Facebook to show creators exactly how much money Apple, Google take from them

Facebook is launching a new interface that will give creators a breakdown of how different fees affect their earnings. Announced by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg just two hours before Apple kicked off its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) 2021, this comes in at a time when Apple is facing “intense scrutiny” for the App Store fees. The idea here is to let creators know how much money Apple and Google are taking from them.

Here’s a preview of what this new Facebook interface is going to look like. Going by this preview, the new interface is going to break down exactly how much taxes and fees are “taken away” from a creator’s event revenue.

Zuckerberg has not clarified when this new interface is going to launch yet, all he said was that there’s “more to come soon”. The Facebook CEO also said that the company would keep paid online events, fan subscriptions, badges, and their “upcoming independent news products” free for all creators till 2023. This is an extension of a policy Facebook announced in August last year while introducing the events feature on the platform. Facebook had then promised that they would not collect fees till 2021 “at least”. Now we know that at least some things are going to be free till 2023.

Facebook does have plans to eventually introduce a revenue share, as Zuckerberg has said. But when they do roll this out, they have promised that it will be “less than the 30% that Apple and others take”.

One cannot miss the obvious attack on Apple. Apple and Facebook have been involved in a rather public spat over Apple’s new App Tracking Transparency feature that was brought in with iOS 14.5. Facebook has been very critical about this update and has even taken out full-page newspaper ads lashing out at the changes ahead of their release. 

More recently, Facebook asked users for “permission to track them” to keep Facebook and Instagram “free of charge”. Given that only about 4% of US users on iOS chose to opt-in for ad tracking, Facebook and Instagram have a tough task on their hands here.