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> But as a customer, I'd deliberately avoid Paddle to keep my privacy and avoid spam. I thought the same initially - but come on, this is the situation when yo

> But as a customer, I'd deliberately avoid Paddle to keep my privacy and avoid spam. I thought the same initially - but come on, this is the situation when you buy anything from anywhere else except the AppStore and we all get on with it just fine. You just decide if you trust the seller or not and block their emails if they're annoying.

jonplackett 5y ago
Saying that - I just received an email from Apple reminding me that two of my subscriptions are coming up in a month and letting me know i could cancel them before that - so there are big benefits to having someone in your corner, in the middle.
- echelon 5y ago
  Do you hate your subscriptions that much? And love Apple like your mother? This is like Jeff Bezos is sending you letters asking which small business you'd like to deny rent money to this month. He's cackling in the background knowing you're paying him and that it makes his ecosystem stronger to rope everyone into it and pit them all in evolutionary battles to the death.
  - moate 5y ago
    No it isn't. It's like Apple asking you if you want to keep paying for a service you voluntarily signed yourself up for. You can set your own calendar reminders about subscriptions you may not want in perpetuity, but it's entirely on the small business to keep me as a customer. Let's not pretend that the "poor small guys" don't sometimes use subscription models with automatic renewal specifically because they're hoping people will keep paying them after the product is no longer useful because they forget to cancel their service. This is a known dark pattern I've seen complained about everywhere (including here).
  - dang 5y ago
    Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments, fulminating, and posting flamewar comments to HN? We ban accounts that do this sort of thing and you do it a lot. That's not cool. I don't want to ban you but we've had to ask you this many times already, and at some point the slack is going to run out. Please read the rules and stick to them: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
oauea 5y ago
I want sellers to be able to reach me when I buy from them. If something goes wrong, or something happens, it is absolutely essential that they are able to contact me.
- bathtub365 5y ago
  That’s why Apple’s proxy system is a good solution. Sellers can get in contact with you, but don’t have your real email address.
  - oauea 5y ago
    No, that lets the sellers contact apple who may or may not choose to forward the message to me. I want the sellers to contact me, since I'm doing business with them. What happens when apples proxy server goes down, or they start charging money for it? Very problematic for everyone involved if apple can keep the contact information of your customers hostage.
    - floatingatoll 5y ago
      It’s very problematic for businesses 365 days a year, yes — but for your customers, it’s problematic no more than 1 day a year at most. And that is a huge win for us customers.
- jonplackett 5y ago
  Having had an app in the top #10 for a year or so, I can say this is very important, and very difficult with the current model. Them contacting you isn't the issue though, you can put that in the app - but if you want to contact them because you messed something up, much harder. Another annoyance is refunds. Sometimes you just want to refund someone. Maybe because you messed up somehow, or just to be nice. All you can do is send them to beg apple for one which makes for crap customer service.
jasode 5y ago
>, this is the situation when you buy anything from anywhere else except the AppStore and we all get on with it just fine. No it isn't in my case because I don't use my Apple email anywhere else but Apple. It stays clean with zero spam in the inbox. Many services hide email addresses from sellers including ebay, Etsy, Craigslist, Amazon, etc. The key is that the granularity and quantity of managing email spam is reduced when all those intermediary platforms shield customer email addresses. I do have my own email domain and I can create throwaway email addresses which I use with many other websites but that's irrelevant if Apple decided to share my email with App Store developers. >You just decide if you trust the seller or not and block their emails if they're annoying. Why would I want the additional "mental tax" and decision tree of trust/distrust potential seller and then do extra digital housekeeping of blocking future spam? I'm still not paying any less (the court ruling said Apple is still entitled to 30% even with non-Apple payments) -- so what exactly do I gain? It looks like Paddle offers more benefits the seller but no compelling advantages to the buyer.
- omnimus 5y ago
  Paddle is not two way marketplace like ebay. It's a payment gateway focused on digital products. It's like Stripe and it's even harder to get in to use paddle because there are human checks where you have to prove what you are selling is allowed. What companies do with the emails is... up to them. But that goes for any payment processor.
  - jasode 5y ago
    >Paddle is not two way marketplace like ebay. Yes I know that but that's not relevant to my point. My point is to emphasize the "hide the email" advantages. I should have wrote my sentence like this: - Many services (including many non-payment processor gateways) hide email addresses from sellers including ebay, Etsy, Craigslist, Amazon, etc. >What companies do with the emails is... up to them. But that goes for any payment processor. Not it does not for _any_ payment processor. E.g. Apple payment system does not reveal email addresses while PayPal does. Buyers then complain about followup spam because they paid via PayPal. The assertion of "what companies do with the emails is up to them" is true and yet it is missing the crucial point of the conversation. The distinction is a layer above that: systems that don't give the companies email addresses at all. The later text revision by Paddle that "sharing email is opt-in" is still suboptimal for consumers because that's just one more tedious item to doublecheck. I.e. is there a UI dark pattern that was silently switch from off to on. Apple payment eliminates that mental tax.

jonplackett 5y ago

Saying that - I just received an email from Apple reminding me that two of my subscriptions are coming up in a month and letting me know i could cancel them before that - so there are big benefits to having someone in your corner, in the middle.

echelon 5y ago
Do you hate your subscriptions that much? And love Apple like your mother? This is like Jeff Bezos is sending you letters asking which small business you'd like to deny rent money to this month. He's cackling in the background knowing you're paying him and that it makes his ecosystem stronger to rope everyone into it and pit them all in evolutionary battles to the death.
- moate 5y ago
  No it isn't. It's like Apple asking you if you want to keep paying for a service you voluntarily signed yourself up for. You can set your own calendar reminders about subscriptions you may not want in perpetuity, but it's entirely on the small business to keep me as a customer. Let's not pretend that the "poor small guys" don't sometimes use subscription models with automatic renewal specifically because they're hoping people will keep paying them after the product is no longer useful because they forget to cancel their service. This is a known dark pattern I've seen complained about everywhere (including here).
- dang 5y ago
  Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments, fulminating, and posting flamewar comments to HN? We ban accounts that do this sort of thing and you do it a lot. That's not cool. I don't want to ban you but we've had to ask you this many times already, and at some point the slack is going to run out. Please read the rules and stick to them: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

oauea 5y ago

I want sellers to be able to reach me when I buy from them. If something goes wrong, or something happens, it is absolutely essential that they are able to contact me.

bathtub365 5y ago
That’s why Apple’s proxy system is a good solution. Sellers can get in contact with you, but don’t have your real email address.
- oauea 5y ago
  No, that lets the sellers contact apple who may or may not choose to forward the message to me. I want the sellers to contact me, since I'm doing business with them. What happens when apples proxy server goes down, or they start charging money for it? Very problematic for everyone involved if apple can keep the contact information of your customers hostage.
  - floatingatoll 5y ago
    It’s very problematic for businesses 365 days a year, yes — but for your customers, it’s problematic no more than 1 day a year at most. And that is a huge win for us customers.
jonplackett 5y ago
Having had an app in the top #10 for a year or so, I can say this is very important, and very difficult with the current model. Them contacting you isn't the issue though, you can put that in the app - but if you want to contact them because you messed something up, much harder. Another annoyance is refunds. Sometimes you just want to refund someone. Maybe because you messed up somehow, or just to be nice. All you can do is send them to beg apple for one which makes for crap customer service.

jasode 5y ago

>, this is the situation when you buy anything from anywhere else except the AppStore and we all get on with it just fine. No it isn't in my case because I don't use my Apple email anywhere else but Apple. It stays clean with zero spam in the inbox. Many services hide email addresses from sellers including ebay, Etsy, Craigslist, Amazon, etc. The key is that the granularity and quantity of managing email spam is reduced when all those intermediary platforms shield customer email addresses. I do have my own email domain and I can create throwaway email addresses which I use with many other websites but that's irrelevant if Apple decided to share my email with App Store developers. >You just decide if you trust the seller or not and block their emails if they're annoying. Why would I want the additional "mental tax" and decision tree of trust/distrust potential seller and then do extra digital housekeeping of blocking future spam? I'm still not paying any less (the court ruling said Apple is still entitled to 30% even with non-Apple payments) -- so what exactly do I gain? It looks like Paddle offers more benefits the seller but no compelling advantages to the buyer.

omnimus 5y ago
Paddle is not two way marketplace like ebay. It's a payment gateway focused on digital products. It's like Stripe and it's even harder to get in to use paddle because there are human checks where you have to prove what you are selling is allowed. What companies do with the emails is... up to them. But that goes for any payment processor.
- jasode 5y ago
  >Paddle is not two way marketplace like ebay. Yes I know that but that's not relevant to my point. My point is to emphasize the "hide the email" advantages. I should have wrote my sentence like this: - Many services (including many non-payment processor gateways) hide email addresses from sellers including ebay, Etsy, Craigslist, Amazon, etc. >What companies do with the emails is... up to them. But that goes for any payment processor. Not it does not for _any_ payment processor. E.g. Apple payment system does not reveal email addresses while PayPal does. Buyers then complain about followup spam because they paid via PayPal. The assertion of "what companies do with the emails is up to them" is true and yet it is missing the crucial point of the conversation. The distinction is a layer above that: systems that don't give the companies email addresses at all. The later text revision by Paddle that "sharing email is opt-in" is still suboptimal for consumers because that's just one more tedious item to doublecheck. I.e. is there a UI dark pattern that was silently switch from off to on. Apple payment eliminates that mental tax.