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When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited]

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Re: When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited]

#161

Post by simonh »

hrhrhrd wrote: post #138
simonh wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPhone is an Apple product. The App Store is an Apple product. The libraries and development tools needed to create iOS apps are Apple products. Traditionally the company that develops a product gets to decide what features that product has. There are various laws that require a product be safe to use, is not misrepresented and does what it is advertised to do, but beyond that there are very few actual features o…

Anti-monopoly legislation seems like a good starting place. Game console app stores are, at least in my opinion, equally exploitative, but Apple is one of the most problematic publishers out there. Being able to run whatever software you want on general purpose hardware isn't what this is about (although you should be able to, as the FSF has been saying for years). It's that Apple can't monopolise the market like thi…

Apple has a monopoly on designing the features of it's products and on deciding who they do business with and on what terms, that's all. What other monopoly do they have?

Youre not actually answering my questions. Exactly what features should Apple, Samsung, Pinephone, etc be required to implement? How should we decide what products these new requirements should apply to? Who gets to specify those features and certify compliance?

Re: When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited]

#162

Post by latortuga »

andrewxdiamond wrote: post #75
sukilot wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the same at all. Payment processing is work, regardless of direction. Marketing fees for non-sales is payment for nothing.

....but Apple processes payments for App Store purchases? And they pay to maintain the store. Storage, bandwidth, updates, those are all “work” as well. I do think 30% is quite high, but this comment seems to consider Apple a charity house that should provide these services for free

Don't forget that Apple takes a yearly developer license. You're claiming that the 30% cut that they keep on a refund is used to cover payment processing (typically priced around 3%) and the marginal cost of the bandwidth to distribute that single copy of the app? Even for $0.99 apps that price is outrageously expensive. AWS, notorious for their high bandwidth pricing, costs ~2 cents per GB on S3. This is 33 cents for a dozen MB.

Nobody is saying Apple shouldn't get paid here, but keeping 30% is insane.

Re: When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited]

#163

Post by munk-a »

RobRivera wrote: post #146
munk-a wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a bit different when a company is completely voluntarily engaging in self-destructive behavior - when it comes to the app store it is voluntary that folks post their apps there but Apple has an absolute monopoly on the market.

That nuance makes a major difference for sure in the situation. Mind I'm not rationalizing any behavior from either party. It's more an observation on the state of current affairs and how we've allowed it to come to this.

Oh it's absolutely terrifying - I just think it's important to highlight that in this situation there's a large power inbalance that doesn't exist in the SV example. It's likely most developers didn't walk into having an App knowing how this weird refund rule worked, so for most folks (if this is an issue) you've got the sunk cost of building the app already and have the choice of 1) putting up with Apple's arbitrary rules or 2) unlisting your app from the store and accepting that you'll never see another dime off your labour.

Re: When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited]

#164

Post by wwwwewwww »

chadlavi wrote: post #102

Payment processors generally don't refund fees on payments when the payments are refunded, this isn't new. It's remarkable mainly because (a) it's 30%, not 3% and (b) the App store doesn't position itself as a payments processor the way Stripe does, so it sounds really weird that they would act like one. If the app store took a 3% chunk and never refunded it regardless of the ongoing status of the transaction, that w…

PayPal does refund the variable portion of the fee (e.g. 2.7%) but not the fixed portion (e.g. 30 cents).

Re: When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited]

#165

Post by ebg13 »

sukilot wrote: post #54
ebg13 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marginal cost is often not a good way to evaluate things. A person who focuses only on marginal cost will say "It only took you an hour to make that" while discounting the decades of training it took to be able to. A person who focuses only on marginal cost will say "I could have made this at home" while discounting the reasons why they didn't. Prices relate to provided value, not just cost.

How much value is provided for a refund?

The amount refunded minus the continuing value to the user of the returned product (absent the value already extracted from the product by the user), of course.

Re: When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited]

#166

Post by shi314 »

indymike wrote: post #84
bronzeage wrote: post #8

App stores need heavy regulations. It's not only Apple but Google and even steam to a small extent. Apple is of course the biggest offender as they heavily guard their monopoly with code signing enforcement. This shouldn't have been legal. They are the very definitions of predatory competition squashing monopolies.

App stores need competition, not regulation.

To avoid unhealthy competition that endangers competition itself, regulation is required. Humans have tendency to monopolise.

Regulations makes competition important for benefit maximization. Apple would have long bought and closed by Microsoft if not for Regulation. AMD would have had suffered end.

Re: When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited]

#167

Post by abc126589 »

chadlavi wrote: post #102

Payment processors generally don't refund fees on payments when the payments are refunded, this isn't new. It's remarkable mainly because (a) it's 30%, not 3% and (b) the App store doesn't position itself as a payments processor the way Stripe does, so it sounds really weird that they would act like one. If the app store took a 3% chunk and never refunded it regardless of the ongoing status of the transaction, that w…

PayPal also keeps the fees when a refund is issued https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/20/20876570/paypal-refund-fe...

Re: When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited]

#168

Post by EdwinLarkin »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #55
bronzeage wrote: post #8

App stores need heavy regulations. It's not only Apple but Google and even steam to a small extent. Apple is of course the biggest offender as they heavily guard their monopoly with code signing enforcement. This shouldn't have been legal. They are the very definitions of predatory competition squashing monopolies.

The only heavy regulation I need is the device is fully mine after I buy it. I'll take care of the rest.

Sure but you are still just "renting" the software.

Re: When a customer refunds your paid app, Apple refunds its 30% cut [edited]

#170

Post by andrewxdiamond »

latortuga wrote: post #162
andrewxdiamond wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

....but Apple processes payments for App Store purchases? And they pay to maintain the store. Storage, bandwidth, updates, those are all “work” as well. I do think 30% is quite high, but this comment seems to consider Apple a charity house that should provide these services for free

Don't forget that Apple takes a yearly developer license. You're claiming that the 30% cut that they keep on a refund is used to cover payment processing (typically priced around 3%) and the marginal cost of the bandwidth to distribute that single copy of the app? Even for $0.99 apps that price is outrageously expensive. AWS, notorious for their high bandwidth pricing, costs ~2 cents per GB on S3. This is 33 cents fo…

A product or service is worth what people will pay, not what it costs.
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