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

Post by zapzupnz » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 1:39 AM UTC

tokyodude wrote: post #111

dan1234 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

AFAIK that's not how it works. For example go look up Microsoft's monopoly. The commonly held believe is Microsoft was declared to have a monopoly on personal computer OSes but that is false. Microsoft was found to have a monopoly on OSes for Intel based machines. So by that same logic Apple has a monopoly on OSes for A series (A10, A11, A12) based smartphones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft…

Post by sjwright » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 1:42 AM UTC

gcb0 wrote: post #68

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…

> The Apple store seems good for small apps that is fine if you ever show up as featured. Which is 1% of the apps, and even then, from already big companies after they spent the marketing money. Other than that, for distribution (really?) and payment, there are tons of alternatives/competition the small apps cannot even consider. App store is nothing other than a racketeering scheme where you have to pay if you can't…

Post by spullara » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 1:44 AM UTC

zaidf wrote: post #74

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…

I could not disagree more. It requires 5+ taps and just as many obscure screens to cancel a subscription to an iOS app. If Apple were really serious, they would have an app called Subscriptions.

Post by praneshp » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 1:45 AM UTC

ttty wrote: post #115

What happens if Apple bans Netflix and provides a steaming and alternative? I guess Netflix can sue them, but in the meantime will lose a lot of money.

Post by askvictor » Tue, Jan 01, 2019, 1:49 AM UTC

wufufufu wrote: post #76

Wow, 30% for the first payment and then 15% for each renewal? Apple should have custom rates for large volume subscription apps. The fact that they didn't just cost them several million dollars at least.