181–190 of 583 posts
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Stripe does refund their fees with a transaction refund. I understand this may be novel for the payment processing industry though.
No stripe doesn't. They used to but not for a while now. At least not for our SAAS business where we do close to 1M ARR. Am I missing something ? https://stripe.com/docs/refunds
Had a look and it seems that Google do refund the transaction fee, which I think adds weight to the argument that is unfair behaviour by Apple: https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ... "Google will return the transaction fee to you. You'll see the returned transaction fee on your next earnings report."
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Will they? In some jurisdictions they are required by law to grant refunds. In others, they still have very little incentive to control refund fraud, what with the fact that they're still making money rather than losing it. It would be one thing if they said "We're keeping the credit card processing fees so that we don't lose money," but to keep the whole 30% cut is just petty.
I've never heard of any jurisdiction where unconditional refunds are required. A lot do require refunds if the product is faulty but that's different.
> In the EU you have the right to return purchases made online or through other types of distance selling, such as by phone, mail order or from a door-to-door salesperson, within 14 days for a full refund. You can do so for any reason – even if you simply changed your mind.
There is a potential exemption for digital content "if you have already started downloading or streaming it and you agreed that you would lose your right of withdrawal by starting the performance," but Apple does not appear to have its customers agree to that.
Specifically called out in their UK conditions:
> Right of cancellation: If you choose to cancel your order, you may do so within 14 days of when you received your receipt, without giving any reason.
https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/uk/term...
Presumably in other European terms as well, I checked the UK because it's in English.
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.
That would solve the problem. Someone will spin up a better App store. Someone already has in fact. If you jailbreak your iPhone you get access to a second app store (https://cydia-app.com) which has apps that Apple won't put in their regular store.
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I've never heard of any jurisdiction where unconditional refunds are required. A lot do require refunds if the product is faulty but that's different.
The jurisdiction that will come to most minds is the EU, but it has exemptions for digitally downloaded content and unsealed software. https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/gua...
> Right of cancellation: If you choose to cancel your order, you may do so within 14 days of when you received your receipt, without giving any reason
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It’s pretty common across the board. 30% is really high for sure, but payment processors gotta get paid at some point. I think Apple should split the fee up. Make a portion what they charge for processing payments and the rest their commission.
correct, there is a huge difference between taking 3% and 30% one is the cost of doing business, the other is predatory
Do you know how much manufacturers earn on products sold in grocery stores? Far less than 50% of the retail price. When distributors are involved, it’s even less. The company that makes a bar of soap might get paid $1, the distributor gets $1 and the retailer sells it for $3 and has the right to return unsold product. And shipping costs aren’t included in these amounts. The manufacturer gets $1 but also has to pay shipping to the distributor.
People complaining about 30% have no idea how real world businesses operate. They are in some kind of fantasyland. Don’t forget, the App Store also handles your worldwide sales tax payments, fraud protection, chargebacks, hosting, distribution, your storefront, your payment processing and gives you worldwide availability for your app in the specific local currencies.
If those services aren’t of value to you, then don’t sell apps for iOS. Certainly Windows Phone has some users, or perhaps create your own device and ecosystem that offers terms you find more amenable. This is Hacker News, not crybaby news: you don’t like the status quo, then get some friends, start making a better system, raise some money, then compete. If you think 30% is predatory, then make a system that only charges $what_you_think_is_fair.
As far as Stripe, they take more than 3%. And for connect accounts, the percentage is closer to 3.5% not to mention you get charged $15 or $20 for a chargeback. What’s Apple charge developers for chargebacks? Zero. How often do developers have to challenge chargebacks with Apple? Zero. If you are selling using Stripe, it can become a significant expense, depending on your industry, especially gaming.
It’s my feeling that people complaining about 30% have no idea of the expense of “doing it themselves.”
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Something about conspiracy to defraud, maybe?
How is that fraud? "Everyone, buy this product and return it to the store for a full refund," doesn't sound like fraud to me. It doesn't result in personal or financial gain to the people perpetrating it, either. edit: so who is in trouble here? The person calling for people to do it with their twitter following or the twitter followers? I'm not saying that buying the app and returning it is not fraud if you entered…
Does "customer refunds your paid app" mean the customer requests and gets a (full) refund from Apple for a prior app purchase?
(I would say "returns" not "refunds" ... Apple is the one refunding, not the customer. The customer receives the refund. But I guess this is some kind of regional/informal usage I'm not familiar with.)
If so, that's BS. Apple could reasonably keep transaction costs of something like 5%, but the full 30 is crazy.
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The only heavy regulation I need is the device is fully mine after I buy it. I'll take care of the rest.
Exactly. If anyone wants to run an app store, fine, but I must be allowed to "side load" apps onto my device so that I don't have to participate in the app store economy.