> Their App Store is the only way people get apps on their device and if a search for ‘patreon’ in the App Store returns nothing, that’s a lot of confused or angry people that are going to wonder what their monthly bill is for.
I just searched the App Store for Patreon:
The top hit was an ad for Ashley Madison. Seriously.
The second hit was the Patreon app.
The third hit was ChatGPT for some reason.
But if the Patreon app was not in the App Store, no doubt there would be a bunch of scammers trying to pose as the official Patreon app.
Not only but also; as with a real tax from a government, all the money goes into a big pot, gets mixed around, and then the expenses come out unevenly from that pot.
I'm not at all aware of where the boundary is between "that's fine" and "that's abuse of market dominance to fund uneconomical expansion".
Does anywhere have a specific "national defence" tax and another "police fund" tax etc. for each expense, rather than "income tax" and "sales tax" for each source?
IMHO profits should be ringfenced by activity and taxed accordingly - otherwise you end up with funds from one activity being used to subsidize another without taxation, creating an unfair environment for competition. Youtube being the perfect modern example.
I just searched the App Store for Patreon:
The top hit was an ad for Ashley Madison. Seriously.
The second hit was the Patreon app.
The third hit was ChatGPT for some reason.
But if the Patreon app was not in the App Store, no doubt there would be a bunch of scammers trying to pose as the official Patreon app.