“Much of their earnings go back to Monotype, which takes a 50% cut of every sale on its site.”
Cindy Thomason’s font played Jay Gatsby’s handwriting in a Warner Bros. film. Her cut was $12. Monotype owns Arial, Helvetica, Gotham and Times New Roman, bought MyFonts for $50 million in 2012, and keeps half of what the 4.5k independent foundries there earn. Private equity firm HGGC paid $825 million for the whole thing in 2019 and keeps buying the competition. Designers can sell through the monopoly or sell to nobody.