Dribbble Wants Its Cut ⇥ dribbble.com

Constantine Anastasakis, of Dribbble, a portfolio hosting site for designers that also has a job board and, as of last year, serves as an intermediary between designers and clients:

Since Week 36 of last year, the total value of transactions processed through our marketplace (GMV) has grown by an average of 15% week-over-week (without any paid marketing). As transaction activity has increased, we’ve been able to commit more resources (including engineering, moderation, and customer support), accelerating growth and generating more revenue for our designers and, in turn, for Dribbble: […]

On the one hand, this early traction has exceeded our expectations and validated the decision to undertake a business model transformation after fifteen years of operation. On the other hand, it only represents a fraction of the transaction activity that’s actually occurring between our users because some take payments off-platform (also known as “disintermediation” or “circumvention”).

[…]

Today, we’re instituting a new policy that requires clients and designers who meet on Dribbble to keep payments on Dribbble.

Dribbble, of course, collects a portion of every project’s fee.

I have not used Dribbble in ages, but I got an email today advising me that I must remove all my contact details — like my social media handles and website — from my profile and any posted work, or Dribbble would do it for me beginning in April. I must say, it seems quite odd for a platform to look at the App Store and Apple’s resulting relationship with developers and see it as something to emulate. If the response I have seen elsewhere is any indication, this is going to go over about as well.