Below is a new arts & culture briefing. I cover a lot of ground here, but a key theme is the dirty war against freelance creators. It’s getting ugly out there. For example…. If you want to support my work, consider taking out a premium subscription—for just $6 per month (even less if you sign up for a year).Can Apple really charge a 30% tax on indie creators?What Apple is now doing to indie creators is pure evil—but this story has received very little coverage. Journalists should pay attention, because they are under threat themselves. Apple is now putting the squeeze on Patreon, a platform that supports more than a quarter of a million creators—artists, writers, musicians, podcasters, videographers, etc. These freelancers rely on the support of more than 8 million patrons through Patreon, which charges a small 8-12% fee. Many of these supporters pay via Patreon’s iPhone app. Earlier this year, Apple insisted that Patreon must pay them a 30% commission on all new subscriptions made with the app. In other words, Apple wants to take away close to a third of the income for indie creators—almost quadrupling their transaction fees. This is the new business model from Cupertino, and it feels like a Mafia shakedown. Apple will make more from Patreon than Patreon does itself. The only way for indies to avoid this surcharge is by convincing supporters to pay in some other way, and not use an iPhone or Apple tablet. This is what happens when Apple decides to treat a transaction as an “in app payment”—as if an artist’s entire vocation is no different than a make-believe token in a fantasy video game. But you can easily imagine how almost anything you do with your phone could be subject to similar demands. I’ve been very critical of Apple in recent months. But this is the most shameful thing they have ever done to the creative community. A company that once bragged how it supported artistry now actively works to punish it. How much does Google hate indie publishers? Look what it did to this film review website…Not long ago, this website attracted 20 million visitors per month. But Google changed its algorithm—and now only a few thousand visitors show up. “No one can find our site,” admits web publisher Joshua Taylor. But somebody else is benefiting. “Most entertainment keywords have now been given to one big company,” Taylor explains, “whose numerous sites own the top slots for nearly every entertainment-related query of any substance.” Taylor traveled to Silicon Valley to try to save his company, but “it turned into a funeral.” A group of twenty shadowbanned websites were granted a few minutes with a Google exec. It didn’t go well.
Experts dismissed podcasting as a passing fad—they couldn’t have been more wrong.In December 2023, I claimed that 2024 would witness a massive shift in power to alternative media—and I said the election would make this absolutely clear. This has now been proven true with a vengeance, although many were taken by total surprise. Even the Wall Street Journal—as old school as it gets in the journalism business—now grasps the new hierarchy:
In the aftermath of the election, this “new ecosystem” is now so powerful, according to Spencer Kornhaber at The Atlantic, “that to label it alternative seems ridiculous.” Substack exerted a significant influence during the campaign, breaking huge stories both from the Left and Right. But podcasting is now flexing like never before. The number of people listening to podcast has tripled over the last decade. And I don’t anticipate any slowdown—and certainly not a collapse. Check out the trendline:
You can love ‘em or hate ‘em. But it’s no longer wise to ignore ‘em. This is where public discourse gets shaped, and everybody needs to adapt—especially anyone in media or politics. All the news from Hollywood is bad news.In case you missed the movie news during the last week….
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The War Against Indie Creators Is Now Getting Dirty
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