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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]

#231

Post by astura »

seancoleman wrote: post #147
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…

Stripe does refund their fees with a transaction refund. I understand this may be novel for the payment processing industry though.

Not anymore

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

#232

Post by andreasley »

_gfrc wrote: post #203
andreasley wrote: post #195

A Statement of Tim Cook for the House of Representatives claimed that "For the vast majority of apps on the App Store , developers keep 100% of the money they make." [1] How can this be even remotely true if Apple takes a 30% commission for every sale in the App Store? [1] https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU05/20200729/110883/HHRG...

Two options: 1) Free apps with advertisements. Paid apps are by far the minority. 2) I guess this statement is related to subscription models like spotify. If you acquire the user outside of the apple ecosystem and they subscribe on your own website and then download your free app from the app store, you get to keep 100% on the revenue that the user generates as well.

Ah, the ad thing makes sense. It's technically true but the meaning conveyed in the statement is quite different.

As for the subscription model, I've thought about that but developers that aren't huge companies have a hard time NOT integrating in-app purchases for cloud services (see "Hey", which had to use social media to get their update approved [1]), so it couldn't be the "vast majority of apps".

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/18/21296180/apple-hey-email-...

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

#233

Post by LanceH »

Spivak wrote: post #213
sbarre wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As per the thread: You buy an app for $10, Apple gets $3, the developer gets $7. You refund the app (through the Apple App Store), you get your 10$ back, but that whole 10$ comes from the developer, unlike the 7/3 split when you first purchased it. So in the end, the developer has lost money due to the refund.

This is just sales commission rules though. If I get a 30% commission for a sale when the customer is referred by me and at some point in the future the customer asks for a refund I don't give my commission back. Our transaction was done when the original sale was made.

Apple doesn't refer a sale. Apple makes the sale. They are the store, something they have set up and enforced.

The developer has no capacity to deny a customer, yet has the responsibility for the bad customers shopping someone else's store.

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

#235

Post by pantalaimon »

ejolto wrote: post #51
zamadatix wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you do this often Apple will ban your account. If you don't do this often it's not a problem.

What if you have a big Twitter following and ask them to do it?

Or have a botnet do it

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

#236

Post by aww_dang »

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.

This will only increase the fees and introduce compliance costs new entrants can't readily afford.

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

#238

Post by cwhiz »

dragonwriter wrote: post #128
cwhiz wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That isn't how monopolies work or are defined or classified. Revenue has nothing to do with market control. Even if we rewrite the dictionary and legal texts, Apple would be part of a duopoly, not a monopoly. If you try to redefine monopoly to mean that Apple has a monopoly over their own platform, then you better start lawyering up because essentially every company in America has a monopoly. I think people want Appl…

> Even if we rewrite the dictionary and legal texts, Apple would be part of a duopoly, not a monopoly. If Apple has pricing power because people don't move to competitors, they are a monopoly in the eyes of the law no matter how many players are in the same commonly-described market segment and what their sizes are. > If you try to redefine monopoly to mean that Apple has a monopoly over their own platform If that pl…

Your argument here is basically that Apple charges a lot so they must be a monopoly. Wanting something to be true doesn't make it true. Apple's share of the smartphone market is shrinking, not growing. The basic premise of your argument is factually invalid.

The fact that Apple can charge a premium despite being a minority player, and despite their marketshare shrinking, is evidence of their excellent marketing, not a monopoly.

To be a monopoly you must either have a dominant position in the market or your behavior must be such that you are attempting to gain a dominant position in the market. Or you can just make shit up because you don't like Apple.

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

#239

Post by curiousgeorgio »

> When a customer refunds your paid app...

(nitpick) The use of the verb "refund" seems confusingly wrong in this sentence. Neither the customer nor the paid app is paying back any money. I know it's Twitter, but it'd make a lot more sense to say "When Apple refunds a customer of your paid app..."

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

#240

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

jandrese wrote: post #192
throwaway45349 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other than lack of refunds and poor support for a decade, Steam was still the most consumer friendly app store. They got everything else right .

The family plan settings on an account are certainly not an example of getting it right. You can share a library, have multiple linked accounts, but the instant any one of those accounts fires up a game all other accounts are locked out of the entire library. Not just the game that is currently running, but the everything. Valve missed the entire point of having a family account setup and every time I mention this I…

> The family plan settings on an account are certainly not an example of getting it right.

What other stores have a family plan at all?

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