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Netflix is the latest company to try bypassing Apple’s app store

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Re: Netflix is the latest company to try bypassing Apple’s app store

#271

Post by jonathanyc »

Marsymars wrote: post #139
jonathanyc wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. The difference is that even though your choice of payment network is still relatively limited, there at least is some genuine competition on price. The Android/iOS duopoly seems to have become stuck at a particularly bad Nash equilibrium. 30% would never survive in a competitive market.

I'm doubtful competition mechanics would work to reduce the app store cut even if it wasn't equal between Android and iOS. If Google were to cut its rate to 10%, then what? App publishers aren't going to stop publishing on iOS. Even if cross-platform apps changed their pricing schemes to be cheaper on Android than iOS, I doubt many iOS users would be particularly put off by the extra 20 points in the cost of their ap…

The point is that the market is not competitive. Tweaking rates doesn’t suddenly make the market competitive.

For just one tiny example, consider web browsers—iOS doesn’t even allow browser engines aside than WebKit. Now compare this situation with that of desktop operating systems, which are still not a super competitive market by any means, but where the fact that Windows users could install browsers other than IE meant that web browsers became a competitive market, leading directly to the increasing capabilities of web apps, leading in turn to the possibility of Google’s office products even existing, making office software more competitive, and that in turn making Chromebooks feasible, which leads all the way back to making desktop operating systems more competitive.

You can’t consider the effects of tweaking one number and conclude that a market would be changed/unchanged by competition—these sorts of things are extremely interdependent.

Re: Netflix is the latest company to try bypassing Apple’s app store

#272

Post by wwweston »

threeseed wrote: post #259
Donzo wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A website from 1996 will look much the same in a modern version of Chrome. Good luck with your SDKs.

What a hilarious statement to make. Sure a website from 1996 will look the same. It will also have no accessibility, work terribly on mobile, be largely like reading a Word document and have none of the interesting features of modern web sites. Your world is not the world most people want.

I can think of some sites on the order of 15 - 20 years old that work better on mobile than sites made in the last 5.

And while the various accommodations for accessibility that have come up over the last two decades are nice, the fact is that most of the web was fairly accessibly using specialized user agents (or even just Lynx) by the very late 90s.

Re: Netflix is the latest company to try bypassing Apple’s app store

#273

Post by solarkraft »

shady-lady wrote: post #88
bepotts wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a consumer, I love it. I love that I buy an iPhone and Apple doesn't allow any non-trusted binaries to run on my phone, enforces strict style guidelines (the average app just looks better on my iPhone than Android IMO), has one place where all possible apps are, maintains a distribution channels that allows all my apps to be updated easily, and builds hardware and software that is designed to work together. I love…

I don't quite get the last sentence. > who could look at how Europe treats Android and come to the conclusion that Google made the right decision by being open? Google was fined on antitrust grounds. I don't see which direction to leap to make that sentence relevant to them being fined. From the EU’s competition commissioner > Fine of €4,34 bn to @Google for 3 types of illegal restrictions on the use of Android. In t…

> Denying rivals a chance to innovate and compete on the merits

Apple consistently gives its apps more permissions than normal developers they get. They also reject apps that interfere with business fields they are in/eyeing.

Re: Netflix is the latest company to try bypassing Apple’s app store

#274

Post by iknowstuff »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #78
peatmoss wrote: post #20

I miss the idea that a platform, applications, and marketplace were not a vertical stack owned by one entity. As a consumer, I’d love to buy a phone, not a content distribution straight jacket.

For the non-technical majority they are a huge advantage. We're never going to have average users fully technically aware. I well remember the state of Windows during Win 98 and XP where most had no idea what they were downloading, and it seemed every machine had malware, hidden pop ups and 37 IE toolbars. I was constantly asked to clean up friend's machines from the damage done by Kazaa and its associated garbage or…

Windows is very different from iOS in that it had no sandbox and its API allowed developers to do everything they wanted. Users unknowingly granted admin privileges to every application they ran.

iOS, on the other hand, restricts its apps heavily - they are sandboxed, can't access other apps' files (no ransomware) and need explicit user permission to meddle with their private data.

Now, yes, exploits exist, but look at macOS - Apple still controls developer certificates and can pull the plug on misbehaving developers. An alternative to the app store wouldn't be nearly as devastating as win32.

You raise an interesting point about Android malware. Does it stem from the fact that Android apps can access the filesystem?

Re: Netflix is the latest company to try bypassing Apple’s app store

#275

Post by tommymachine »

Donzo wrote: post #264
threeseed wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a hilarious statement to make. Sure a website from 1996 will look the same. It will also have no accessibility, work terribly on mobile, be largely like reading a Word document and have none of the interesting features of modern web sites. Your world is not the world most people want.

The modern browser is quite good at rendering text, just as it was in 1996. The web is largely still about words. What improvement is so important as to strike the words of those from 1996 off the record?

Nobody here has argued to start striking outdated websites off the record. However the advent of reader mode has certainly helped things in that neighborhood come through a bit cleaner.

But as yet websites don’t control rapidly evolving and privacy sensitive hardware on mobile devices. Also, user time spent in apps versus web browsers is hovering around ~90% versus 10. Might it be possible that having an up-to-date experience as it’s enforced by mobile platform owners could contribute somewhat to this abundant user preference for apps?

Re: Netflix is the latest company to try bypassing Apple’s app store

#276

Post by briandear »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #254
dperfect wrote: post #174

> They are being redirected to the mobile web version of the app and asked to enter payment details with Netflix directly. Sorry, but if Apple's policies are applied consistently (I know they often aren't), this won't fly. I have an app with a basic email/password sign-in screen (the app represents a small part of a larger web-based SaaS product). Apple has rejected my app for including anything in the app that even…

I wonder if it would be possible for developers / other stake holders to launch an investment fund who's sole purpose is buy shares in Apple / Microsoft / etc with the view to influence internal policy. Activist investor style.

And those shares would lose money specifically because of what they want to accomplish. Your “fund” would lose more from the stock loss than the gain from attempting to influence policy.

And you’d need a $100 billion fund to even get noticed. Even Warren Buffet isn’t calling the shots at Apple.

Re: Netflix is the latest company to try bypassing Apple’s app store

#277

Post by tommymachine »

Donzo wrote: post #262
Donzo wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A website from 1996 will look much the same in a modern version of Chrome. Good luck with your SDKs.

I guess what we're seeing here is a developer/development-first ideology versus a platform-first ideology. Should the developer/development have to resubmit to the benevolent platform? Or should the platform have to support the development that has occurred? I don't really care, but I know that I'd rather develop somewhere where my contributions aren't under constant threat of being wiped off the landscape. Again, go…

Not so much platform first as user first. Platforms are nothing without users and developers are nothing without platforms. And luck isn’t needed when your platform is already the best. :)

Re: Netflix is the latest company to try bypassing Apple’s app store

#278

Post by stale2002 »

Aunche wrote: post #180
shady-lady wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't quite get the last sentence. > who could look at how Europe treats Android and come to the conclusion that Google made the right decision by being open? Google was fined on antitrust grounds. I don't see which direction to leap to make that sentence relevant to them being fined. From the EU’s competition commissioner > Fine of €4,34 bn to @Google for 3 types of illegal restrictions on the use of Android. In t…

Android is free, which unequivocally is a net positive for consumers and smartphone manufacturers. Google places some terms of use to their software and suddenly they're being "anti-competitive." Had they made Android a walled garden like Apple, they wouldn't have been fined.

Apple put restrictions on phones that it manufactured, google put restrictions on phones other people manufactured.

I don't support either, but there is a clear reason why what google did got caught by anti trust laws.

Re: Netflix is the latest company to try bypassing Apple’s app store

#279

Post by Donzo »

tommymachine wrote: post #277
Donzo wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess what we're seeing here is a developer/development-first ideology versus a platform-first ideology. Should the developer/development have to resubmit to the benevolent platform? Or should the platform have to support the development that has occurred? I don't really care, but I know that I'd rather develop somewhere where my contributions aren't under constant threat of being wiped off the landscape. Again, go…

Not so much platform first as user first. Platforms are nothing without users and developers are nothing without platforms. And luck isn’t needed when your platform is already the best. :)

That's fair, but currently being "the best," doesn't ensure that status.

Re: Netflix is the latest company to try bypassing Apple’s app store

#280

Post by briandear »

8ytecoder wrote: post #199
chrischen wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why would people be signing up from your App if not by discovering about your app through the App store? Is that not marketing through the App store?

Searching for Netflix on Google, the App Store link is the second link with reviews and a button to install. Right after the main website. Which one do you think a user is likely to click? Is that App store marketing? In an App centric world there are countless other ways where users discovers apps first or even developers/businesses/website want the users to download the app first.

Yes, if you already know Netflix. For pretty much every non-Netflix level app, people are unlikely to be googling for your specific app. The little game TinyWings has made millions and they wouldn’t have made anything of it weren’t for App Store discovery. People overestimate their own importance in the marketplace — discovery matters. If you sell an app for $2 and you have an acquisition cost of $0.60 through, for example, PPC, then you have spent the same you would have paid in App Store commission and then you have to still handle billing, chargebacks, credit card fees, have a download server to handle the traffic as well as tax collection for every single country in which you sell.

Look at profitability of Android vs iOS — almost universally iOS makes a far greater profit that more than offsets the commission. I wouldn’t want to buy an app outside of the App Store because frankly, I don’t trust most developers with my personal information nor do I trust them to not engage in practices that are contrary to my privacy or enagage in sloppy coding that might subject my device to security risks. As a consumer, the App Store is great.

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