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I know this will be against deeply against HNews but I'm open to discussion. I don't see anything wrong with this. Charging vs Donations, I don't see what the

I know this will be against deeply against HNews but I'm open to discussion. I don't see anything wrong with this. Charging vs Donations, I don't see what the difference is. It's people paying money for good/services/software. The primary difference is the open ended pricing model. Google, Apple put up networks and there's value in that network. Whether someone chooses to release their app for free or charge money for it, that app is dictated by the network fees. This network is extremely powerful in terms of its distribution reach. Does it warrant 30%? That's what the market is willing to put up with, but if we're debating 30% - it should be for the whole network not just because someone has an open ended pricing model. If this app is registered as a non-profit (which it did not look like based on the website?) then I am 100% in the wrong and do believe the app should be able to operate under different pricing schemes. At a philosophical level - what is the difference between a free-to-use app that has open ended pricing vs a FOSS with donations? If there is a difference, let's discuss it.

usr1106 7y ago
It is useless to discuss market or even fairness as long Google and Apple are (de-facto) monopolies for the respective phone owner. It's a major failure of governments to allow monopolies.
- irjustin 7y ago
  100% agree that what Apple and Google take for their network is extortion pricing.
dessant 7y ago
There is no need for a philosophical debate, because Google Play In-app Billing simply doesn't support donations. https://play.google.com/about/monetization-ads/ https://play.google.com/about/monetization-ads/
wtfwhateven 7y ago
>Charging vs Donations, I don't see what the difference is. Charging: Person paying gets something in return Donating: Person paying does not get something in return >The primary difference is the open ended pricing model. What does "an open ended pricing model" mean?
- irjustin 7y ago
  By "open ended pricing" i mean - pay what you want. This is very common in food industry, "house restaurants" if you will. I get a meal and very well can pay $0 or $1000. Agreed, donations do not necessarily mean I receive anything in return and I purely want to support like clean water efforts in 3rd world countries, but policing the difference seems unrealistic. But that seems like it should be a special non-profit category. I think I'm beginning to convert to a 'middle' ground that there should be a sole proprietor non-profit, but that seems insanely hard to police.
Terretta 7y ago
While it doesn’t touch on donations, for the “value prop” angle I strongly suggest developers read and internalize Apple’s point of view as expressed in “iOS App Store Principles and Practices”: https://www.apple.com/ios/app-store/principles-practices/ https://www.apple.com/ios/app-store/principles-practices/ Also on the value prop front, worth noting a variety of digital app stores at scale have found operation costs 12% to 18% fees before the hands on “40% rejection” level of oversight that Apple is providing to end users.
yulaow 7y ago
In most legislations they are taxed (and deducted) very differently and must respect specific characteristics (eg donators must not receive nothing of value in exchange, must not be asked to donate a minimum amount or a repeated amount, etc)
esotericn 7y ago
You're stating, essentially, that anyone who wants to publish FOSS software with a donation link should be forced to go through some convoluted procedure and register as a charitable organization. (where? in the US? in their specific region? does it matter? how much time will it take for them to figure out? is this even possible in all regions? does this require ongoing effort e.g. accounting, document submission, general bureaucracy?) This is simply not how the real world works. If it ever does, you've created a dystopia. Google are being bureaucratic twats here. There's plainly and obviously a difference between WireGuard and the 10,000,000th iteration of some bullshit F2P casual game, and there's obviously a distinction between donations and purchases - the intent of the user, for one. That they put prole-tier support on the case and 'accidentally or otherwise' sling the banhammer at pivotal pieces of software is their problem to figure out.
- irjustin 7y ago
  True, I'll agree that going non-profit is a nightmare. But again, what is FOSS with a donation link vs free-to-use software with pay-as-much-as-you-want. One sounds like a non-profit while the other sounds like a for-profit. Perhaps if you can directly show your software is FOSS via licensing etc that there should be a special exemption? Seems like there needs to be a sole-proprietier non-profit... but man that seems like rife for abuse.
  - esotericn 7y ago
    Sure, there is very little distinction. I'd argue that both are donations. Pay-as-much-as-you-want (if $0 is an allowable price) represents a donation with a slightly different funnel. The for-profit vs non-profit distinction is immaterial to me; the distinction is between actually paying for products (e.g. buying an ingame item or support or a subscription or whatever; some sort of 'contractual' thing), and literally giving money away with no strings attached. Google's particular funding model for their App Store is a different kettle of fish entirely - they can decide that apps beginning with the letter A pay a 90% fee and that's just how it works.
    - 7y ago
eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 7y ago
I have done open source development for well over a decade, thousands of hours, tens of thousands of lines of code, and I can tell you: Considering the amount of donations I got, it would have been much more profitable to clean toilets, to just go begging in the streets, collect bottles from public trash cans for the deposit, or just sell my body. In fact let's have a look how much I got during the past 12 months for 250 hours of work: $0. Had I been working as someone who climbs onto roofs and cleans the dirt off of them I would have gotten this much for that in this country: $16500 And then, as a cherry on top, you now demand that a giant monopoly, which is trying very hard to soak up as much of people's data as possible - without paying them for it! - should get a cut from donations for my work which I genereally give away for free. Now I can understand that you did not know this when you wrote down your opinion! But given that you do now, do you understand how insulting this feels? :) It actually itched me so much that I created this account solely for the purpose of telling you, and I would be very happy if you could change your mind :)
- irjustin 7y ago
  Thanks for making an account to comment. I went to sleep (live in Singapore). 100% open source does not pay money for the vast majority of people, and thank you for your contributions to the community. I also hope you understand that I get that FOSS donations won't make a liveable wage. At the same time, we want to be thanked for our contributions to the community - I get that. My point is - by throwing up a donation link, we're circumventing their process. What's the difference between throwing up a donation link vs a Apple/Android pay link in app? It's the network fees. We're trying to avoid those because we feel they're unfair (which they 100% are). If the Apple/Android pay fee was the same as the donation link, the majority of the time, we be using Apple/Android pay. Why not? We want the benefits of the Apple/Android distribution network without paying their fees because "We belong to FOSS".
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

usr1106 7y ago

It is useless to discuss market or even fairness as long Google and Apple are (de-facto) monopolies for the respective phone owner. It's a major failure of governments to allow monopolies.

irjustin 7y ago
100% agree that what Apple and Google take for their network is extortion pricing.

dessant 7y ago

There is no need for a philosophical debate, because Google Play In-app Billing simply doesn't support donations. https://play.google.com/about/monetization-ads/ https://play.google.com/about/monetization-ads/

wtfwhateven 7y ago

>Charging vs Donations, I don't see what the difference is. Charging: Person paying gets something in return Donating: Person paying does not get something in return >The primary difference is the open ended pricing model. What does "an open ended pricing model" mean?

irjustin 7y ago
By "open ended pricing" i mean - pay what you want. This is very common in food industry, "house restaurants" if you will. I get a meal and very well can pay $0 or $1000. Agreed, donations do not necessarily mean I receive anything in return and I purely want to support like clean water efforts in 3rd world countries, but policing the difference seems unrealistic. But that seems like it should be a special non-profit category. I think I'm beginning to convert to a 'middle' ground that there should be a sole proprietor non-profit, but that seems insanely hard to police.

Terretta 7y ago

While it doesn’t touch on donations, for the “value prop” angle I strongly suggest developers read and internalize Apple’s point of view as expressed in “iOS App Store Principles and Practices”: https://www.apple.com/ios/app-store/principles-practices/ https://www.apple.com/ios/app-store/principles-practices/ Also on the value prop front, worth noting a variety of digital app stores at scale have found operation costs 12% to 18% fees before the hands on “40% rejection” level of oversight that Apple is providing to end users.

yulaow 7y ago

In most legislations they are taxed (and deducted) very differently and must respect specific characteristics (eg donators must not receive nothing of value in exchange, must not be asked to donate a minimum amount or a repeated amount, etc)

esotericn 7y ago

You're stating, essentially, that anyone who wants to publish FOSS software with a donation link should be forced to go through some convoluted procedure and register as a charitable organization. (where? in the US? in their specific region? does it matter? how much time will it take for them to figure out? is this even possible in all regions? does this require ongoing effort e.g. accounting, document submission, general bureaucracy?) This is simply not how the real world works. If it ever does, you've created a dystopia. Google are being bureaucratic twats here. There's plainly and obviously a difference between WireGuard and the 10,000,000th iteration of some bullshit F2P casual game, and there's obviously a distinction between donations and purchases - the intent of the user, for one. That they put prole-tier support on the case and 'accidentally or otherwise' sling the banhammer at pivotal pieces of software is their problem to figure out.

irjustin 7y ago
True, I'll agree that going non-profit is a nightmare. But again, what is FOSS with a donation link vs free-to-use software with pay-as-much-as-you-want. One sounds like a non-profit while the other sounds like a for-profit. Perhaps if you can directly show your software is FOSS via licensing etc that there should be a special exemption? Seems like there needs to be a sole-proprietier non-profit... but man that seems like rife for abuse.
- esotericn 7y ago
  Sure, there is very little distinction. I'd argue that both are donations. Pay-as-much-as-you-want (if $0 is an allowable price) represents a donation with a slightly different funnel. The for-profit vs non-profit distinction is immaterial to me; the distinction is between actually paying for products (e.g. buying an ingame item or support or a subscription or whatever; some sort of 'contractual' thing), and literally giving money away with no strings attached. Google's particular funding model for their App Store is a different kettle of fish entirely - they can decide that apps beginning with the letter A pay a 90% fee and that's just how it works.
  - 7y ago

eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 7y ago

I have done open source development for well over a decade, thousands of hours, tens of thousands of lines of code, and I can tell you: Considering the amount of donations I got, it would have been much more profitable to clean toilets, to just go begging in the streets, collect bottles from public trash cans for the deposit, or just sell my body. In fact let's have a look how much I got during the past 12 months for 250 hours of work: $0. Had I been working as someone who climbs onto roofs and cleans the dirt off of them I would have gotten this much for that in this country: $16500 And then, as a cherry on top, you now demand that a giant monopoly, which is trying very hard to soak up as much of people's data as possible - without paying them for it! - should get a cut from donations for my work which I genereally give away for free. Now I can understand that you did not know this when you wrote down your opinion! But given that you do now, do you understand how insulting this feels? :) It actually itched me so much that I created this account solely for the purpose of telling you, and I would be very happy if you could change your mind :)

irjustin 7y ago
Thanks for making an account to comment. I went to sleep (live in Singapore). 100% open source does not pay money for the vast majority of people, and thank you for your contributions to the community. I also hope you understand that I get that FOSS donations won't make a liveable wage. At the same time, we want to be thanked for our contributions to the community - I get that. My point is - by throwing up a donation link, we're circumventing their process. What's the difference between throwing up a donation link vs a Apple/Android pay link in app? It's the network fees. We're trying to avoid those because we feel they're unfair (which they 100% are). If the Apple/Android pay fee was the same as the donation link, the majority of the time, we be using Apple/Android pay. Why not? We want the benefits of the Apple/Android distribution network without paying their fees because "We belong to FOSS".

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]