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Comment by jasonlotito | Hacker News Reader

Is it 70%?

App stores are taking 30% off the top. The article doesn't talk about that, so I wonder if they are taking the total and working from there.

$1000 in donations means $300 to the app store, which would leave $400 for TikTok and $300 for the streamer. While that still doesn't look as good, 40% is significantly less than 70%.

Edit: In the test they performed, it's clear they are ignoring the app store fee. Simply put, this is a really misinformed article at best.

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Its pretty clear that anything about China will always have some negative aspect to it in western media. Like there are literally articles like "China has made xx% adoption of green energy, but at what cost?"

So you think it’d a good thing to have virtualized begging as an industry while the platform takes a huge cut with no disclosures? Or that it’s not worth reporting on?

TikTok isn't promoting the begging industry and does not offer "charity" type services. There is lots of cost structure around the OMG tiktok took 69$ that the reporter has no insight on such as "app store" fee, possibly bandwidth fees, or whatever. If tiktok was heavy handed in moderation of content, the article would of been written "Evil CCP censors refugees attempting to make money via streaming"

70% of every dollar you donate to a beggar goes to Tiktok. It's understood that Tiktok, like every other business, has costs. What they do with the money (pay 30% to X, 20% to Y) is irrelevant.

Some % of the 70% is profit, therefore the evil CCP is profiting off begging refugees.

Are these refugee begging because your evil country color revolution them and cause them to be in that situation? That should be the real story which is missing... like propaganda

App cut is taken at the time of purchase not at time of donation or withdrawal. So on iOS it costs 30% more to buy a coin precisely because they give a cut to Apple. But once the coin is in the system, the cut has been paid and gifts do not have an additional 30% cut.

Also people compare this to twitch, but for twitch's own gifting system(Bits), streamers get 100% of the bits when they cash out. the 50/50 split for the subscriptions(when a viewer subscribe to a streamer - 3 tiers, the cheapest being $4.99)

You don't buy bits 1 for 1. You pay a premium for bits. if someone spends $100 on bits and sends them all to someone, you don't get $100 in bits.

The default ratio is $1.40 for 100 bits.

And the 50/50 split for subs is only on the web. In the app, it's not a 50/50 split as the subs cost more.

Yes, the streamer gets 100% of the bits, but it's not equal to the $$ amount.

Not sure about Apple but Google doesn't take fees from charitable donations.

Are these actually considered charitable donations though in Google's eyes? The article talks about "digital gifts" so it's not "donations" in the legal sense.

However well intentioned the gifts in this article are, it’s be hard to convince me that most gifts sent through TikTok are “charitable”, and sorting that out on the App Store side seems like a nightmare.

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