It's actually annoying that the refunds and VAT are handled.
For small international developers, under 500K per year spread out over several states & countries, often they don't have to pay VAT in most international places, so they lose an extra 20-22%. For instance most US states won't require you to pay VAT under 100K revenue if you are from another country.
Same for refunds & subscription management, often clients will ask you, but you have zero control with Apple. Let alone 60 days before being paid, where stripe does it in a few days.
This is a great point and I think it illustrates the drawbacks of centralized store. I think an argument can be made that App Store is an important part of the developer experience and as such they are entitled to have a voice in what features it should prioritize.
The thing is, I fully agree that the model has to change and adapt. There has to be more transparency, more accountability, and these stores have to improve in a way that best fits the interests of the developers and the users. I just don't think that third-party stores or unrestricted side loading will do anything like that — in fact, I fear that they will make things considerably worse.
Yeah EU is stricter, but for lot of my clients US is a large market, without they themselves being in the US. If you are EU based then it's cheaper to pay EU tax and not US tax.
For small international developers, under 500K per year spread out over several states & countries, often they don't have to pay VAT in most international places, so they lose an extra 20-22%. For instance most US states won't require you to pay VAT under 100K revenue if you are from another country.
Same for refunds & subscription management, often clients will ask you, but you have zero control with Apple. Let alone 60 days before being paid, where stripe does it in a few days.