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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

#211

Post by invig »

m45t3r wrote: post #192
lance76 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This misses the point. It is not equal. I choose Apple's store for one Very Big Reason over almost all other third-party services: I trust them with my financial details. I don't have to 'beg' to later cancel my subscription. I don't have to worry about my credit card being stolen. I don't have to worry about a bunch of sophomoric engineers breaking their own website and creating grief for me. I am in control with Ap…

> Don't be naive, everyone. This is more than just about the 30% cut. This is also about Netflix having a LOT of extra data on their customers they can't get within the Apple ecosystem.... home addresses, full names, credit card data, and possibly (yes, quiet possibly) cross-referencing that with other data providers to determine credit scores, income brackets, lifestyle choices, etc. I am no developer of iOS, but I…

Apple shares exactly none of this information with developers.

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

#212

Post by freedomben »

ndnxhs wrote: post #98
na85 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really believe the ratings and reviews are useful? Most of the reviews I've seen are obvious shills, or else useless "works ok" reviews with a 5 star rating

I don't think I have ever found the reviews on google play to be useful. I switched to fdroid which has no review or rating system and I dont miss it a bit. I find its usually easier to just open the app and see if it works.

I find the reviews helpful, tho I take them with a grain of salt. It's true there's a lot of garbage tho. So many reviews like this:

> 1-star

> Used to be awesome but has a bug I don't like now!

> This app used to be amazing but now I want some feature that it doesn't have. Rating this 1-star as a way to strong arm the developer into adding my favorite feature. By the way I'll forget to come back and update this review should I actually get what I want.

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

#213

Post by new12345 »

lance76 wrote: post #178
stcredzero wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it hard to blame anyone for leaving any store when there has been almost nothing of value added in years and things are even regressing. That 30% should have gone a lot further It's not really a market if the seller thinks there's no alternatives, and the buyer has no choice but to put up with anything. Works the other way around, too.

This misses the point. It is not equal. I choose Apple's store for one Very Big Reason over almost all other third-party services: I trust them with my financial details. I don't have to 'beg' to later cancel my subscription. I don't have to worry about my credit card being stolen. I don't have to worry about a bunch of sophomoric engineers breaking their own website and creating grief for me. I am in control with Ap…

I agree with your point on need for a strong middleman that can look after interests of its customer and defend against greedy sellers who are after customer's data and money. I would love to see Apple expand its role further and spearhead initiatives to safeguard interests of buyers from behemoth internet service/product providers, something that we desperately need.

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

#214

Post by GeekyBear »

m45t3r wrote: post #192
lance76 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This misses the point. It is not equal. I choose Apple's store for one Very Big Reason over almost all other third-party services: I trust them with my financial details. I don't have to 'beg' to later cancel my subscription. I don't have to worry about my credit card being stolen. I don't have to worry about a bunch of sophomoric engineers breaking their own website and creating grief for me. I am in control with Ap…

> Don't be naive, everyone. This is more than just about the 30% cut. This is also about Netflix having a LOT of extra data on their customers they can't get within the Apple ecosystem.... home addresses, full names, credit card data, and possibly (yes, quiet possibly) cross-referencing that with other data providers to determine credit scores, income brackets, lifestyle choices, etc. I am no developer of iOS, but I…

Apple doesn't hand over customer data.

They did bend enough in 2011 to allow their customers to choose to share some limited information when subscribing to the digital version of a magazine.

>As for subscriber data, Apple will allow customers to provide publishers with name, e-mail and zip code information at the time of subscription. This is optional

https://mashable.com/2011/02/15/apple-subscription-model/

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

#215

Post by emsy »

scarface74 wrote: post #177
emsy wrote: post #138

At some point iOS feels like a third class platform, because I can't directly buy subscriptions or download my (already paid for externally!) Audible audio books. I think Apple is too arrogant to change this on their own so my only hope is the EU will regulate quasi-monopolies like the app store at some point. At the moment Apple users would benefit from a lot of regulations ranging from freedom of choice in the App…

The EU forced Apple and Audible’s partnership to dissolve. https://www.theverge.com/2017/1/19/14323438/apple-audible-ex...

This is about books sold from iTunes. I'm talking about buying books from your Audible credits in the Audible app. But given this info, the most charitable interpretation would be that Audible stopped selling via Apple all together. A less charitable interpretation would be that Apples guidelines forbid Audible to sell content without Apple getting their cut.

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

#216

Post by oh_sigh »

ancorevard wrote: post #173

World wide product distribution for only 30% is cheap. I see a lot of Sellers whining, but the Customers love this arrangement. Take a look at iOS satisfaction rate among its users VS the other phone vendors.

Customers don't care whether apple takes 1% or 50%.

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

#217

Post by ksec »

mgkimsal wrote: post #199

As long as we're bitching about the 'apple tax'.... I'll toss out an unrelated-yet-perplexing issue I've had with mac/ios/etc since... 2008?: Slow app store speed. It doesn't matter what device I'm on - multiple macbooks, imacs, iphones, ipods, ipads, etc, all running through multiple cable and dsl providers in multiple states over the last decade. Download speed is abysmal. 30meg app update - why does this take 2-3…

They should be fast though? They are on Akamai, LimeStone and their own CDN. It was all very late in 2016 /2017, but things has been much better since then. So to have a slow download speed from Apple, unless it is from iCloud Storage ( which is getting better too) shouldn't have been the case as the likely hood fo slow connection from all three CDN are very small..

Apart from Netflix Servers ( Fast.com, I really wish Netflix would make a CDN for others to use ), I think Apple now has one of the best CDN network.

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

#218

Post by ksec »

cpeterso wrote: post #171

Would Netflix still need to pay Apple 30% of the Netflix app redirected new sign-ups to a netflix.com web page in Safari?

I think ( Correct me if I am wrong ), if it was in Safari it would be ok, if it was in App Webview it is not.

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

#219

Post by GeekyBear »

Apple has long allowed content producers to give away an app at no cost on the App Store and then sell subscriptions to access their content through their own website.

>publishers can sell digital subscriptions on their web sites, or can choose to provide free access to existing subscribers. Since Apple is not involved in these transactions, there is no revenue sharing or exchange of customer information with Apple.

https://mashable.com/2011/02/15/apple-subscription-model/

The sticking point in my eyes has been that the free app cannot provide a link to the website where you buy a subscription to the content.

>Apple does require that if a publisher chooses to sell a digital subscription separately outside of the app, that same subscription offer must be made available, at the same price or less, to customers who wish to subscribe from within the app. In addition, publishers may no longer provide links in their apps (to a web site, for example) which allow the customer to purchase content or subscriptions outside of the app.

https://mashable.com/2011/02/15/apple-subscription-model/

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

#220

Post by wand3r »

ndnxhs wrote: post #96

Netflix only needs apple for distribution because apple has locked down the system so much that you are forced to go through them. Apple has added very little value and we had better systems before where you could just visit a URL and view content without needing Microsoft for distribution.

I think we’re saying the same thing. Apple can do whatever it wants with it’s ecosystem but it doesn’t matter to Netflix. Netflix customers and Apple customers can be the same people but they are indifferent to how these companies interact with eachother. “Apple” customers expect Netflix on their devices and “Netflix” customers expect to be able to consume their content on whatever phone they happen to have.
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