>Effectively, Readability is extorting publishers: give us 30% or we'll take everything
Readability has costs, and provides a service for free. They give you the choice of using their service for free (no revenue for them, no revenue for ad-driven content sites), or paying them a fee for the use of their service (which is strip everything except the content so you don't have to - a value-added service if I ever saw one). This fee gets forwarded to the content author, while they keep a commission for the service they're providing you. You, presumably, see a value in their service, or you wouldn't use it. You see a value in the content, or you wouldn't read it. They give you the choice of supporting the content and the service, where money is split to support the service you like and the content you like, or just use it without paying anything. The content author is denied ad revenue because you use a service which strips ads. This service now offers you the chance to support your favorite content authors directly, to compensate for the loss of ad revenue.
And you see extortion where?
>My entire point would be moot if Apple required 30% of all revenue
>from Readability regardless of whether the subscription originated
>from within the iOS app or from Readability's website
Your point is moot. Apple takes 30% from in-app subscriptions. People using the app don't have a choice between subscribing through the app or through the website, seeing as Apple does not allow linking to the website. Obviously, people using the app won't think of going to the browser to subscribe. Hence, even though it seems there's an alternative, toll-free way to subscribe, in practice there isn't. Even though it looks like it's optional, it's not, and content-based apps are going to be especially hit with this toll. The Apple 30% toll - encouraging people to develop for your platform, then putting up flat 30% fees on revenue - now that is extortion.
Readability scrapes content and removes ads. Publishers lose revenue when Readability processes their content in that manner and presents it to the Readability subscriber.
Readability then tells the publisher "we're charging our subscribers in order to remove the ads from your site, if you want 70% of that revenue, sign up here, the alternative is, you get 0% and you also lose the revenue from your ads because we're going to scrape your content anyway".
Publishers can now either agree to Readability's redefining the publisher's business model, or they can fight back by using resources to subvert Readability from scraping the content.
Readability's business model is very similar to such P2P companies as Limewire: charging people for an easy method of accessing content that belongs to others. The only difference is, Readability has offered, apparently out of the kindness of their hearts, to pay a portion of their revenue to the publishers they steal content from. The publisher has no choice to be uninvolved in Readability's business model, they either accept it and get a percentage of it in lieu of their existing revenue, or Readability justs cuts the publishers existing revenue.
That's nearly the textbook definition of extortion.
Regarding Apple, you're absolutely wrong. No one is forced to develop an iOS app, so automatically, extortion is off the table. Further, the 30% does only apply to in-app subscribers, and though you want to claim that means everyone has therefore had their choice removed and must subscribe in-app, that's simply false. In addition, if most of your subscribers come from in-app purchases, you can thank Apple for setting up and maintaining an eco-system that is in turn your largest market.
Readability has costs, and provides a service for free. They give you the choice of using their service for free (no revenue for them, no revenue for ad-driven content sites), or paying them a fee for the use of their service (which is strip everything except the content so you don't have to - a value-added service if I ever saw one). This fee gets forwarded to the content author, while they keep a commission for the service they're providing you. You, presumably, see a value in their service, or you wouldn't use it. You see a value in the content, or you wouldn't read it. They give you the choice of supporting the content and the service, where money is split to support the service you like and the content you like, or just use it without paying anything. The content author is denied ad revenue because you use a service which strips ads. This service now offers you the chance to support your favorite content authors directly, to compensate for the loss of ad revenue.
And you see extortion where?
>My entire point would be moot if Apple required 30% of all revenue >from Readability regardless of whether the subscription originated >from within the iOS app or from Readability's website
Your point is moot. Apple takes 30% from in-app subscriptions. People using the app don't have a choice between subscribing through the app or through the website, seeing as Apple does not allow linking to the website. Obviously, people using the app won't think of going to the browser to subscribe. Hence, even though it seems there's an alternative, toll-free way to subscribe, in practice there isn't. Even though it looks like it's optional, it's not, and content-based apps are going to be especially hit with this toll. The Apple 30% toll - encouraging people to develop for your platform, then putting up flat 30% fees on revenue - now that is extortion.