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All their announcements read like fees will be automatically reduced to 15% for the first 1M$, and even the linked article implies that: Starting July 1, 2021,
by ge0rg 5y ago
All their announcements read like fees will be automatically reduced to 15% for the first 1M$, and even the linked article implies that:
Starting July 1, 2021, the service fee for each developer will be 15% for the first $1M (USD) of earnings you make each year when you sell digital goods or services.
However, when you read on, you realize that it's an opt-in that you need to take action on:
To officially enroll for the 15% service fee tier, you must: [list of requirements and steps]
- ge0rg 5y agoFrom https://play.google.com/console/developers/paymentssettings https://play.google.com/console/developers/paymentssettings : Create an account group to help us understand if there are any other developer accounts that you're associated with. We'll use this information to make sure that you're eligible for Google Play developer programs and services, such as the 15% service fee. This looks like a fully arbitrary requirement that has nothing to do with the 15% fee and everything with Google collecting as much data as it can get away with.
- michaelt 5y agoIsn't this just saying "No creating 10 developer accounts to get the discount on $10M of earnings instead of $1M" ? Small business discounts are very vulnerable to abuse - when the UK introduced a tax break on the first £X of employee salaries, giant corporations like G4S shifted their employees to work for 48,000 new "small businesses", each with a handful of employees, to claim the tax break 48,000 times.
- ge0rg 5y agoIndeed, after working through the new bureaucracy, I've come to this realization as well. But the quoted wording isn't really helpful to realize that.
- clusterfish 5y agoWell... Did they send an email about this change to every app developer, or not? That would be telling.
- yunohn 5y agoYes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27616978 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27616978
- CrazyStat 5y ago> when the UK introduced a tax break on the first £X of employee salaries, giant corporations like G4S shifted their employees to work for 48,000 new "small businesses", each with a handful of employees, to claim the tax break 48,000 times. Can you point me to something that talks about this? I tried a quick Google search but wasn't able to find relevant results. I was having a a discussion with a friend who was advocating for more small business tax breaks a couple weeks ago. My counterargument was that almost all Amazon delivery drivers are technically employees of small businesses, but I'd love to have this as a more concrete example of a large corporation abusing small business benefits.
- bkirkby 5y agohttps://www.bbc.com/news/uk-57021128 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-57021128 not quite as the poster claims. G4S didn't "shift" employees, they hired new people to meet their new demand for covid related work. for these new people, they used employment agencies that were "Recruitment and Employment Confederation accredited and members of the government's Crown Commercial Service (CCS) Framework." it appears the accreditation of these new employment companies by the government was lacking.
- CrazyStat 5y agoThanks
- thanhhaimai 5y agoOpinions are my own. That view seems a bit too cynical. The requirement is a simple abuse-prevention step. When you work at the scale of Google, there are constant threat of abuse that you need to address.
- Hitton 5y agoIt looks more like a way to have a ability to ban even all your associates when the algorithm randomly decides to ban you.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y agoI resent Google's policy on insisting using their payments gateway, but this criticism is unfair: Google Play console has message about enrolment to this program on the most visible place they have, with a very noticeable red tint, so it is impossible to miss whenever you log into that console.
- ge0rg 5y agoAs a full-time app developer who consequently follows all Android design, policy and direction changes, you are not going to miss that message. As a part-time / hobby project developer, I only read the news posts that made it look like it was an automatic fee reduction.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y agoThey've also sent me an email explaining that I need to enroll this program.
- lukevp 5y agoApple requires enrollment in the small business program too, and it was much more involved in the Google one. For Google you basically just created a group and asserted which developer accounts were part of it, then approved it.
- fendy3002 5y agoJust curious, what benefit does google get by making it opt in? Do they hope that developers missed the message and profiting on the difference?
- cyral 5y agoIIRC when I signed up for it, you had to link any other accounts that your company owns and agree to some additional stuff (since they need to make sure people aren't using multiple accounts to get around the $1MM limit). The notice is very visible (plus emails).