Everyone's heard horror stories about Paypal, though. Doesn't seem like a platform that you want to become too reliant on.

I've heard horror stories about Patreon as well. Your best bet is probably to spread your risk by being on Patreon, Ko-fi, PayPal+Web, YouTube memberships (if you do video) etc.

managing so many fronts with such different medium (you can host all media on patreon, only really videos on YT but also more limited videos than patreon. then you can't host at all on ko-fi), sounds like a pain both logistically and financially.

1. Building and running your own site is a lot more work than using Patreon.

2. Now you're at PayPal's tender mercies, which... well, you do you, but I wouldn't advise it.

Keep it simple, use templates.

In fact, how amazing would it be if someone who was about to embark on yet another decentralized protocol fiasco instead just released a Patreon-like template? There are other payment providers.

>how amazing would it be if someone who was about to embark on yet another decentralized protocol fiasco instead just released a Patreon-like template

they probably exist already (minus payment processing). Network effects take hold as usual, though. Patrons are more willing than average to jump, but I can see hesitation signing up and adding payment for a new/unknown website

and honestly all payment providers suck in some unique way. Though most of the fault lies in Visa/Mastercard. That's a monopoly we need to tackle one day.

How do they deal with the taxes?

You are misunderstanding, the suggestion is to do it yourself instead of using patreon.

Meta:

So the negative point value, currently -1, tells me that I am asking a rhetorical question and I should have said that I'm asking a rhetorical question.

Back on topic:

I am an expert on in-app purchases circa 2020 and do know that there's no working around it unless you have a deal with Apple. Used to be my job.

Paypal or any other financial transaction entity Is all the same to Apple, the user is sending their money while using an apple hosted app, and apple wants to make sure that users don't get fleeced! So Apple taxes those transactions ostensibly to provide oversight Services.

So the only way for patreon to get around this is to not mention in their app that you can also sign up on you know patreon.com To give money, and to allow users who have signed up and sent money on patreon.com to use the iOS app.

think p2p transactions are exempt - apple doesn’t get 30% of my venmo or zelle.

no clue why patreon doesn’t count though

It's not p2p. 2 transactions happen: you pay patreon, patreon pays them.

likewise with venmo, no? who gets to decide what constitutes a transaction

If we're being honest, private backroom deals based on a variety of business factors and debates. Venmo is Paypal, Paypal has Musk's and Thiel's deep pockets. They can and will settle something.

There is no real line, just imaginary ones apple draws arbitrarily.

As long as you're not using the paypal app on an apple device

It seems this bypasses both Patreon and Apple.