If I pay for something and don't get the promised value why should I be the one who eats it?
This is going to hurt the dev but that's business and I'm sure their bank balance is doing just fine. Appealing to the users like this feels unfair.
But we're talking about a company that provided a service that people were paying for, and now no longer provides that service. Any unused portion of any subscription bought should absolutely be refunded. It's actually a bit gross that the company is not pro-actively refunding subscriptions. They made a bet that Twitter's API would always remain available to them; it's not on their customers to bear any cost for the failure of that bet.
(It does seem from other responses here that doing so is just not possible on Apple's payments platform. That's pretty lame of Apple, IMO, but oh well.)
Twitterific built their business on something that we often acknowledge here as being very shaky: the whim of a third-party platform. If the company hasn't considered and prepared for the scenario where that third-party platform completely cuts off your access, that's irresponsible as a business owner.
Is just an appeal and makes the choice clear.
Likely, some customers that did purchase it have received some value; It's likely the difference between needing to claim bankruptcy protection and quietly dissolving
They're a software business that relied on a third-party platform for their entire business model. It genuinely sucks that this business model has been yanked out from under them, but this is something they should have planned for (especially considering Twitter's past actions around their API and developer program), without a lame request to their now-former customers to give them free money for no service provided.
I'm sure some customers will, out of the excessive goodness of their hearts, riding on the good experience they had over the years with the app, honor that appeal. That's certainly their choice. But it's also reasonable for the rest of us to think that the appeal alone feels a bit dirty.
Assumptions about their bank balance and 'that's business' are the wrong way to approach this.
given this, it was certainly within their control to attempt to negotiate a contract with their only supplier and then they would have contractual guarantees about not being summarily cut off
(would musk have cut them off? probably, but then they could go after him)
without that the business model was always based on chance
they knew this, and continued to sell the product regardless
And good luck negotiating anything with a billion dollar company, they'll be happy to stiff you if they want to but in the meantime you are beholden to the terms of the contract. This because they typically have legal staff and you probably don't so there is a huge asymmetry in any kind of legal tussle with them.
Twitterific made a bet that the Twitter API would remain available to them. They should be the ones assuming the risk and taking on the consequences of losing that bet. Not their customers.
It's my understanding that Apple doesn't offer this feature.
Sometimes Apple Dev Relations will help out and mass refund without making all the users request a refund, but they don't always (even when the developer asks).
It doesn't matter that its an app for Twitter, you've paid for someone to provide something they can no longer deliver.
One is "I paid for a service" and the other is "I paid for something to help me use a service".
So, no, if Netflix disappeared in this case, I would not ask for a partial refund. The TV still works as a TV, and that's what I really paid for in the first place. (If Netflix didn't disappear, but the TV app stopped working, I might be -- justifiably -- annoyed, though!)
This Twitterific thing is in no way comparable: the app only interacts with Twitter. That's its entire reason for being. If it can't do that, then it is worthless, and anyone who paid for it is perfectly in their rights to demand a refund. Hell, the Twitterific folks should be pro-actively refunding the unused portions of subscriptions; that's the only ethical thing to do here.
Now, if you had dial up and paid a subscription for access to a free phone number and they cut you off before your subscription ended, then yes you absolutely would expect a refund.
And, regardless, if my ISP stopped providing dial-up service, and I really still wanted dial-up service, I would have simply found another ISP to connect to. (After expecting my previous ISP to issue me a pro-rated refund for whatever subscription I was paying them.)
Also regardless, your analogy is bad, as the modem was a one-time cost. The issue at hand is that of recurring subscription fees Twitterific charges. If we were just talking about a one-time cost to buy the Twitterific app, I wouldn't be suggesting the refund that cost (except to customers who just bought the app right before the shutdown, perhaps; seems shitty to keep customer money when the product irreparably breaks a few days after purchase).
You bought a display that exclusively integrates into Netflix, it can only display Netflix content, but you have to pay an annual fee to the display manufacturer for it to continue working.
It's January and you've just paid your annual subscription. But on the 15th of Jan Netflix decides to stop allowing your display manufacturer access, and your display becomes a useless brick.
Having only just paid for your annual subscription you'd want a refund - you're no longer getting access to the service you were paying for.
We can keep coming up with anologys but the fact remains that the app developer guaranteed access to a service which they can no longer provide. It doesn't matter if its an app, a display, or anything else. Your agreement is with the app developer, not Twitter. Your payments go to the app developer, not Twitter. If the app developers entire business is built around hoping Twitter never closes off their access then thats totally on them when things go south.
Yes, they did close down third-party access to their platform, but that is completely not the same as those other things you mention.
I doubt most Twitterific customers have any idea what a third-party API platform is, let alone Twitter's shady history with how they've treated API developers. Your average Twitterific purchaser probably just thinks it's a premium Twitter app that lets them do Twitter things, and would expect that app to continue working as long as Twitter exists. (Which it still does!)
> On any reasonable viewpoint that's a risk accepted by the purchaser, not the app seller.
If your definition for "reasonable" is actually the definition of "unreasonable", sure. Twitterific's customers should not have to take on the consequences of the risk that Twitter would shut down third-party access to their API. That is a risk that Twitterific took on themselves as a risk to their business, and they should have a plan for what to do in this case. And that plan should not be "beg our customers to pay us for not providing a service anymore". It should include them pro-actively refunding the unused portions of any subscriptions (super gross that they didn't do this, double-super gross that they're begging for "donations"), and then responsibly winding the company down (assuming they don't have any other still-viable products that could keep them going). It sucks that they'd have to do this, but that's what can happen when you bet your business on someone else's platform.
If I had been a customer for years and years, obviously my calculation would be different.
Maybe legally, ethically, morally, the renters are SOL, but for me personally, I’m not sure my sympathies would lie with the landlord in that situation.
Just as if I buy an app (or a subscription to one), I expect the app's author to guarantee that it functions for its intended purpose, and return my money if it doesn't.
It was blatantly obvious to any buyer that these clients could only work so long as Twitter allowed it. This wasn’t a hidden risk, so anyone buying a subscription was implicitly accepting that risk as part of their purchase.
The companies providing third party clients had already renegotiated their relationship with Twitter over the past few years, achieving a more stable baseline, API changes, defined escalation routes, etc. Musk's buying of the company and capricious shutting down of third parties without even having the option of having them do things like incorporate adverts is hardly something it was possible to plan for over the long term.
And that's exactly my point! Twitterific should have known that Twitter could pull the rug out from under them at any time, and had a plan to make their customers whole in that eventuality.
Look, I'm not saying a company in their position should have to refund a one-time purchase cost of the app itself (for companies that do that sort of thing). But if you are charging an ongoing subscription for continuing service, and then that service terminates before the end of the subscription period, I think a pro-rated refund is more than fair.
Hell, if Twitter themselves charged a subscription fee for having a Twitter account, I would expect them to give pro-rated refunds to customers if they decided to wind down their business or pivot to something else. Twitterific should be no different here.
This has been stated again and again but you’re choosing to ignore it in your attempt to make the app developers the bad guys in this situation.
Wouldn't a fair solution be to offer a partial refund, proportional to time that subscribers paid for but are unable to use?
Regarding fault: Twitterific absolutely shares responsibility here. They built an app and service that depended on the whims of a third-party service that they could not guarantee perpetual access to. They should have had a plan for what to do if they lost API access... and not a plan that begs their paying customers for charity.
Source?
Why should the developer? It would be wrong to say "You won't get a refund" but that's not what they're doing.
I wouldn't judge anyone who bought it a month ago for asking for a refund, but if you've been using the app since 2019 or something, you got what you paid for, for years.
You’re raging against these guys for not doing something that they have no ability to do. Hardly fair.
For an industry that makes as much money as it does some people appear to be extremely petty about this, if you could afford the app to begin with you can afford to be gracious about it. If you have any beef it is with Elon Musk, not with Twitterific.
Wow, really? "Refund remainder of 1-year subscription that started on X date and ended prematurely on Y date" seems like a pretty basic feature of a payments system. The inability to do that says more about Apple (or Google) than it does anyone else.
> If you have any beef it is with Elon Musk, not with Twitterific.
I don't have a beef with either, as I don't use my Twitter account, and didn't purchase Twitterific.
People who bought Twitterific and pay for a subscription don't have an ongoing business relationship with Twitter/Musk, they have one with Twitterific. When the company you pay for a subscription service stops providing that service -- for whatever reason, even reasons outside their control -- the right thing to do is for the company to refund the rest of the subscription.
If Twitterific was a one-time purchase and not a subscription service, I would absolutely agree that refunds are probably not warranted. (Though someone who bought the app yesterday might feel differently.)
It's flat-out gross that the Twitterific developer isn't pro-actively giving pro-rated refunds to their customers, and is instead asking for charity.
Please explain the mechanism by which an App Store app developer can provide pro-rated refunds. You seem so confident about your claim that the company could be and should be doing this, that I’m sure this is something you’ve already checked and verified.
But that's not a response to my comment. I'm asking why the developer, who has expenses of his own, should cover for the actions of Twitter. In the absence of an explicit promise related to this, the customer was taking a risk that Twitter would do something like this. There is no good argument that either party should have to cover for Twitter's actions.
Their average customer doesn't know or care about API platforms. They just want to access Twitter via a nice, premium app they paid for. If they can no longer do that, they deserve a refund of the remaining unused value of their subscription.
To put it another way - if the shareholders had had a nine-figure exit, would they have planned on sharing that with their customers?
(1) Exactly what did the user pay for?
If it's an app that promises to provide access to Twitter, then I'd think the app developer is responsible for making the necessary arrangements with Twitter to uphold that promise.
If it's an app that promises to make a best-effort attempt to use Twitter's public APIs, then a refund doesn't sound reasonable.
(2) Should the user consider this a simple business relationship, or something more personal? I.e., even if a case could be made for a refund, should that matter?
Remember, if Musk puts you out of work, you're a refugee, but if anyone else puts you out of work, you're merely unfortunate.