this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2024
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A dumb policy with perhaps an even dumber implementation. Basing profit sharing percentages off query parameters 🫨 ?
That’s how basically all affiliate links work.
This time it’s just the merchant getting more or less from the creator. vs doing the split with the linker and the merchant.
Also 10% is pretty low, normally merchants take like 30% cut by default so they have plenty to share.
The parameters are how you get to the store.
If the creator is driving the traffic, Gumroad takes 10%. If Gumroad is driving the traffic, they take a commission of 30%
I understand that. That approach is just really easy to manipulate.
Not any more than any other tracking method. They control it all.
If anything, the fact that they give you a method to alter how your purchase is tracked so you can still give the creator 90% when you get to them through their store is pro-creator.
The ability to alter the tracking is an exploit, not a feature. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad it’s possible, but it seems more a result of a lazy implementation rather than a generous choice.
This isn’t true. There are more opaque ways to track this like cookies, redirects (triggering an api call), and scripts. These could also be exploited depending on how they’re done, but it would be way less obvious than just changing the URI.
It just seems like they chose the simplest method, thus hampering the effectiveness of their greed.
All the solution you proposed have big tradeoffs. Most would require to run some code on the site where the URL is, which is often not an option. And they would not work if the link is shared between people. For a lot of cases the solution they used seems to be the best one.
I believe that this is only for links from their Discover view, which is same-origin.
Wait, you're complaining that end users can change it?
Yes, there are ways the website could prevent that. I'm not sure why that goal serves any purpose, though. Defaults are going to get them the vast majority of the commissions they earn, and being simple and easy for users who really want to reward the creators more to do so is worth the negligible cost.
Getting commission on sales you make isn't greed.