Imagine a seller platform where you're not allowed to see individual receipts of items you've sold and where you can't action a refund. A platform where customers are unreachable and where the only meaningful data is the aggregated amount of sales
Welcome to Apple Pay, where customer service is as unreachable as Kazakhstan's telephone network!
If you're a fan of Apple's practices, you might say "this is to protect customers from unscrupulous sellers". But, my friend, this would only be correct if the platform were perfect.
But alas, even the greatest of nations have problems. Customers sometimes have trouble processing payments and need assistance.
Take the following case, where a customer contacts a seller (via the seller's publicly available contact channel):
For some inexplicable reason, you have charged me for 2 payments of 4.99. Please refund one of these payments without delay. Many thanks, and I'll bring you a nice bottle of vodka next time I visit.
A seller would want to check whether this is true and if so, give this customer a refund ASAP. A seller wants happy customers, just like my sister wants to be married to a wealthy businessman.
Apple has intentionally designed their platform to sever the relationship between customers and sellers. Apple wants to act as a gate keeper, like the border patrol in Kazakhstan.
But don't worry, it seems the days where Apple gets away with this are numbered. The EU will soon force Apple to allow sellers to choose any payment method for their items. Thank you, EU! And thank you, Kazakhstan!