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

Posted by BeauHD on from the power-play dept.

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.

12 of 71 comments (clear)

  1. Apple's business practices are shady at best by chrisvdb · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re: Apple's business practices are shady at best by c6gunner · · Score: 2

      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)

    2. Re:Apple's business practices are shady at best by Aighearach · · Score: 2, Insightful

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

    3. Re: Apple's business practices are shady at best by rtb61 · · Score: 2

      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.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    4. Re:Apple's business practices are shady at best by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

    5. Re: Apple's business practices are shady at best by mridoni · · Score: 2

      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.

  2. They're not bypassing the app store by mveloso · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

  3. Re:HTML5? by Aighearach · · Score: 2

    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.

  4. Re:HTML5? by squiggleslash · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  5. Re:HTML5? by wwalker · · Score: 2

    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.

  6. Re:Abusing stores by tlhIngan · · Score: 2

    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).

  7. Re:HTML5? by Luthair · · Score: 2

    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