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

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

#222
That is around 6 - 7 Million of users, their Annual Revenue is roughly $15B, so ~5.6% of its users coming from iOS in App subscription. Not too much of a risk I would say, and Netflix, just like Spotify doesn't want to fund Apple Music / Apple TV development.

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

#223

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; after 10 years, I can’t even use two different search-and-sort criteria at once to find new apps (and I refuse to sit there and scroll through offensively-bad lists of useless results, much less buy them). I am however not surprised by…

There are several other big names bypassing Apple Tax such Slack, their bots have their own billing mechanisms mostly via Stripe. But I don't think it is going to last long, I got a message from Kik telling, their bot developers should be registered as an Apple Developer[1]! Meanwhile, Facebook mentions in their bot developer guidelines that no digital goods should be sold in their Messenger platform; likely to 'not'…

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

#224
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can buy books for both Kindle and Audible from Amazon and use them on the apps without Apple getting a cut.

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

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is precisely why apple gets these tax complaints. their platform is hostile to users trying to have choice on their platform. players like netflix are the only ones able and willing to stand up to apples practices in running a hyper controlling app store with bizzare monetary policies.

Any provider can have subscriptions outside of the store and still distribute on the platform.

This is completely false in practice. Especially in the last 12 months.

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

#226
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only is it chaos for battery life, web push notifications are almost entirely spam. The web should have never added them in the first place. I’m glad that Apple stands against that crap.

Exactly, I am sick of websites asking me to enable notifications. Apps asking me to allow notifications. At the end of the day, rarely is the app worthy of that sort of interruption. I've absolutely never seen a website that can justify. But they will still somehow notify you about enabling notifications. Companies have a delusional vision that their particular product is that important to their users. It isn't.

For many social media, dating, discussion forum apps where users want to be notified of DM's or replies to their threads push notifications is essential. Just because you don't think its valuable for you doesn't mean users shouldn't have the choice.

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

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Nobody is forcing you to carry just one mobile phone, even though most people do.) So now we're getting somewhere. This is the height of the wall around this particular walled garden. Now let me ask this: What percentage of the population would even consider owning two smartphones? That's how close to an idealized monopoly this walled garden is. So granted, it's not a monopoly in an idealized sense. But we now quant…

Imagine you live in a town with two similarly good cable TV providers. Each has a monopoly on selling HBO subscriptions through their particular service. Most people have one cable TV subscription. Which means if you want HBO on your cable TV box, you can only subscribe through your current cable TV provider. You can call this a monopoly if you like, doesn't make it wrong or illegal.

> Most people have one cable TV subscription. Which means if you want HBO on your cable TV box, you can only subscribe through your current cable TV provider. You can call this a monopoly if you like, doesn't make it wrong or illegal.

It is, however, the exact reason for having network neutrality requirements.

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

#228
post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any provider can have subscriptions outside of the store and still distribute on the platform.

This is completely false in practice. Especially in the last 12 months.

Again we have an existence proof that this is true. DirectvNow, Amazon, Google Play, Sling, ACloudGuru....

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

#229
post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is completely false in practice. Especially in the last 12 months.

Again we have an existence proof that this is true. DirectvNow, Amazon, Google Play, Sling, ACloudGuru....

If you had a stronger grasp on the IAP rules you'd understand that many of those services don't fall under the IAP requirement because they exist 'outside of the app' or are real world products being sold. No, you don't have to pay Apple 30% on the 12 pack of toilet paper you bought on Amazon, or the Uber, or a Cable TV subscription. So this isn't the correct comparison central to your argument.
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