Decreasing service fees on subscriptions to 15% • Hacker News Board

Re: Decreasing service fees on subscriptions to 15%

#181

Post by metagame » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 5:01 AM UTC

tomnipotent wrote: post #180

threeseed wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The cost via your own account on Stripe But it's not the cost for operating the payments gateway. It's the cost for the channel. The real world equivalent is supermarkets, retailers etc charging for products to be stocked on their shelves. Customer acquisition is extremely expensive and difficult and stores expect to be compensated for it.

> It's the cost for the channel. Except it's not. People don't download Uber or Netflix because of the app stores. Epic demonstrated unequivocally they could get installs without Google involved as an intermediary. The app store value at this point is singularly it their platform-specific monopolies, and the fact that you have no choice but to play ball to do business on mobile. > The real world equivalent is superma…

That's not actually the truth. You can go to F-Droid, or Cydia, Amazon or one of the dozens of SEA app stores that exist.

You have plenty of options. Your argument is basically that Wal-Mart is everywhere, so Wal-Mart should be forced to serve you on your terms.

Re: Decreasing service fees on subscriptions to 15%

#182

Post by lobocinza » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 5:02 AM UTC

RNCTX wrote: post #148

paxys wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are only talking about Spotify, Epic, Netflix and the like, but this makes a huge difference for services that are a tier below that. For any smaller company having trouble with growth/user conversion, a 30% cut to Google for the lifetime of the account is still way too steep, but at 15% you start to consider it.

15% is highway robbery. The cost via your own account on Stripe is 5% on the high end.

You pay for marketing.

Re: Decreasing service fees on subscriptions to 15%

#183

Post by saurik » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 5:12 AM UTC

metagame wrote: post #181

tomnipotent wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the cost for the channel. Except it's not. People don't download Uber or Netflix because of the app stores. Epic demonstrated unequivocally they could get installs without Google involved as an intermediary. The app store value at this point is singularly it their platform-specific monopolies, and the fact that you have no choice but to play ball to do business on mobile. > The real world equivalent is superma…

That's not actually the truth. You can go to F-Droid, or Cydia, Amazon or one of the dozens of SEA app stores that exist. You have plenty of options. Your argument is basically that Wal-Mart is everywhere, so Wal-Mart should be forced to serve you on your terms.

Epic is suing Google over direct and considered anti-competitive action preventing alternative stores from taking hold, and they might have a case.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/19/22632804/epic-google-laws...

Meanwhile, you reference Cydia (my alternative to the App Store), but I am myself suing Apple for over their efforts to lock us out competing on iOS.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/12/10/cydia-a...

https://cache.saurik.com/lawsuit/complaint.pdf

Re: Decreasing service fees on subscriptions to 15%

#184

Post by desiarnezjr » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 5:17 AM UTC

echelon wrote: post #8

joenathanone wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, personally I think 3-5% would be fair anything more is rent seeking.

Credit card transactions take far less, and they deal in legitimate risk (chargebacks, stolen cards, fraud, etc). As developers, we don't even need app stores. They're an artifice that got shoved down our throat by trillion dollar mega corporations. A taxation clearinghouse. You can distribute the same program bytes from anywhere, most notably the web. It's Steve Ballmer's old dream of taxing all software. There's ju…

> Credit card transactions take far less, and they deal in legitimate risk (chargebacks, stolen cards, fraud, etc).

Actually the merchant takes practically ALL the risk and the credit company has relatively little. If a stolen card is used or fraud is perpetrated, typically the merchant takes the hit depending on the type and scope of the fraud. If there is a chargeback, that money is held indefinitely until there is a resolution, but the merchant needs to dispute and prove that the product or service was rendered without any uncertainty, and much of the time the card company will favor the cardholder.

On top of that, the credit card processor will charge you the merchant a hefty chargeback fee regardless of resolution (as I recall, though they may reverse it if the decision ruled in your favor). Most of the time it's not worth the effort to dispute smaller chargebacks for smaller amounts. It's fair amount of work that just may not be worth fighting.

If your business is deemed in any way high risk, your merchant fees can be as high as 30% or more, but those are unusual edge cases.

When dealing with consumers directly that's the inherent risk and overhead.

Re: Decreasing service fees on subscriptions to 15%

#185

Post by megablast » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 5:41 AM UTC

saurik wrote: post #183

metagame wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not actually the truth. You can go to F-Droid, or Cydia, Amazon or one of the dozens of SEA app stores that exist. You have plenty of options. Your argument is basically that Wal-Mart is everywhere, so Wal-Mart should be forced to serve you on your terms.

Epic is suing Google over direct and considered anti-competitive action preventing alternative stores from taking hold, and they might have a case. https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/19/22632804/epic-google-laws... Meanwhile, you reference Cydia (my alternative to the App Store), but I am myself suing Apple for over their efforts to lock us out competing on iOS. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/12/10/cydia…

Epic lost their lawsuit completely against Apple.

Re: Decreasing service fees on subscriptions to 15%

#186

Post by calsy » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 5:52 AM UTC

judge2020 wrote: post #161

calsy wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah everything super easy when you control the entire process, from what apps you will see, to how you purchase them. There is no conscious decision to chose to pay with apple. You either purchase an apps subscription through apples payment gateway or not. Alternative solution are convoluted because Apple makes it that way, it's by design. You are paying more than you need to, and developers get less then they shoul…

Apple controls the entire process except the minds of those that buy the iPhone and the bank accounts the money comes from. > People complain about 1% surcharge on a visa, which is made clear before each purchase. This is utterly false. I've never seen a physical nor online POI specifically say "price includes x% fee paid to credit card processor". I imagine Visa and MC explicitly forbid you from making it a line-ite…

Sorry it is utterly true. Have you ever bought a plane ticket? It’s there in BOLD at checkout. ‘Credit card purchase surcharge of x amount.’ Amazon have recently made a huge deal about Visa’s 1% markup and emailed millions of customer telling them they should consider alternate payment options.

As for iPhone user’s. It’s obvious to all that Apples resources allow them to create the best devices on the market with the biggest library of apps that people want. Their monopoly on the market is not some green light to exploit customers and developers.

Re: Decreasing service fees on subscriptions to 15%

#187

Post by ComodoHacker » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 6:09 AM UTC

>The vast majority of developers could distribute their apps on Google Play for free (currently 97% do so at no charge). For the developers who offered a paid app or sold in-app digital goods (currently just 3% of developers), the flat service fee was 30%.

Do they mean only 3% of dev accounts who ever published something became sustained? Nice corp speak!

Re: Decreasing service fees on subscriptions to 15%

#188

Post by realusername » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 6:10 AM UTC

Denzel wrote: post #52

realusername wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want it one step further, it's not called "sideloading" but just "normal install", people should be able to install anything they want without some unwanted middleman, all the restrictions are just market distortions.

> people should be able to install anything they want without some unwanted middleman What “people” are you referring to? The millions of people, like yours truly, who’ve made the conscious decision to pay Apple because of their App Store model. I’m an engineer, I have a desktop and a laptop I can install whatever I want on. I’m ok with not doing that on my phone. In fact, I don’t want that experience on my phone. So…

I'm not going to pretend there's a choice on mobile because there's not, both Apple & Google are acting as they are part of the same company and with similar rules. it's just a duopoly without competition, I don't buy the illusion of competition.

Going into the debate of Apple vs Google is already missing the point, both are part of the same mobile conglomerate.

> I’m an engineer, I have a desktop and a laptop I can install whatever I want on. I’m ok with not doing that on my phone. In fact, I don’t want that experience on my phone.

I want that, phones are just computers like any others and having two companies control the worldwide app market without any competition is terrible. It's not just me who want that, it's that society and the global economy needs that.

Re: Decreasing service fees on subscriptions to 15%

#189

Post by realusername » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 6:11 AM UTC

metagame wrote: post #181

tomnipotent wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the cost for the channel. Except it's not. People don't download Uber or Netflix because of the app stores. Epic demonstrated unequivocally they could get installs without Google involved as an intermediary. The app store value at this point is singularly it their platform-specific monopolies, and the fact that you have no choice but to play ball to do business on mobile. > The real world equivalent is superma…

That's not actually the truth. You can go to F-Droid, or Cydia, Amazon or one of the dozens of SEA app stores that exist. You have plenty of options. Your argument is basically that Wal-Mart is everywhere, so Wal-Mart should be forced to serve you on your terms.

> That's not actually the truth. You can go to F-Droid, or Cydia, Amazon or one of the dozens of SEA app stores that exist.

Is that sarcasm? All of those combined don't even have 0.5% of the market.

There's no competition, period.

Re: Decreasing service fees on subscriptions to 15%

#190

Post by j16sdiz » Fri, Oct 22, 2021, 6:13 AM UTC

ComodoHacker wrote: post #187

>The vast majority of developers could distribute their apps on Google Play for free (currently 97% do so at no charge). For the developers who offered a paid app or sold in-app digital goods (currently just 3% of developers), the flat service fee was 30%. Do they mean only 3% of dev accounts who ever published something became sustained? Nice corp speak!

Majority of the android app are ad supported.