Meta offers content creators Apple tax workaround as confrontation deepens

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of newly-renamed Meta (formerly Facebook), has announced the company will be making several changes to its subscription feature for content creators.

Notably, one of these changes will enable creators to evade the 30 per cent fee on in-app transactions charged by Apple.

In order to do so, the company’s new service will provide a link to enable fans to pay for in-app creator subscriptions through a web-based Facebook native payments system.

When people subscribe using the link, creators will be able to keep all the money they earn, minus taxes, according to Mr Zuckerberg.

Announcing the move on Facebook, the Founder and CEO stated that as the company builds its “metaverse” it is focused on “unlocking opportunities for creators to make money from their work.”

“The 30 per cent fees that Apple takes on transactions make it harder to do that,” he said.

Facebook introduced its subscription service in June 2020, allowing content creators to receive monthly payments from audiences on the platform in an attempt to provide a “sustainable income.”

This service is not yet available to Malta-based creators, currently only rolled-out in Australia, Canada, the UK, Brazil, Mexico, Thailand and the US.

Along with this change, Meta will also aim to “give more ownership” of subscriber audiences to the content creators, by allowing them to download the email addresses of all their new subscribers.

Finally, the company is launching a bonus programme that pays creators for each new subscriber they get as part of the $1 billion creators investment announced in summer.

This bonus will range from $5-$20 for every new subscriber gained until the end of 2021, capped at a maximum of $10,000.

The update comes as Meta announced its rebranding from Facebook last week, as it continues to expand its virtual reality capabilities, in a move symbolising the redirection of its efforts towards creating a “metaverse.”

It also comes as Meta is locked in an ongoing confrontation with Apple, which earlier this year rolled out an update allowing users to opt-out of third party data tracking, negatively impacting the ad models of services like Facebook.