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Netflix stops paying the ‘Apple tax’ on its $853M in annual iOS revenue

techcrunch.com

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Re: Netflix stops paying the ‘Apple tax’ on its $853M in annual iOS revenue

#101

Post by c3534l »

IshKebab wrote: post #97
tanilama wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My thoughts as well. How could Apple's search so bad? If it indeed brings billions a year, why wouldn't they spend that money to improve the functionality of this revenue powerhouse? Apple tax should be stopped, people are paying penalty to use their sub par software, this is as ridiculous as it gets.

Because they don't have to. It may not meet the legal definition of a monopoly but a monopoly it is.

It's kinda like how you can charge obscene amounts of money for popcorn when you own movie theater.

Re: Netflix stops paying the ‘Apple tax’ on its $853M in annual iOS revenue

#102

Post by morpheuskafka »

skh wrote: post #16
morpheuskafka wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You go to the App Store (logical place to look), tap your profile pic (a standard way of communicating "my account"), and tap your name in the menu. You'll arrive at the Account Settings page which has an obviously labeled Subscriptions button. Once there, subscriptions are neatly sorted into active and expired. Clicking on a subscription instantly shows you all options, you can change among them and get a full prora…

I don’t believe this is correct on iOS and it isn’t correct on the Apple TV. In iOS you need to go to Settings -> iTunes & App Store -> tap on your Apple ID at the top of the screen -> tap on view Apple ID -> scroll to subscriptions and tap on that It’s not obvious or intuitive in my opinion.

https://imgur.com/a/qhdXiSr

Re: Netflix stops paying the ‘Apple tax’ on its $853M in annual iOS revenue

#103

Post by arielm »

wand3r wrote: post #19

The Apple store seems good for small apps because the “tax” pays for discovery/marketing, distribution, billing & payment, lends credibility to the application, etc. This is especially true for single purchases. Recurring revenue is a much different proposition— even for small or first time apps. A player like netflix which handles it’s own marketing, payment and all other ancilliary services doesn’t need to anything…

Agreed on subscriptions. While paid and freemium apps benefit from being in the store (discovery, etc), recurring revenue models are much more difficult to optimize and maintain. That’s not something the store really helps with.

This is why both Apple and Google introduces the reduced rate after the first year of subscription, which in my opinion will eventually become the norm from the get go. It’s only a letter of time.

Ultimately, even such seemingly large losses are still a really small fraction of Apple’s bottom line. Once more apps find ways to do this is when Apple will start noticing.

Re: Netflix stops paying the ‘Apple tax’ on its $853M in annual iOS revenue

#104

Post by tokyodude »

toufiqbarhamov wrote: post #3
skh wrote: post #2

I wonder how much money it costs Apple to handle subscription payments/cancellations for Netflix and other streaming services. I prefer to handle subscription through Apple because cancelling such services is never difficult. I don’t know how it is on other countries but cancelling services in the U.S. can be a hellish experience. Personally, I’d be willing to pay the “Apple Tax” on top of a subscription services’ co…

For many things I’d agree, but to their credit Netflix has always made it trivially easy to cancel. They’re one of the few modern IT companies that seem to go out of the way to make joining and leaving fair and easily comprehensible. Now if they’d just make that autoplaying a goddamned option!

I use this option often. I basically sign up about once every 4 months and cancel almost immediately. Something I want to try watching so I sign up. Then get annoyed at the autoplay which makes it nearly impossible for me to comfortably browse for other content I might be interested in so I give up and cancel.

Re: Netflix stops paying the ‘Apple tax’ on its $853M in annual iOS revenue

#105

Post by dan1234 »

freedomben wrote: post #47
lathiat wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple policies explicitly forbid this. While you can use subscriptions from on the website, the app cannot in any way suggest that you do that, nor can it link to a page that directly (one click away) lets you do it.

Wow, that's interesting. Suddenly the class action lawsuit against Apple claiming they've abused their monopoly makes a lot more sense (not saying I agree with it, just that it makes more sense. I neither agree nor disagree: I'm way too ill informed to have an opinion).

What monopoly does Apple have? They don’t have a majority share of any platform.

Any app makers not happy should boycott the platform and just release Android apps. Of course, they’d also need to avoid the Google Play store as they have pretty similar rates to the App store[0]

[0]https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...

Re: Netflix stops paying the ‘Apple tax’ on its $853M in annual iOS revenue

#106

Post by Spooky23 »

Rjevski wrote: post #32
writepub wrote: post #30

It's ludicrous for Apple to state they somehow increased business for Netflix, because they allowed "sign-up" via iOS. That's like Google claiming they allowed sign-up via chrome, or AT&T claiming they allowed sign up via their Network. Apple adds ZERO value via the app store, both for devs and for the consumers.

Apple adds a lot of value via the App Store for initial app purchase/download. I agree they add very minimal value for recurring subscriptions, and their fee should be dialled back to be inline with what card processors charge (because they're essentially offering payment processing and not much else).

I almost exclusively deal with subscriptions through Apple. Dealing with multiple vendors is a pain and Apple adds a high level of service and security.

If you think your random app company is getting permission to do recurring billing, think again!

Re: Netflix stops paying the ‘Apple tax’ on its $853M in annual iOS revenue

#107

Post by tokyodude »

jclardy wrote: post #71
todd3834 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but the fact you have to google it every time is not exactly what I’d expect from Apple. I’m sure they will improve this. They must get a ton of support calls over this.

As a dev who works on a fairly large app with an in-app subscription, we are the ones that get a ton of support requests, even having the unsubscribe link in our own settings. The problem is a huge percentage of users assume deleting the app will also stop their subscription, but it does not.

Sounds like something Apple should fix. They know you have a subscription for the App you're deleting. They should ask

"You have a subscription for this app's services through Apple Pay. Do you want to unsubscribe?"

They could even say something like

"You have a subscription for this app's services through Apple Pay. Do you want to unsubscribe? Note that this app is still installed on your iPad" (assuming you deleted it from your iphone)

As a tangent I notice that while Apple's hardware and OS are best in class their support infrastructure is arguably close to worst in class. Every time I have to deal with their support and order systems (apple.com) I run into issues that make it almost seem like they're still doing everything on paper and that none of their systems are connected.

Re: Netflix stops paying the ‘Apple tax’ on its $853M in annual iOS revenue

#109

Post by LoSboccacc »

hinkley wrote: post #89
electic wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Apple store seems good for small apps This is simply not true. As a small app developer, I can tell you first hand that Apple only promotes and supports larger apps in the ecosystem. It is the exception, not the rule, when they promote a smaller app. As a developer, you are on your own on the marketing and discovery front. The billing infrastructure you allude to would be easily replaceable with a dozen or so s…

I have to agree with grandparent. You can't scale down international infrastructure like this. The cost per sale for someone managing a store for you has a certain minimum cost per month plus an amount per sale and per return. Of course they're going to hype the big games. It's opportunity cost. Advertisement leads to sales, but feeding a hype train gets you more. If they stop advertising the hot new game to showcase…

The fallacy there is that their push to promote big Warner is mostly promoting toxic games that milk and dime users because freemium games is where money is at.

It's no coincidence that on both stores you cannot filter out apps that have in app purchases

Re: Netflix stops paying the ‘Apple tax’ on its $853M in annual iOS revenue

#110

Post by andrekandre »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #73
lathiat wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple policies explicitly forbid this. While you can use subscriptions from on the website, the app cannot in any way suggest that you do that, nor can it link to a page that directly (one click away) lets you do it.

It sound weird to me as an Indian. Apple supports almost zero debit cards in India and no net banking. All the apps provide 10s of different ways to pay inside the app including amazon, uber, zomato(food delivery app) and their competitors. I don’t know about Netflix but still I can bet we can add credit card inside app.

apples “tax” is for digital items sold for use in the app itself; for physical things or download codes for game consoles etc, then apples “tax” doesn’t apply (yet heh)

technically it’s called “in-app purchase” [1]

[1] https://developer.apple.com/in-app-purchase/

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