I was aware of this potential issue when I implemented PPP on my course. It turns out almost nobody uses this trick, although a few told my about it. I guess when you are transparent with your users, they are actually happy to pay the fair price? Or maybe I’m too naive ;)
For a "niche product" like this it's probably not a big deal, but for larger platforms like Steam, Spotify, Netflix, etc. it kind of is. I used to live in Asia and had a lot of trouble with this. I ended up resorting to just buying the vouchers in the store than deal with "you used to be in Europe but are now in Asia, you're probably committing fraud!" stuff. I was earning local salary so the 4× price difference was kind of a lot.
Some companies even make a fuss when you move between Western countries with similar economies for some reason. Lots of businesses are stuck in a "you were born in a country, live your entire life in a country, and will die in that country", which to be fair is true for most people, but far from all and there is often no resort.
> Some companies even make a fuss when you move between Western countries with similar economies for some reason.
It can get really complicated to manage data transfer between legal jurisdictions, remit tax correctly, and follow all local laws. Beyond that, the brand may be holding company that wholly owns distinct companies by country or region.
In Apple's case, you as a customer, need a valid payment method from the country your account is going to be.
PS: Apple, probably Google too, have tiered pricing where you choose the price of your app or your content will cost and Apple takes care of the local pricing which is adjusted to your users purchasing power.
I do not think Google has a similar "tier" concept. It has a "recommended price", which is a conversion to the local currency maybe, but maybe not, taking into account PPP. But you can go in and override those prices if you want to make your product particularly cheap or more expensive in a random country.
I live in Canada, and have for years. I have US Dollar credit cards from Canadian banks, I have US Dollar credit cards from US banks. I have Canadian Dollar credit cards too. My phone number has a US area code (Canada shares an international prefix with the US), but I also have a virtual number for Canada.
Whatever system you think of to price discriminate, people will break it.
Funny little Canada price discrimination story: Cell phone data is really expensive here since there is no competition, so much so that it is often cheaper to roam on an international line in Canada than to have a contract with a Canadian Telecom, hence the US number.
But you get complex UX flows if your guess at the start is wrong. You think the user is Canadian but puts in a US card what do you do now? IIUC Stripe doesn't have options for dealing with this. Maybe you can reject the payment and make them restart, selecting the country of their payment card.
Pretty sure that's what Netflix does. I pay on the basis of my billing address but, if I'm in another country, (or come in through a VPN) I get the content based on where I'm located in my experience.
I was aware of this potential issue when I implemented PPP on my course. It turns out almost nobody uses this trick, although a few told my about it. I guess when you are transparent with your users, they are actually happy to pay the fair price? Or maybe I’m too naive ;)