Netflix Is the Latest Company To Try Bypassing Apple's App Store (marketwatch.com)

Netflix is testing a way for users to register and pay for the streaming service while bypassing Apple's app store and hefty commission fees. MarketWatch reports: Netflix is looking into a new sign-up approach where users in some countries are no longer able to register for streaming service. They are being redirected to the mobile web version of the app and asked to enter payment details with Netflix directly. The test is running in 33 countries, not including the U.S., through the month of September, according to TechCrunch. This comes just months after Netflix in May made billing through Google Pay unavailable to new customers, though current subscribers that pay via Google Play can continue to do so until they cancel their accounts.

Comments

HTML5?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Isn't that what HTML5 is for, so that streaming companies can build streaming services that run in the browser instead of install on end-user machines?

Re:HTML5?

[fluffernutter]

Streaming in a mobile browser is usually shit.

Re:HTML5?

[Aighearach]

It was supposed to be, but the mobile processors are only powerful enough for that if you don't have advertising or other crapware running. You can't use the wifi radio to radar-track my cat's movements across the room to time blipverts for robotic cat boxes to play while the cat is pooping, and still have CPU cycles left over to render content. So the content needs to be pre-rendered, so the more important crapware can use the available resources.

Re:HTML5?

[squiggleslash]

I think you're missing a few things.

HTML5 supports forms of any kind, just like all versions of HTML prior to version 5. This includes credit cards. That's how you buy things from, say, Amazon.com. There is no gatekeeping authority for the web that will ban your site because you accept credit cards and charge them directly.

Here's why that's important: Google and Apple both ban direct sales on their app stores. If you want either company to host an app in their app store, then any purchases made using the app have to go via Google or Apple, and in both cases they'll take 15% of the income.

So:

Android App: You are not allowed to process credit cards directly. Google takes 15%.
iPhone App: You are not allowed to process credit cards directly. Apple takes 15%.
HTML5 App: You can process credit cards directly. Visa/MC/etc takes 1-2.5%

Is there any reason for Netflix not to use HTML5? Yes. HTML5 is not ideal for, say, letting users save offline copies of movies (there's probably a very ugly, unreliable, way to do it using the persistence API, but...) but otherwise - not really. All modern smartphones are capable of running HTML5 with all the DRM badness Netflix needs, for example.

Re:HTML5?

[wwalker]

15%?! It's 30%. Both Apple and Android/Google. I'm sure larger companies like Netflix can negotiate a lower percentage, but for everyone else, it's 30%. Even Epic is releasing Fortnite for Android completely outside of the app store (on their own website), to avoid the 30% tax.

Re:HTML5?

[Anonymous Coward]

Subscriptions that are 1 year old or older have a 15% rate:

Google matches Apple by reducing Play Store fee for Android app subscriptions

Re:HTML5?

[AmiMoJo]

Didn't Netflix just charge an extra 30% to cover the Apple tax once? I'm sure I remember being advised not to subscribe through the app for that reason.

Re:HTML5?

[Luthair]

Google's terms do have this exclusion:

Payment is for digital content that may be consumed outside of the app itself (e.g. songs that can be played on other music players).

Netflix probably falls under this exemption

Re:HTML5?

[johnsie]

This article isn't about streaming. It's about how people pay for their netlix account.

Re:HTML5?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

No, but that is a server side problem, not a client side problem. Who you allow to log in to your server is how you do your billing.

Re:HTML5?

[EllisDees]

Except that Google doesn't actually do this.

Re:HTML5?

[JackieBrown]

That was spotify

Apple's business practices are shady at best

[chrisvdb]

I have a startup which builds a web-based enterprise product. A year ago we launched a companion app that provides a fraction of the functionality of the desktop application, just enough to help our customers extract the key information they need when they're on the road.

All of a sudden a few days Apple decides we have to implement in-app payments. I explained them that this is an enterprise product for an arcane industry and that our customers require quotations/invoices raised to their procurement department and would not pay several hundred to several thousand dollars through the app. They insist we have to implement in-app payments despite not helping our customers nor our business. We don't have automated billing at all, not even on our desktop product. The requested change means months of development for no value (at this point).

No way to appeal. We can currently not update our app and if we don't implement in-app payments in an unspecified time our current version will be pulled too.

Thanks, Apple.

Re: Apple's business practices are shady at best

[c6gunner]

Couldn't you just drop in a button that links to the payment API and hide it somewhere unobtrusive like the "about" menu? Nobody will ever use it but that's kinda the point, right?

I'm not an app developer but I don't see why this would take months of development. Seems like it shouldn't take more than a couple hours tops.

(also please note that I'm not defending apple; they're obviously being dicks)

Re:Apple's business practices are shady at best

[Aighearach]

They're not for business tools, Apple is toys for rich kids who are too cool to use commoner toys.

Re: Apple's business practices are shady at best

[rtb61]

I would suggest taking it one step further, implement it broken, let your customers know it is broken, and list it "Apple demanded in app payment system that does not work" and I would suggest putting the whole issue through the legal system. This sounds as shonky as fuck and clearly they are just trying it on, until someone sets the legal hounds on them. Their first mistake, trying to discuss the issue with Apple, once they did that, Apple knew they had them over a barrel.

Re:Apple's business practices are shady at best

[ShanghaiBill]

No way to appeal.

Appealing is futile. Instead, just make a small innocuous change, recompile, and resubmit the app. The chance of getting the same reviewer is small.

Re:Apple's business practices are shady at best

[GerryGilmore]

As someone not in the current "mobile app" market, help me to understand....
For Apple apps specifically, is there any way to have apps available outside of Apple's store? I know that on Android, one can bypass the Google store. Is there NO other way to install an iPhone app for Apple?

If not, again being outside this world, I'd have to give VERY serious consideration to making my app "Android-only".
Serious question here as any business model that relies on paying 30% of revenues for, essentially, nothing makes very little sense to me.

Re: Apple's business practices are shady at best

[mridoni]

Leaving aside the technicalities of what chrisvdb could do with his app, I can attest that the review process is hell: you are usually talking (o writing to) to some moron who doesn't understand the implications of what they're asking, especially when you're dealing with corner cases. I had the same problem one year ago: my app is basically used in a room setting together with other apps of its kind to perform some activities (there are notifications exchanged among the apps). The Apple representative kept asking for a demo account, and I tried to explain to him in every possible way that there was no problem in supplying the account, but it would have been perfectly useless if he was the only user, and that they all had to be online at the same time. Well, since the app had to be published, I had to write a "demo mode" for the guy (several days of work plus, as a hurry-induced bonus, several regressions in the code, that I had to fix later): whenever an account belonging to a special group was used, the app would start acting on its own, faking all its actions. Of course this was not a real-word test of anything, but Apple's QA process was accomplished.

Re:Apple's business practices are shady at best

[tlhIngan]

As someone not in the current "mobile app" market, help me to understand....
For Apple apps specifically, is there any way to have apps available outside of Apple's store? I know that on Android, one can bypass the Google store. Is there NO other way to install an iPhone app for Apple?

If not, again being outside this world, I'd have to give VERY serious consideration to making my app "Android-only".
Serious question here as any business model that relies on paying 30% of revenues for, essentially, nothing makes very little sense to me.

Well, the official way is the App Store. But there are two ways otherwise. One is via the Enterprise App Store, where you can develop apps for Enterprise users who can deploy to attached iPhones. You can't do this "unofficially" - Apple cracked down on unofficial app stores using this method to sell apps outside the app store by selling "membership" into the store.

The other way is to use the sideload mechanism. Apple allows you to distribute your app open-source for users to compile and deploy to their devices. This has resulted in a rather large set of "unapproved" apps being made available. Of course, this requires Xcode and is Mac only.

The last method exploits this and is mainly used by pirates - for $20 a year you can get software that will resign and load any IPA file onto your device. This method works on both Windows and Mac, but requires users to have the software.

As for whether it's worth it or not, it's really up to you. If you like managing user accounts, payments, support, locking down your website against hacks, etc., then you're right, it isn't worth it (though all those distractions probably cost you 30% anyways)

Re:Apple's business practices are shady at best

[nnull]

The walled garden approach has become a huge hindrance, especially when the mafia controls it. Every time I see a new Android or Apple device, the more I don't want it when I see how more locked down the device is after every release. Developing apps for these devices is no longer fun.

Re:Apple's business practices are shady at best

[johnsie]

You should have read the terms and conditions.

Re:Apple's business practices are shady at best

[gnasher719]

Look, it's simple. If you can purchase things that go on your device through the app, then you have to go through the App Store. If you can purchase outside of the app, and your app doesn't link to the outside payment, then you don't need it.

You only need in-app payments for in-app sales. Remove the in-app sales.

Abusing stores

[hcs_$reboot]

Credit cards companies take between 3 to 5%. Apple and Google take 15%, and it used to be 30% until 2016!

Re:Abusing stores

[Solandri]

Credit card fees are only about 2%-2.5% for most small businesses. Larger corporations may be able to get below 2%. If you're paying above 3%, either you haven't bothered to get quotes from multiple processing companies, or your volume of credit card orders is extremely low.

I still think 2% is high for the minimal amount of work that's involved handling online payments. (Credit card companies have successfully shifted the cost of fraud onto merchants. And their exorbitant interest rates pay for delinquent cardholder payments. So the only thing the processing fee has to cover is the actual payment processing, and returns/disputes.) But it's nowhere near as obscene as the 15%-30% that Apple and Google take. eBay is around 10%. Amazon is around 15%, but they do a helluva lot more than Apple or Google, including warehousing your inventory and boxing and shipping it for you.

That said, if companies have a problem with the percentage, the proper response is to drop support for iOS. That's really the only thing that's going to make Apple change its policies. As long as companies continue to support iOS, there's no reason for Apple to lower its percentage take. It's like drug addicts complaining that to their dealer that his prices are too high.

Re:Abusing stores

[tlhIngan]

Credit card fees are only about 2%-2.5% for most small businesses. Larger corporations may be able to get below 2%. If you're paying above 3%, either you haven't bothered to get quotes from multiple processing companies, or your volume of credit card orders is extremely low.

I still think 2% is high for the minimal amount of work that's involved handling online payments. (Credit card companies have successfully shifted the cost of fraud onto merchants. And their exorbitant interest rates pay for delinquent cardholder payments. So the only thing the processing fee has to cover is the actual payment processing, and returns/disputes.) But it's nowhere near as obscene as the 15%-30% that Apple and Google take. eBay is around 10%. Amazon is around 15%, but they do a helluva lot more than Apple or Google, including warehousing your inventory and boxing and shipping it for you.

That said, if companies have a problem with the percentage, the proper response is to drop support for iOS. That's really the only thing that's going to make Apple change its policies. As long as companies continue to support iOS, there's no reason for Apple to lower its percentage take. It's like drug addicts complaining that to their dealer that his prices are too high.

Credit cards take anywhere from 2-3%, plus 30 cents per transaction. So a $1 item will cost $0.33 in transaction fees. Debit cards can be as low as 1%, but they generally take 50 cents per transaction (usually done 25 cents both ways - 25 cents sapped from the merchant, 25 cents from the user).

So for free apps and $1 apps, 30% cut doesn't actually cover costs. And we're talking those are the majority. (Unlike say music at 99 cents, where a user will likely buy several tracks at once, most apps are purchased singly)

And what do you get? Hosting, a payment API, software maintenance (maintaining a store with payment gateway and locking it down and protecting it against hacks takes continuous maintenance), a refund mechanism (did you know, refunds actually cost money? At the very least it's another 30 cents), customer support (want to spend an hour on the phone explaining how to click buy to a customer?). Whether it's worth it or not, a site like Shopify (which will do payment, hosting, and maintenance) already takes anywhere from 10-20% of the list price (plus anywhere from free to $500+ a year).

Re:Abusing stores

[EllisDees]

Apple and Google both take 30%, not 15%.

Re:Abusing stores

[hcs_$reboot]

That was until 2016.

They're not bypassing the app store

[mveloso]

They're not bypassing the app store, they're bypassing the in-app payment infrastructure.

Of course you can do it. Amazon's been doing that since the kindle app came out.

Been doing it for years

[dohzer]

I've been avoiding expensive apps and music for years by avoiding Apple and iTunes completely.

Re:Canceled

[Scarletdown]

Suuuuuuuure you did.

App store surcharge?

[Bradmont]

Couldn't they just increase the cost of purchases through apple's payment system to cover the fees, and display the fee as a line-item in the checkout page with a link to the web payment form? I imagine it's probably against Apple's TOS to do this, but they could maybe sneak it in as a time delay after the app is reviewed. Netflix is big enough that I have a hard time seeing Apple kick them off the store...

Re:App store surcharge?

[gnasher719]

I develop an app that is free, but requires companies to pay for an expensive license. It's easy. The app is free. The customer buys a license for 100 users which allows them to print 100 invitation codes. To use the app, the user downloads the free app and enters the invitation code. For reviews, we give Apple two invitation codes (because the app is not very useful for a single user).

The important thing where the OP probably failed is that the app never asks for money, and never links you to any website where you could pay.

Re:App store surcharge?

[gnasher719]

Facebook just got their VPN app removed from the store. As you would have expected, spying on their users, which is _really_ what you expect from a VPN. Not.

Here's an idea:

[Drewdad]

Offer incentives not to register through Apple.

Good

[duke_cheetah2003]

The more companies and individuals that give the middle finger to 'App Stores' and their kin, the sooner they will go away. Abominations.