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Comment by VWWHFSfQ | Hacker News Reader

> Amazon's made it a little harder to buy Kindle books on Android

No. Apple and Google have made it a little harder. While I have no sympathy for Amazon usually, they're one of the very few that could actually fight this effectively and finally bring this App store madness under control. I would be very careful about messing with Amazon's money. The whole payments/app store paradigm is on shaky ground anyway. It really will not take much for someone like Amazon to get the anti-trust ball rolling.

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I got rid of all my Rokus and replaced them with Fires because Amazon removed Twitch from the Roku and it’s a large part of my streaming content. I grumbled at them for making me do it, but I still did it because at the end of the day I just wanted to be able to stream Twitch.

My point is they all flex where they can flex and Amazon deserves no sympathy here. Only consumers are hurt by these territory games.

Just a heads up (from articles and comments on other HN threads)--

Roku wants a cut of revenue from apps too. It is not in Amazon's incentive to limit distribution of Twitch. This may be why it is no longer on Roku.

Roku supports casting and Airplay. I've used both specifically for Twitch. Don't reward Amazon's bad behavior by buying their Fire sticks

This must be recent - none of my Roku devices support Airplay, so I've opted to finally switch to an Apple TV. I wonder if mine are just too old though.

Oof. Twitch app on the AppleTV sucks hard, at least for watching recordings. Live watching is okay. But the seeking in the recordings would win one of those "worst UI on purpose" awards. And they banned third party clients, so the official app is the only option.

I guess Amazon thinks they should be the only one able to charge a large fee for access to the store. Last time I looked, Amazon commission charges topped out at 65%!

https://www.authorimprints.com/amazon-kdp-royalty-pricing/

This misses the point of what antitrust laws are and what they exist to prevent. The problem here is not solely that google charges a large fee.

I couldn’t care less about Amazon, but fees for listing in the store aren’t a problem (or not a large one). Problem is that fees are viral and follow you outside of the store.

Ah yes, I forgot that two wrongs make a right /s.

We can care about more than one thing at once! It doesn't always have to be "well what about....".

The reality is that we're all beholden to these mega companies and a little infighting between them could us do some good.

The fact that both companies are steamrolling ahead into the payments space should have us all on edge.

Once physical credit cards disappear, Apple and Google can start to strongarm local businesses into 15% transaction fees.

As opposed to how it's been until now, where corner store merchants are all "rand() % added to debit/credit charges (even tho we're technically not allowed to)" ?

> rand() % added to debit/credit charges (even tho we're technically not allowed to)

Citation needed? This sounds like one of those myths like "not accepting cash (for purchases, not debts) is illegal!" - I couldn't find anything searching online to support this claim. Or are you referring to stores that don't advertise this surcharge upfront and surprise you with it?

https://www.merchantmaverick.com/credit-card-surcharges/

> As of mid-2021, only two states and one US territory don’t allow credit card surcharges.

My bad, I wasn't aware of these exceptions. I'd argue characterizing it as illegal when it's legal in 48 states is a little misleading though.

It is misleading because it is out of date but absolutely used to be true (or atleast put forward as true by the CC companies in their contracts), so isn't really a "myth" like you say.

> After a decade of fighting in court, the merchants involved in the suit, along with the card networks, reached an expensive settlement — and more importantly, the lawsuit laid the groundwork for merchants to recoup some of the costs associated with credit card transactions. The card associations have changed their rules as a result of the lawsuit.

The legal situation is still complicated so it is perfectly understandable that there is some confusion and people think the old rules apply.

It has been over 10 years since Dodd Frank made cash/debit card discounts explicitly legal.

http://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/new-rules-ele...

This is effectively the same as saying credit card surcharges are legal.

> This is effectively the same as saying credit card surcharges are legal.

They are functionally similar but not effectively the same. Most notably, you couldn't vary the discount based on card type, which makes it useless when negotiating fees with specifiv PCNs. This is precisely why there was a class action antitrust lawsuit, the settlement for which required PCNs (specifically Visa and Mastercard) to change their terms to allow surcharges.

Even in Apple's near-totalitarian payment ecosystem, physical goods have never had the same (exorbitant!) transaction fees and rules as digital goods.

Why haven't you on edge with a handful of banks controlling the payments space?

Then we can finally get federal legislation letting stores pass fees on to the buyer. The fact that Visa/Mastercard contracts forbid that is incredibly anti-competitive.

In the EU we got legislation prohibiting the stores from passing on the credit card fees. I shit you not. Champagne corks must have been popping at the credit card companies when that happened.

Dodd Frank legislation outlawed those contract terms in 2011.

http://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/new-rules-ele...

I learned something from that so thanks. However, I don't think it gets at this issue. Different credit cards charge different fees and afaik there's no way to pass those on. Offering discounts to not use CCs is a good step, though.

How is it not the same thing? Person paying with debit card or cash pays less than if they were to pay with credit card.

I guess technically the merchant can do an AmEx discount and a Visa discount or whatever, but it is probably easier to just do a flat percent off for all credit cards (3% to 5%).

Different cards on the same network have different fees

Visa Credit Card Swipe Rate (card present)

Visa Credit Basic 1.51% + 10¢

Visa Rewards Traditional 1.65% + 10¢

Visa Rewards Signature 2.30% + 10¢

Visa Rewards Signature Preferred 2.1% + 10¢

Visa Business 2.20% + 10¢

Visa Corporate 2.50% + 10¢

https://www.creditdonkey.com/interchange-rates.html

Ideally, the CC fee would be a line item in the receipt specific to the card. Then people will make more informed decisions about which card to use. With the "discount" model the fee changes at each merchant when it should always be the same for a particular card.

My solution to this as a human person is to use cash for all transactions that I can.

Which also costs time and money to handle and secure, potentially more than card charges do.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180130005244/en/New...

If I were running a business, I would only accept credit cards. The small fee is worth the tradeoff of not having to handle cash with the risk of employee theft, robberies, counting money, going to the bank, etc.

Unfortunately, some cities outlawed that.

Well, yeah, because cash is legal tender, so allowing companies to not accept cash subverts the whole system.

I get it that cards are cash equivalent, but it's terribly anti-consumer for companies to not accept cash. That removes poor people's ability to acquire goods and services as well.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm

> There is no federal statute mandating that a private business, a person, or an organization must accept currency or coins as payment for goods or services. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether to accept cash unless there is a state law that says otherwise.

> Section 31 U.S.C. 5103, entitled "Legal tender," states: "United States coins and currency [including Federal Reserve notes and circulating notes of Federal Reserve Banks and national banks] are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues." This statute means that all U.S. money as identified above is a valid and legal offer of payment for debts when tendered to a creditor.

> It really will not take much for someone like Amazon to get the anti-trust ball rolling.

Seems like it's in full gear right now...

Not that Amazon really has much of a leg to stand on here in these conversations.

What percent does Amazon charge authors on kindle book sales? And competing bookstores on Kindle device?

We can care about more than one thing at once! It doesn't always have to be "well what about....".

The reality is that we're all beholden to these mega companies and a little infighting between them could us do some good.

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