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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]

#251

Post by kej »

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…

It's not close to an ideal solution, but I've started working around this by distributing all new games I get between three different accounts, all part of the same family. That way playing a game only renders 1/3 of the library unavailable to others, instead of all of it.

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

#253

Post by feanaro »

IshKebab wrote: post #212
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…

To be fair, Apple and Google do a fair bit more than a payment processor does (basically nothing). Not 30pp more, but it wouldn't be reasonable to expect 3% fees. I'd guess 10-15% is what is actually reasonable. Microsoft has settled for 15% in their store (because nobody was using it so charging 30% is ridiculous).

Yes, they do a lot, but not at the moment of, or as part of, processing a transaction. What work do they do specifically for a transaction so that they get to keep 30% of it?

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

#254

Post by klank »

ralph84 wrote: post #141
vageli wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What laws would be broken in this case?

Tortious interference, also known as intentional interference with contractual relations, in the common law of torts, occurs when one person intentionally damages someone else's contractual or business relationships with a third party causing economic harm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortious_interference

How does that apply? In hypothetical this thread has been discussing nobody is damaging the contractual relationship itself nor is anybody preventing either company from fulfilling their contractual obligations. In fact, it's the strength and continued operation of the contractual relationship that would cause the economic harm. I don't think tortious interference applies here.

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

#255

Post by lukeramsden »

bawana wrote: post #237

What happens if I send somebody money with PayPal/cash app but then reverse/undo the transaction? Are the fees kept?

Most likely, but the fees are more like 30p + 2.9% (atleast in the UK, on PayPal) or something similar, which on a 99p app would be 30%, but on a $15 app it's obviously nowhere near 30%.

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

#256

Post by klank »

im3w1l wrote: post #142
vageli wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What laws would be broken in this case?

Ianal but it might go under tortious interference?

No, I don't believe it would apply. Tortious interference is when you interfere with the contractual relationship itself. In this case the continued obligations is what would drive the economic harm, thus tortious interference wouldn't apply.

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

#257

Post by wolco »

bena wrote: post #93
dogma1138 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not as much collusion as simply lack of competition. You don’t have any other options for most of their respective platform and there isn’t enough incentive to compete on the pricing. Also even when there is competition there are rules that prevent you from lowering pricing in one store vs the other (there are some exceptions) so if you end up say selling a game on the PC and you set the retail price as $60 and you l…

Yeah, I wouldn't call it out and out collusion. If the first store did 20%, it's likely all the stores would have followed suit on that price point. 30% is likely the most they can take that people will tolerate.

They could take 70% or 95% and there will still be posts saying that the market is 3.5 billion people and 5% isn't bad because Apple/Google do all of the marketing.

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

#258

Post by kilo_bravo_3 »

ryanlol wrote: post #60
lacker wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like a pretty clear duopoly to me, Apple and Android are the only two mobile platforms, and rather than compete with each other on price they are just both leaving their cut at 30%. Personally it’s not even the 30% I mind so much as, maybe there are cool new products like new mobile browsers that are just forbidden by the app stores and so we will never get them.

Amazon appstore, F-droid, Huawei app store, Samsung Galaxy Apps and so on.

None of those matter.

Neither does the fact that you can buy a Linux phone, today.

The people downvoting you just want to punish the wicked.

It's like the digital content distribution discussions where even a single inconvenience or a perceived lack of value is met with "YARR ME MATEY SAIL THE SEVEN SEAS".

When you point out that all of this (waves hand) is an optional luxury and if they want open culture they can choose to consume open (and public domain) culture you are looked at like you are a goblin and downvoted.

They don't care about open culture they just want to punish music and film distributors.

If they did care about open culture they would only consume culture that had been voluntarily released as free and open. There is plenty of creative commons, public domain, open source, and other free content for them to consume but they want the good stuff.

They don't care about competitive app stores they just want to punish the app store owners.

If they did care about open app stores they would all buy the PinePhone and support developers on that platform MAKING MINOR PERSONAL SACRIFICES until it was a success.

But the people downvoting you don't care and will tie themselves into knots and find every hollow and vapid excuse why you are wrong and they are right.

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

#259

Post by benologist »

throwaway45349 wrote: post #171
erk__ wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam did not offer refunds at all until they came into trouble for it in Australia and the EU. That is what regulations are for.

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 .

Steam actively banned users for getting chargebacks and defrauded ~20,000 Australians seeking refunds, Australia's like 5% of their users so they probably defrauded several hundred thousand more people worldwide. They're not a consumer-friendly company at all they just had an epiphany about their liability and updated their refund policy while being sued for a little tiny fraction of their thievery.

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

#260

Post by cortic »

zamadatix wrote: post #26
wlesieutre wrote: post #7

Does this mean if there's a developer I don't like, I can buy their stuff and refund it to arbitrarily cost them money at no cost to myself and there's nothing they can do about it? That seems ... not great, especially these days. What happens when mobs of internet morons decide review bombing isn't sufficient and realize Apple will help them cause direct financial harm instead?

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

Source? Cause this sounds like wishful thinking.
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