Thread

1. pi-victor · 1790425525 · focus · HN ↗

   I think it bothers OP less that they take a 15% tax than the fact that google provides terrible support for their own play store. If they would take that tax and provide good feedback and speedy version reviews, nobody would ever complain - it is expected to pay something since the play store doesn't run on good thoughts and prayers. But because they're a monopoly (or a duopoly if you count apple, which is a different platform altogether) they can afford to act this way.

   1. inputmice · 1790428175 · focus · HN ↗

      Author here: Indeed, 15% is fine. They do provide some services. They provide the CDN for downloading the APK. They handle sales taxes in the various countries, which would be a PITA to handle yourself. Similar-ish services like Patreon charge a fee too. The 30% they charged a couple of years back was bad. But I could live with 15% if the support were anything other than zero.

      1. benoau · 1790429931 · focus · HN ↗

         Apple recently submitted in court filings that you'd have to pay ~8% for off-the-shelf solutions like Stripe or Paddle to be Merchant of Record anyway so 15% isn't really bad except for the high-earning apps, but Google should be doing something for that extra 7%.

         1. jeltz · 1790435761 · focus · HN ↗

            8% for Stripe? Why would anyone have to pay that when my tiny company pays 1.5%?

            1. benoau · 1790436961 · focus · HN ↗

               It's a level of service above their payment processing, where they also collect and remit certain taxes which I believe is built-in to that ~8%. This is the same service that Google and Apple provide for in-app payments.

               <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stripe.com&#x2F;managed-payments" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stripe.com&#x2F;managed-payments

               This is what Apple said about it:

               &gt; Stripe and Paddle are leading full-service, turnkey payment processing, and merchant-of-record providers handling all the services necessary for link-out, including payment processing, tax compliance, fraud detection, and customer service. Across the top apps, the mean implied processing and merchant-of-record fee based on Stripe’s and Paddle’s rack rates (which few, if any, large developers actually pay because they negotiate discounts or provision in-house) is 8.1% using Stripe rates, or 7.8% using Paddle rates.

               <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;storage.courtlistener.com&#x2F;recap&#x2F;gov.uscourts.cand.364265&#x2F;gov.uscourts.cand.364265.1708.0.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;storage.courtlistener.com&#x2F;recap&#x2F;gov.uscourts.cand.36...

               1. pbhjpbhj · 1790463910 · focus · HN ↗

                  So, Google take 10x what payment providers charge to take the payments because some companies will charge you 5x what it costs and handle your taxes and accounting?

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