[2143]

It's not just exchange rates.

The problem is that, in some places (like India, for example) $10 might be a lot of money.

One might be able to do a lot more with $10 in India (₹800), than with $10 in USA, due to reasons that are beyond anybody's control.

For instance, I can travel 3000 km by train with $10 equivalent in India if I really wanted to (wouldn't be very comfortable, but it's possible).

The wages in those countries are also proportional of this.

This becomes relevant if you want your product to be not expensive, so that it reaches a wider audience.

For expensive goods the price difference doesn't matter as much. (Though I know people who were bummed that the Ford Mustang 5.0 V8 was twice as expensive in India than USA — but that's a different market).

[howlett]

I totally agree with you, but the common "this is why we can't have nice things" end result of such scenarios is that people will VPN via India in order to buy your product. And then you have to identify VPNs in order to avoid this, etc.

I don't have a solution for this, I just think the effort/reward should be considered.

[ev1]

The solution for this is to match the billing method.

For example, I don't care if they use a VPN - if they want to pay Indian rates, they have to do so from a INR-denominated account with an Indian billing address and have to do so using Razorpay/UPI/Indian Netbanking transfer/AirtelMoney/.... Everyone there has it - not having it is not an excuse, "I want to pay with a US Mastercard" is not an excuse. This solves it for the 99.99%+ use case. The "majority" here is so strong that if someone in India cannot pay with at least one of these payment methods and asks to use a US billing address credit card, it's either stolen or for all practical purposes I would be wondering how they survive day to day or buy groceries (or they are probably not old enough to enter into a contract to purchase or licence content from you). (It's probably stolen)

If you want to pay RUB rates, you have to pay via WMZ or YandexCash, Qiwi, Sberpay, Yoomoney.

THB discount? BigC, Tesco, PromptPay, etc.

BRL? Boleto. Even a 12 year old with no bank account can successfully pay with boleto.

Nearly every single country (I have not found one otherwise yet) that would be lower CoL and require a significant pricing adjustment has multiple unique payment methods that the hypermajority are signed up for (or required to use in the first place so everyone has an account) or is paid physically and accessible by anyone present to pay cash, that is inaccessible from US/EU/AU/etc.

These will even significantly lower your transaction fees due to foreign exchange, and lower your chargeback rates because many are effectively fraudproof due to requiring multiple factor mandatory confirmation, not allowing disputes, or being "pay in cash in person at a physical location within the country".

If you want to pay the standard USD or EUR rates, whatever normal card network is accepted no matter where you are from.

[muzani]

The typical solution is "If you bought this from India, you can only use it in India. Pay full price if you plan to go to Brazil, etc."

Not foolproof, but at least a little inconvenient, especially if you have one of those cheap VPNs that toss you a random IP.