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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

#261

Post by jsjohnst »

tanilama wrote: post #243
kshacker wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you shop at Costco, you are buying Kirkland, Samsung, Apple, and 100 other brands. Think of it from the perspective of Danone yoghurt. They are paying Costco 5-10-15% right? Because they sell to Costco at a price cheaper than the sale price. How is it different here? There are other arguments to be made about the store fees, but Costco is pretty much like apple store and vendors don't even have the option of say…

> Because they sell to Costco at a price cheaper than the sale price. How is it different here. Apple Store is no cheaper and 30% is a huge cut, many service providers raise the price for iOS user to compensate this. So customer gets no benefit paying the 30% premium, at least not in Netlfix's case. Watching Netflix on iPhone doesn't necessary make a different experience. This is all because Apple had a monopoly on i…

Virtually every major budget retail store averages 30% margin or more on stuff sold there (Walmart, Target, Amazon, etc), especially for consumer electronics.

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

#262

Post by URSpider94 »

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.

That makes sense for small companies who need help reaching customers.

For Netflix, they are making the bet that they won’t lose much, if at all, by pushing subscribers to sign up directly with them. If that’s true, then by definition Apple isn’t providing any value.

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

#263

Post by eknkc »

chii wrote: post #254
sjwright wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still can, if that is you want. You are free to make that choice. Meanwhile, I'd appreciate if you didn't object to my right to choose a managed ecosystem if that is what I prefer. I like the Apple ecosystem the way it is, thank you very much.

> You are free to make that choice. i do not believe that apple allows you to sideload apps without jailbreaking (which voids warranty iirc). Therefore, the user is not free to make that choice.

You can buy an Android.

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

#264

Post by gnicholas »

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…

> But Netflix is still YAFS (Yet Another Friggin Subscription) that I have to manage on some other platform. I prefer to have Apple be the "overseer" of even Netflix.

Would you pay 30% more via the App Store if given the choice?

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

#265

Post by colejohnson66 »

scarface74 wrote: post #161
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.

Netflix could easily stream DRM free H.264 video from their website without needing an app....

I don’t think they could with the love for DRM the media companies have

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

#266

Post by electic »

threeseed wrote: post #241
electic wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am really happy for you. Genuinely. But most apps do not share your fate no matter how well designed, performant, or useful. I am actually fine if Apple doesn't do any sort of discovery or promotion of our apps. Just don't charge 30 percent then.

Go look through the store right now. The majority of the apps on the Today section will be small developers. If your app doesn't meet a certain level of quality then Apple will not feature you. But if you do then it is almost certain that at some point they will. I suspect your app falls in the former category.

There is no need to attack. Let's be nice. You don't have any idea what the app is.

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

#267

Post by throwaway98121 »

Good on Netflix for getting around the apple tax. I’ll admit, I have a MacBook for work, and all my reading and general browsing is on my iPad and iPhone. That being said, I’m saddened by Apple’s money grabs (absurd pricing). They don’t seem to care about customer trust. The post 2015 MacBooks are horrible IMO, and the AppStore is full of literally garbage. Every app is a bunch of ads and pay to basically unlock anything useful. I don’t know what the bar is to be on the AppStore anymore, and I never install anything other than Netflix, Spotify, WSJ, a couple Amazon apps, and some banking and investment apps... basically everything big name.

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

#268

Post by kkarakk »

na85 wrote: post #86
anonytrary wrote: post #84

The main reason I find app stores useful is that they are a third party data aggregator. You can see ratings, downloads, reviews and other statistics very easily. That does help me as someone deciding what apps I should download. That said, Netflix is a company I've grown to trust. I have no reason to look at Netflix's app statistics in the app store. I have no incentive to make personal transactions with Netflix thr…

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

Even worse is when you change countries(or rather apple changes your country coz you changed payment methods). apart from the US & other first world countries the store is absolutely BARREN of any reviews or ratings. feels like a ghost town.

i wonder if apple has abandoned mac and it's ancillary products to cowboy coders. the "quality" that people talk about is completely missing from mac software

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

#269

Post by kkarakk »

freedomben wrote: post #212
ndnxhs wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 revi…

Paying customers asking for feature via review is part of the reason why the review system is great. if you just want to make passive income by creating an app that does one thing in one particular way that's fine but you should be upfront about the deal. not being upfront about not providing feature updates or rather extensions should mean a worse review imo

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

#270

Post by Schlaefer »

sjwright wrote: post #123
gcb0 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

In the past, you bought software in a box from a retailer who took a margin as high as 50%. After you pay for manufacturing and distribution (shipping shrink-wrapped boxes of CD-ROMs, multilingual manuals and a unique serial number to retailers in Alaska and Singapore is definitely not free) a developer would be lucky to end up with one third of the retail price in their pocket. The Apple app store is actually a huge…

The app store didn't replace offline retail, the internet did. Software was sold online before the app store came along just fine. With app-stores we are back in retailer country: convenient as a customer but the manufacturer has to pay a fee to be boxed and put on the digital shelf.
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