subscription mandate, eliminating the gray area. "We know that Apple is serious about enforcing this mandate," Patreon wrote. "Late last year, they blocked a Patreon app update and made it clear that in order to remain in the App Store, we have to comply with their billing requirement. Because millions of fans use iOS as their primary way to access Patreon and connect with creators, having our app blocked — or not available in the App Store at all — isn't an option."
Patreon's "whiplash" description isn't hyperbole. Apple first announced the mandate in 2024. At that time, the deadline for all Patreon creators to make the switch was set to November 2025 — one that Patreon grudgingly accepted. But according
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Wes Ott covers today's biggest tech stories, including a Gemini-backed Siri version of Siri appearing as early as next month. Plus, Amazon shuts down its supermarkets, and Meta experiments with paid tiers on its apps like Instagram and Facebook.
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California Governor Gavin Newsom has announced that his office is investigating whether TikTok is truly censoring content critical of Trump, days after ByteDance finalized a deal to spin off its business in the US. Newsom made the announcement in response to a post on X, claiming that you can no longer send messages in the app with the word "Epstein" in it. Newsom's office, in a separate post, said it was able to independently confirm instances wherein TikTok suppressed content critical of President Donald Trump.
The governor's office told Politico that it tried to send a direct message with the word "Epstein" in it and got a warning that it could not be sent because it may violate TikTok's community guidelines. Newsom's team is now "launching a review of this conduct and is calling on the California Department of Justice to determine whether it violates California law."
If you'll recall, ByteDance finalized a deal for a new US entity just as TikTok was about to be banned in the US. ByteDance only owns 19.9 percent of the new entity called the TikTok USDS Joint Venture, while the new investors own 80 percent. Oracle, Silver Lake and Emirati fund MGX have a 15 percent stake each. The US business will now retrain TikTok's algorithm on US data and will also be in charge of content moderation.
After the US entity's announcement, users started
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