2 ms·

Please don't ignore, I'm curious how I will not stand a chance at %30 but it's fine at %15. I want to know if this is your gut feeling or do you know something

by mrtksn 5y ago

Please don't ignore, I'm curious how I will not stand a chance at %30 but it's fine at %15. I want to know if this is your gut feeling or do you know something concrete. Thanks.

jacquesm 5y ago
I just look at what other payment service providers charge, they are between 1 and 5% based on volume, risk, transaction size. There is plenty of competition in the payment processing space. When you take the card companies' cut into account the fees are even lower for the transaction processing.
- simondotau 5y ago
  Suggesting that what Apple does is equivalent to a payment processor is ridiculous. I suggest looking at Epic v Apple and how that argument went down in court. It was embarrassing to witness.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Yes, agreed they are more like a mob running amok in a neighborhood but for the moment I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and looking at it purely as a transaction processor. I wonder how all of those defending Apple in this thread would respond if they jacked up the prices to say 75%. And why stop there?
    - simondotau 5y ago
      I was hoping for a serious conversation.
- mrtksn 5y ago
  How do you pay your taxes in UK, Turkey, Poland, USA, Japan, China, Australia and the rest of the 175 countries? How do you handle the regulatory requirements in each country and how do you navigate through the trade agreements?
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    If you don't know the answers to these questions, why are you even active in this thread? I've been running an international business for a couple of decades and this has never been a problem at all.
    - mrtksn 5y ago
      I'm asking you to enlighten me. Currently I don't have to deal with any of these, Apple handles all that for me, I like that and that's why I'm active in this thread. I'm defending a service that I see value in but maybe you can shine a light and demonstrate that all these can be handled for cheaper and easier than using Apple's service that charges %15 to %30. I'm asking legitimate question, I'm puzzled by your dismissive tone. How do you sell software and services in 175 countries for less work and commission than Apple's service? Good for you that you are running international business for a couple a decade know, would you share some of that knowledge? Thank you.
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        That it works for you is fine. You obviously have no incentive to look further than what works for you and you are fine with paying 30% for a service that is not competitive but that is convenient. If you were a bit larger that equation would change. Your first step would then be to use a commercial payment services provider such as Stripe, Adyen or any of the others to process the transactions for you (rates: 1 to 5%), possibly falling back to Apple in case their coverage doesn't perfectly overlap. Then at an even higher level of transactions you could choose to do the payment processing yourself. It's pretty simple, really. And as for taxes: that too is something that you can arrange in different ways, depending on where your main place of business is registered. My dismissive tone is because it appears that you want me to do a bunch of homework for you while at the same time arguing that there is nothing to be concerned about in 10's of comments in this thread. You have already made up your mind and seem to use questions as a way to argue rather than that you are really interested in the answers. I predict that as a result of this response you are going to come up with another set of questions for me to answer or a new set of arguments that move the goalposts away from your previous claims. But the essence of my response is: anti-competitive behavior can not be argued for by utility to some subset of the customers. The phone company provides a lot of value. But if they behave in an anti-competive way, for instance by price gouging customers on something that costs them peanuts such as roaming then they deserve to be smacked down, even if some people will argue that you could of course buy a different phone for every country as an alternative, and so those roaming charges are acceptable because they are cheaper. That misses the point entirely.

by mrtksn 5y ago

Please don't ignore, I'm curious how I will not stand a chance at %30 but it's fine at %15. I want to know if this is your gut feeling or do you know something concrete. Thanks.

jacquesm 5y ago

I just look at what other payment service providers charge, they are between 1 and 5% based on volume, risk, transaction size. There is plenty of competition in the payment processing space. When you take the card companies' cut into account the fees are even lower for the transaction processing.

simondotau 5y ago
Suggesting that what Apple does is equivalent to a payment processor is ridiculous. I suggest looking at Epic v Apple and how that argument went down in court. It was embarrassing to witness.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Yes, agreed they are more like a mob running amok in a neighborhood but for the moment I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and looking at it purely as a transaction processor. I wonder how all of those defending Apple in this thread would respond if they jacked up the prices to say 75%. And why stop there?
  - simondotau 5y ago
    I was hoping for a serious conversation.
mrtksn 5y ago
How do you pay your taxes in UK, Turkey, Poland, USA, Japan, China, Australia and the rest of the 175 countries? How do you handle the regulatory requirements in each country and how do you navigate through the trade agreements?
- jacquesm 5y ago
  If you don't know the answers to these questions, why are you even active in this thread? I've been running an international business for a couple of decades and this has never been a problem at all.
  - mrtksn 5y ago
    I'm asking you to enlighten me. Currently I don't have to deal with any of these, Apple handles all that for me, I like that and that's why I'm active in this thread. I'm defending a service that I see value in but maybe you can shine a light and demonstrate that all these can be handled for cheaper and easier than using Apple's service that charges %15 to %30. I'm asking legitimate question, I'm puzzled by your dismissive tone. How do you sell software and services in 175 countries for less work and commission than Apple's service? Good for you that you are running international business for a couple a decade know, would you share some of that knowledge? Thank you.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      That it works for you is fine. You obviously have no incentive to look further than what works for you and you are fine with paying 30% for a service that is not competitive but that is convenient. If you were a bit larger that equation would change. Your first step would then be to use a commercial payment services provider such as Stripe, Adyen or any of the others to process the transactions for you (rates: 1 to 5%), possibly falling back to Apple in case their coverage doesn't perfectly overlap. Then at an even higher level of transactions you could choose to do the payment processing yourself. It's pretty simple, really. And as for taxes: that too is something that you can arrange in different ways, depending on where your main place of business is registered. My dismissive tone is because it appears that you want me to do a bunch of homework for you while at the same time arguing that there is nothing to be concerned about in 10's of comments in this thread. You have already made up your mind and seem to use questions as a way to argue rather than that you are really interested in the answers. I predict that as a result of this response you are going to come up with another set of questions for me to answer or a new set of arguments that move the goalposts away from your previous claims. But the essence of my response is: anti-competitive behavior can not be argued for by utility to some subset of the customers. The phone company provides a lot of value. But if they behave in an anti-competive way, for instance by price gouging customers on something that costs them peanuts such as roaming then they deserve to be smacked down, even if some people will argue that you could of course buy a different phone for every country as an alternative, and so those roaming charges are acceptable because they are cheaper. That misses the point entirely.