7 ms·

This particular trend -- not only not asking for contributions, but openly denying them (often in advance, and when none were ever offered) for a better cause -

This particular trend -- not only not asking for contributions, but openly denying them (often in advance, and when none were ever offered) for a better cause -- is a rising tendency across virtually all of Western society. Watch any challenge with a monetary prize and invariably they'll turn the sad music on and demand that the contestants regale a tale about the old grandma in the old country, or the kid's club they want to donate to, etc (obviously not the hot tub they really plan on buying, or the better SUV). If a kid has a lemonade stand they can't just want to buy a WOW membership, they have to promise that it is for some good cause. Etc. Honest giving is great, but undermining the value of work to do so isn't always constructive. In this case presumably the hypothetical people who would have given him cash are also in a good place financially.

chongli 8y ago
Your analysis is good but there is one element you're missing: chargebacks. People who accept a lot of donations get hit with chargebacks from time to time and they can be so difficult to deal with that they actually cost the recipient money. This is a common complaint among people who take donations for a living, such as Twitch streamers. If you ask any streamer, they will tell you they prefer Twitch "bits" over any one-off donation specifically because bits are non-refundable. Unfortunately, there are people out there who go around donating and then doing a chargeback just to troll streamers they don't like. It's a really frustrating element of the system which happens to be set up to prefer the customer over the vendor in all disputes, making it ripe for abuse.
- Aeolun 8y ago
  It seems like any dispute involving a donation should pretty much be lost by default. It’s not as if anyone delivers an inappropriate product for a donation...
  - chongli 8y ago
    You would think so, but that's not the case. The problem is that people who receive donations don't have any special status with the payment processor. They are treated like any other vendor, so chargebacks are handled the same way.
  - colechristensen 8y ago
    What if someone steals my credit card and "donates" $1000 to a nazi political party?
    - nulbyte 8y ago
      Chargebacks are for disputes, not fraud. Provided the merchant did not incur liability by doing something immensely stupid and insecure, the bank is on the hook. If the perpetrator is caught, they will pay restitution to the bank.
      - necubi 8y ago
        That's completely wrong. Chargebacks are _primarily_ for fraud. And any merchant that accepts credit cards over the phone or Internet ("card not present") is liable for fraud, not the bank.
      - joecot 8y ago
        > Provided the merchant did not incur liability by doing something immensely stupid and insecure, the bank is on the hook. If the perpetrator is caught, they will pay restitution to the bank. Source? As someone who helps support an online credit card gateway, in my experience it is the merchant who has to shoulder the cost (plus an extra penalty fee) of the transaction. Perhaps there are different chargeback policies for card present transactions for physical products, but for online (and therefore card not present) transactions for digital products, I have always seen the merchant have to cover the cost of the chargeback (plus fee). There's a process for disputing the chargeback, saying the customer absolutely made the purchase and got what they were asking for, but almost every time the card would side with the customer, because there was no physical product. This is one of the reasons when card companies pushed for chip cards, merchants pushed back for chip and pin like cards used in Europe -- to cut down on fraud, which they end up paying for. The only system I've seen where the cost of a chargeback is on the bank instead of the merchant is if the merchant has setup 3D-Secure/Verified by Visa with their products, giving the banks and card companies the opportunity to have an extra login for making the purchase. However, those verify pages are made by the bank, not the credit card company, and are widely unreliable. I tried to set it up for our payment gateway, only to find that some of the banks had completely broken systems for it, leaving customers at an error page instead of buying the product.
  - L-four 8y ago
    Often donation payments are used to validate stolen credit cards.
    - msravi 8y ago
      But why should the donee pay (in the form of penalties) for that?
      - eloisant 8y ago
        to encourage merchants to do so minimal checks on the credit cards (like implementing 3d secure for example).
- gpm 8y ago
  Does the streamer get hit by fees or something with chargebacks?
  - sturgill 8y ago
    Yes. $15-30 per chargeback independent of whether you win or lose. So even if you “win” a dispute over a $5 charge, you’re $10 in the hole.
doesnt_know 8y ago
Accepting money isn't "free", and usually incurs a non-trivial overhead. If it's someones hobby it's easier to just not accept money and focus on the actual hobby. Some kid getting pocket money from a lemonade stand is significantly different to accepting recurring donations as an adult. Dealing with either setting up some sort of non-profit, managing tax in your country, accepting international currencies or supporting largely unethical/hostile US based financial institutions like Paypal, it can be a rabbit hole that some just can't be bothered with. It's also just really weird to critisise people for wanting their users to donate to worthy causes.
- endorphone 8y ago
  If someone doesn't want pay, or donations, then don't ask for it. Don't put a donate/buy button and it seems like the problem is solved. I mean this is a bit strange: it's hard enough getting people to pay for great projects when the makers clearly need it and ask for it, so I am surprised by the need to proactively reject it as if unsolicited donations are piling in their bank account. However there is nothing weird with discussing this, and that claim is exactly the sort of "moral" short circuit that I find so unpleasant about the whole thing. I would wager few if any people have donated to a charity in lieu for this case. But by announcing such a moral standing they've undermined anyone else who does accept or even request compensation for their creations: Do they have an adequately bad situation to justify such a request?
- pmoriarty 8y ago
  "Accepting money isn't "free", and usually incurs a non-trivial overhead." Is that really true? What if I say I only accept checks, or certified checks even. Wouldn't depositing such checks be trivial? Yes, you do have to pay taxes on the money (which in countries other than the United States can be very simple), but apart from that the other things you list such as setting up a non-profit, accepting international currencies, or dealing with corporations like Paypal are all optional.
  - throwawaymath 8y ago
    > Wouldn't depositing such checks be trivial? It would be, yes. But getting an appreciable number of people to donate via check instead of PayPal/Stripe would be highly nontrivial :)
Pristina 8y ago
Unfortunately the western culture is enamored in a continuation of the "white man's burden" ideology.
- rfw 8y ago
  Characterizing people wanting to contribute to the basic living conditions of people so pejoratively as 'unfortunate' and a 'continuation of the "white man's burden" ideology' is an extremely bad faith view of those who choose to do so.
michaelt 8y ago
Is that a "trend" when greed has been held up as a vice for thousands of years, with ideas like "if you want to be perfect, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven" ? And of course, there are plenty of people like parents and employers who find it convenient to perpetuate these notions at times.
systemtest 8y ago
I don't have ads on my personal blog because I want to give my readers a pleasant experience, not one with ads all over the page, AVG compliance popups and cookie notice bars. I "lose" about 10 euro per month in ad revenue but I have a good job, I don't care about 10 euro.

chongli 8y ago

Your analysis is good but there is one element you're missing: chargebacks. People who accept a lot of donations get hit with chargebacks from time to time and they can be so difficult to deal with that they actually cost the recipient money. This is a common complaint among people who take donations for a living, such as Twitch streamers. If you ask any streamer, they will tell you they prefer Twitch "bits" over any one-off donation specifically because bits are non-refundable. Unfortunately, there are people out there who go around donating and then doing a chargeback just to troll streamers they don't like. It's a really frustrating element of the system which happens to be set up to prefer the customer over the vendor in all disputes, making it ripe for abuse.

Aeolun 8y ago
It seems like any dispute involving a donation should pretty much be lost by default. It’s not as if anyone delivers an inappropriate product for a donation...
- chongli 8y ago
  You would think so, but that's not the case. The problem is that people who receive donations don't have any special status with the payment processor. They are treated like any other vendor, so chargebacks are handled the same way.
- colechristensen 8y ago
  What if someone steals my credit card and "donates" $1000 to a nazi political party?
  - nulbyte 8y ago
    Chargebacks are for disputes, not fraud. Provided the merchant did not incur liability by doing something immensely stupid and insecure, the bank is on the hook. If the perpetrator is caught, they will pay restitution to the bank.
    - necubi 8y ago
      That's completely wrong. Chargebacks are _primarily_ for fraud. And any merchant that accepts credit cards over the phone or Internet ("card not present") is liable for fraud, not the bank.
    - joecot 8y ago
      > Provided the merchant did not incur liability by doing something immensely stupid and insecure, the bank is on the hook. If the perpetrator is caught, they will pay restitution to the bank. Source? As someone who helps support an online credit card gateway, in my experience it is the merchant who has to shoulder the cost (plus an extra penalty fee) of the transaction. Perhaps there are different chargeback policies for card present transactions for physical products, but for online (and therefore card not present) transactions for digital products, I have always seen the merchant have to cover the cost of the chargeback (plus fee). There's a process for disputing the chargeback, saying the customer absolutely made the purchase and got what they were asking for, but almost every time the card would side with the customer, because there was no physical product. This is one of the reasons when card companies pushed for chip cards, merchants pushed back for chip and pin like cards used in Europe -- to cut down on fraud, which they end up paying for. The only system I've seen where the cost of a chargeback is on the bank instead of the merchant is if the merchant has setup 3D-Secure/Verified by Visa with their products, giving the banks and card companies the opportunity to have an extra login for making the purchase. However, those verify pages are made by the bank, not the credit card company, and are widely unreliable. I tried to set it up for our payment gateway, only to find that some of the banks had completely broken systems for it, leaving customers at an error page instead of buying the product.
- L-four 8y ago
  Often donation payments are used to validate stolen credit cards.
  - msravi 8y ago
    But why should the donee pay (in the form of penalties) for that?
    - eloisant 8y ago
      to encourage merchants to do so minimal checks on the credit cards (like implementing 3d secure for example).
gpm 8y ago
Does the streamer get hit by fees or something with chargebacks?
- sturgill 8y ago
  Yes. $15-30 per chargeback independent of whether you win or lose. So even if you “win” a dispute over a $5 charge, you’re $10 in the hole.

doesnt_know 8y ago

Accepting money isn't "free", and usually incurs a non-trivial overhead. If it's someones hobby it's easier to just not accept money and focus on the actual hobby. Some kid getting pocket money from a lemonade stand is significantly different to accepting recurring donations as an adult. Dealing with either setting up some sort of non-profit, managing tax in your country, accepting international currencies or supporting largely unethical/hostile US based financial institutions like Paypal, it can be a rabbit hole that some just can't be bothered with. It's also just really weird to critisise people for wanting their users to donate to worthy causes.

endorphone 8y ago
If someone doesn't want pay, or donations, then don't ask for it. Don't put a donate/buy button and it seems like the problem is solved. I mean this is a bit strange: it's hard enough getting people to pay for great projects when the makers clearly need it and ask for it, so I am surprised by the need to proactively reject it as if unsolicited donations are piling in their bank account. However there is nothing weird with discussing this, and that claim is exactly the sort of "moral" short circuit that I find so unpleasant about the whole thing. I would wager few if any people have donated to a charity in lieu for this case. But by announcing such a moral standing they've undermined anyone else who does accept or even request compensation for their creations: Do they have an adequately bad situation to justify such a request?
pmoriarty 8y ago
"Accepting money isn't "free", and usually incurs a non-trivial overhead." Is that really true? What if I say I only accept checks, or certified checks even. Wouldn't depositing such checks be trivial? Yes, you do have to pay taxes on the money (which in countries other than the United States can be very simple), but apart from that the other things you list such as setting up a non-profit, accepting international currencies, or dealing with corporations like Paypal are all optional.
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  > Wouldn't depositing such checks be trivial? It would be, yes. But getting an appreciable number of people to donate via check instead of PayPal/Stripe would be highly nontrivial :)

Pristina 8y ago

Unfortunately the western culture is enamored in a continuation of the "white man's burden" ideology.

rfw 8y ago
Characterizing people wanting to contribute to the basic living conditions of people so pejoratively as 'unfortunate' and a 'continuation of the "white man's burden" ideology' is an extremely bad faith view of those who choose to do so.

michaelt 8y ago

Is that a "trend" when greed has been held up as a vice for thousands of years, with ideas like "if you want to be perfect, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven" ? And of course, there are plenty of people like parents and employers who find it convenient to perpetuate these notions at times.

systemtest 8y ago

I don't have ads on my personal blog because I want to give my readers a pleasant experience, not one with ads all over the page, AVG compliance popups and cookie notice bars. I "lose" about 10 euro per month in ad revenue but I have a good job, I don't care about 10 euro.