<story><title>Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing</title><url>https://newsroom.spotify.com/2022-03-23/spotify-and-google-announce-user-choice-billing/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>olau</author><text>I know that a consumptionist attitude is popular these days, but as a user of something like Spotify I would surely prefer as much as possible of my monetary contribution ending up with Spotify and the musicians instead of in the hands of a company controlling the market place.&lt;p&gt;To the people who think the exorbitant fees are okay: Imagine a world with no cash. Now the payment card companies decide they want 30% of all transactions. You think that would be reasonable?&lt;p&gt;The only reason the phone OS companies get away with it is lack of real competition. The regulatory environment is very slow in catching up - it&amp;#x27;s not more than a few years ago that the EU finally hit the payment card companies.&lt;p&gt;And yes, the EU also has something to say when it comes to dark subscription cancelling patterns.</text></item><item><author>nerdjon</author><text>As a user, why would I choose this?&lt;p&gt;I only see a benefit to developers for this, but from a user prospective going with another system is a downgrade.&lt;p&gt;Assuming google works like Apple (correct me if I am wrong), disabling a subscription should be able to happen from a central location with a click or 2.&lt;p&gt;If I instead go with the billing through a company not only do they now have my credit card information, but I have to go through them to cancel. Meaning they can send me through screen after screen trying to convince me to stay (dark pattern) or even worse forcing me to call to cancel.&lt;p&gt;As a user, if you want to offer this fine. But as long as the ability to subscribe through Google or Apple is not removed I will be fine. But if this starts a trend of more and more apps having their own billing that then uses dark patterns to keep me subscribed... I will just end up spending less money on subscriptions than I currently do, and I have quite a few subscriptions.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Wowfunhappy</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think Spotify is the best example here, since I&amp;#x27;m not particularly convinced that more cash going to them would end up in the hands of musicians.&lt;p&gt;But certainly, if I subscribe to The Economist I want as much of my money as possible to go to the journalists who actually write the content.</text></comment>
<story><title>Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing</title><url>https://newsroom.spotify.com/2022-03-23/spotify-and-google-announce-user-choice-billing/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>olau</author><text>I know that a consumptionist attitude is popular these days, but as a user of something like Spotify I would surely prefer as much as possible of my monetary contribution ending up with Spotify and the musicians instead of in the hands of a company controlling the market place.&lt;p&gt;To the people who think the exorbitant fees are okay: Imagine a world with no cash. Now the payment card companies decide they want 30% of all transactions. You think that would be reasonable?&lt;p&gt;The only reason the phone OS companies get away with it is lack of real competition. The regulatory environment is very slow in catching up - it&amp;#x27;s not more than a few years ago that the EU finally hit the payment card companies.&lt;p&gt;And yes, the EU also has something to say when it comes to dark subscription cancelling patterns.</text></item><item><author>nerdjon</author><text>As a user, why would I choose this?&lt;p&gt;I only see a benefit to developers for this, but from a user prospective going with another system is a downgrade.&lt;p&gt;Assuming google works like Apple (correct me if I am wrong), disabling a subscription should be able to happen from a central location with a click or 2.&lt;p&gt;If I instead go with the billing through a company not only do they now have my credit card information, but I have to go through them to cancel. Meaning they can send me through screen after screen trying to convince me to stay (dark pattern) or even worse forcing me to call to cancel.&lt;p&gt;As a user, if you want to offer this fine. But as long as the ability to subscribe through Google or Apple is not removed I will be fine. But if this starts a trend of more and more apps having their own billing that then uses dark patterns to keep me subscribed... I will just end up spending less money on subscriptions than I currently do, and I have quite a few subscriptions.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Shank</author><text>&amp;gt; To the people who think the exorbitant fees are okay: Imagine a world with no cash. Now the payment card companies decide they want 30% of all transactions. You think that would be reasonable?&lt;p&gt;Just so that we&amp;#x27;re talking on equal terms here, card processors and networks solve a massive amount of problems that existed with cash. Pre-card, many stores setup credit accounts with individuals, had book keeping practices to deal with, and had to chase down credit lines they themselves offered. Even with debit cards, card networks facilitate the ability to automatically move money between parties and give customers the ability to dispute&amp;#x2F;chargeback fraudulent transactions easily. If you physically hand a merchant cash, you can&amp;#x27;t claw that back without a legal process, whereas you&amp;#x27;re afforded protections by the card network.&lt;p&gt;But the 30% cut is completely different from card processors. Of the 30% to Google Play or to Apple, a small fraction (2.9%ish) is actually the card overhead. The rest is split between pure profit, infrastructure, and whatever else gets tacked on.&lt;p&gt;Cards definitely offer important things to facilitate transactions that are objectively better than a pure cash world for most people. But it&amp;#x27;s important to call out crazy cash grabs like 30%, which is unheard of even in the payment network world.</text></comment>