5 ms·
Why call it "tax" if it is a fee? The article shows numbers based on a 30% fee when it explicitly says it is actually 15%. "meaning Apple was making around $7
by soneca 8y ago
Why call it "tax" if it is a fee?
The article shows numbers based on a 30% fee when it explicitly says it is actually 15%.
"meaning Apple was making around $700,000 by doing nothing other than allowing Netflix to offer subscriptions in its app"
It seems a bit unfair also.
I have no horse in this race, but the author seems to have
- adrr 8y agoI'd consider it a tax. You can't support billing in your app for digital services unless you're willing to pay that a percentage of your revenue. So the workaround is to push people to the safari app to enter in their credit card info.
- lathiat 8y agoApple policies explicitly forbid this. While you can use subscriptions from on the website, the app cannot in any way suggest that you do that, nor can it link to a page that directly (one click away) lets you do it.
- freedomben 8y agoWow, that's interesting. Suddenly the class action lawsuit against Apple claiming they've abused their monopoly makes a lot more sense (not saying I agree with it, just that it makes more sense. I neither agree nor disagree: I'm way too ill informed to have an opinion).
- DennisAleynikov 8y agothis 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.
- scarface74 8y agoAny provider can have subscriptions outside of the store and still distribute on the platform.
- pentae 8y agoThis is completely false in practice. Especially in the last 12 months.
- scarface74 8y agoAgain we have an existence proof that this is true. DirectvNow, Amazon, Google Play, Sling, ACloudGuru....
- pentae 8y agoIf 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.
- scarface74 8y agoYes I do understand the rules. Amazon Video - subscription outside of the app that lets you play prime movies or you can purchase or rent a movie from Amazon’s website and watch it on the app. Amazon Kindle - you can buy a book on Amazon’s website and download it to the app. Coxmixology - again, you can buy a comic on the website and use it on the app. SlingTV - you buy a subscription on the website and stream video on the app. DirecTVNow - same as above. Google Play Video - same as Amazon Video. Spotify - subscription you buy on the website and stream music on the app. Should I continue?
- zaidf 8y agoThis needs to goto the Supreme Court, hopefully sooner rather than later.
- nvo 8y agoFor Apple to abuse their monopoly they should have one to begin with.
- dan1234 8y agoWhat monopoly does Apple have? They don’t have a majority share of any platform. Any app makers not happy should boycott the platform and just release Android apps. Of course, they’d also need to avoid the Google Play store as they have pretty similar rates to the App store[0] [0]https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/112622 https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...
- tokyodude 8y agoAFAIK that's not how it works. For example go look up Microsoft's monopoly. The commonly held believe is Microsoft was declared to have a monopoly on personal computer OSes but that is false. Microsoft was found to have a monopoly on OSes for Intel based machines. So by that same logic Apple has a monopoly on OSes for A series (A10, A11, A12) based smartphones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
- freedomben 8y ago
- YetAnotherNick 8y agoIt sound weird to me as an Indian. Apple supports almost zero debit cards in India and no net banking. All the apps provide 10s of different ways to pay inside the app including amazon, uber, zomato(food delivery app) and their competitors. I don’t know about Netflix but still I can bet we can add credit card inside app.
- joshtynjala 8y agoApple allows physical items or services to be purchased without Apple's payment infrastructure. The strict rules and 30% fee apply to "digital" subscriptions/items only.
- andrekandre 8y agoapples “tax” is for digital items sold for use in the app itself; for physical things or download codes for game consoles etc, then apples “tax” doesn’t apply (yet heh) technically it’s called “in-app purchase” [1] [1] https://developer.apple.com/in-app-purchase/ https://developer.apple.com/in-app-purchase/
- ternaryoperator 8y agoIt's just an informal term, used in the US (and likely elsewhere) to refers to a fee that is a regularly recurring % of a sale amount. The idea is that in this sense, the fee is similar to a sales tax.
- test022a 8y agoAnd that's $700,000 per day (or actually $350,000). Netflix has paid Apple over $250 million (at the 15% rate) to have their app in the store -- definitely seems like a tax.
- lozenge 8y ago15% after a year of subscription. Many people will cancel within their first year (perhaps not forever)
- philihp 8y ago"Apple Tax" is a well defined colloquial term to refer to the markup Apple makes on its products because of their company branding and product reputation. I wouldn't credit the author with inventing this term—rather they are borrowing it for something that is actually more like a tax. When there's a transaction in the Apple domain, Apple levies a tax/fee/toll/duty. This isn't going away, and it's going to be heavy hitters like Netflix which pressure them to change. Let's hope the change takes a form other than an exemption specifically for Netflix.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- kodablah 8y ago> Why call it "tax" if it is a fee? Tax instead of a fee because it's unavoidable to do business on the platform. Akin to a sales tax to sell items in an area. Terms are fungible but it's a reasonable term. > I have no horse in this race, but the author seems to have Assuming the author has bias repeating a commonly used term indicates more about bias on the assumer than the one using common terms.