I suspect that making exceptions to their "30% of all digital services" rule opens them up to lawsuits of favouring one company over another, not being a level playing field, etc.

Since they are in a near-monopoly position, claims of an uneven playing field might trigger really bad judgements against them (ie. 'Apple must split their hardware/software businesses', or 'Apple's hardware arm may not deal in mobile apps')

If they make an exception for Patreon they have to begin arguing why they can't do that for everyone (and there's no good answer). From their perspective it's easier to try to hold the line absolutely.

They could be - however foolhardy - closing off potential avenues for people to attack them in court? I could see someone making the argument "but you're letting <insert other app> use alternate payment methods!".

> so tiny it's completely insignificant.

What is even more insignificant is the number of people who will stop using iphones over this, which will be very close to zero.

>What's the angle I'm missing?

Greed

> Why are they doing this? What's the angle I'm missing?

Services are a more reliable source of revenue for Apple than hardware is.

their policy is to only allow donations/tips without taking a slice if they're to registered charities, or if the client receives one-on-one services (not access to some digital goods that other users also get, for instance). so this is strictly in line with their policy.

Honestly they're probably trying to get ahead of anti-trust, in a twisted way. Basically Apple has been caught being willing to negotiate with big app developers like spotify and applying the 30 percent fee to smaller developers while refusing to negotiate. This can be seen as collusion amongst the powerful silicon valley firms to give eachother sweetheart deals.

Apple is now ending these deals and then as blowback occurs they will try to aim the criticism at Lina Kahn saying, you know "she's the reason why your spotify on iphone got so expensive."

Why do CEO salaries keep beating inflation while the rest of us aren't? See money, take money.