13 ms·
Google offered Netflix a sweetheart deal to pay just 10 percent on Google Play
- mjburgess 3y ago> Google’s attorney didn’t contest any of this... pointing out, without saying explicitly, that an app at the scale of Netflix can afford to bypass the store and rely on a browser signup ie., Google's attorney confirms the app-store model is a predatory racket
- pjmlp 3y agoEither way Google wins, thanks to all devs that have helped to transform the Web into ChromeOS. Netflix Web app is best viewed on Chrome anyway. And Safari only matters exactly because of the store. The day Chrome is allowed to replace Safari, it is over.
- Mindwipe 3y ago> Netflix Web app is best viewed on Chrome anyway Literally no it isn't. It gets higher resolution content and HDR in Edge and Safari. (Although Netflix do not support browser access on mobile at all.)
- amelius 3y ago> thanks to all devs that have helped to transform the Web into ChromeOS. I can't believe how shortsighted most developers are. Don't build your castle in someone else's kingdom, etc. Because in the long run it hurts almost everybody and yourself included. This holds for the entire platform economy. If you think government regulation is bad, then wait until you see a market regulated by a platform owner.
- ta1243 3y agoIt feels like the computing industry is made up of an alliance of those who never had any IE6 experience, combined with those who spent the 90s and 00s deeply into the Microsoft ecosystem
- ksec 3y agoI think this summarise everything that is wrong with discussions on the web/ twitter or HN. Without knowing their age and experience, a lot of these context are completely missing.
- buffet_overflow 3y agoI try not to think too much about how I mostly can not and likely will not see 1080p and higher content from my Linux desktop due to (a lack of) Chrome and DRM
- longitudinal93 3y agoWon't it display properly in VLC?
- notpushkin 3y agoAnd the offline watching works way better!
- jowea 3y agoHow would VLC connect to Netflix? Unless you're implying piracy.
- ta1243 3y agonetflix was never mentioned
- notpushkin 3y agoIf you're willing to run a blob for DRM support, you can get it running in any Chromium flavour. (I would rather prefer torrents, though.) Related: The Quest for Netflix on Asahi Linux – https://www.da.vidbuchanan.co.uk/blog/netflix-on-asahi.html https://www.da.vidbuchanan.co.uk/blog/netflix-on-asahi.html
- Mindwipe 3y agoChrome for Linux is still 720p at best and I'd expect that to drop over time, not go up. Chrome isn't what's holding higher resolution Netflix back on Linux, it's the lack of a signed graphics driver by an authority that would revoke anything that didn't enforce the DRM and pushes the decryption to trusted hardware.
- solardev 3y agoWhat do you suggest as an alternative? Writing only Linux apps? Chrome was to the web what Windows was to the desktop PC: It made writing mainstream apps with wide distribution practical. It's not like devs were held hostage. They saw an opportunity in this new platform and flocked to it because it was so good. Finally, a way to write an app and deliver it to users across devices, mostly unchanged. Write once (well, really more like 1.3x), run anywhere. Chrome was a huge improvement over IE and by-then-bloated Firefox, and Gmail and Google Maps and Google Docs good early demonstrators of what the Web could be (yes, they bought many of those, but that's not too relevant here). Web technologies were still an uncertain bet back in the day, competing against Java, ActiveX, Flash, and plain old PHP/Coldfusion/ASP apps, or even .NET and ClickOnce, etc. Chrome and V8 largely enabled the web and JS to slowly gain traction, alongside the growing ecosystem of JS libraries and frameworks. The future, then as now, wasn't "FOSS GNU/Linux against Google's web". It was big company against big company. Even now, if it wasn't for the Web and Android, we'd simply have iOS supremacy instead of Windows. Linux doesn't gain mainstream traction among normal users because its desktop experience is relatively poor, thanks to a historical focus on engineering prowess and ideology over end user UX. It only succeeds when big companies build on top of it and polish it a lot (Android, Steam Deck, Ubuntu, ChromeOS). That's not Google's fault, it's just what the Linux community prioritizes. Even today, it's amazing that the Web is still largely visible source of HTML and React. And it's contributed to by a bunch of companies, from Meta to Vercel to Cloudflare to Amazon to Oracle to to tens of thousands of small businesses and NPM contributors. This is already vastly more open than iOS and Android apps, at least until WASM closes everything off again. And though Google has definitively won the browser wars, Blink and Webkit are still far more similar than any other two platforms. It's easier to develop for two browsers than even two Linux distros / package managers. Is it shortsighted? I think it's just going where the users are. And the users are typically going to choose ease of use over strict ideology. This shit isn't their passion. They don't spend their days pondering the virtues and vices of operating systems and licenses. It's just a phone. And to most devs, it's just a platform. People are practical creatures. They'll use and write apps where other people are. Ideology will never be enough to change that. Usability and popularity might.
- est31 3y ago> Blink and Webkit are still far more similar than any other two platforms. It's easier to develop for two browsers than even two Linux distros / package managers. Given the EU digital market's act, this will deteriorate very quickly.
- andsoitis 3y ago> Netflix Web app is best viewed on Chrome anyway. Wild claim.
- jowea 3y agoI think that's true compared to Firefox on Linux at least.
- andsoitis 3y agoNetflix supported browsers: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/30081 https://help.netflix.com/en/node/30081 Netflix computer requirements for HTML5 player: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742 https://help.netflix.com/en/node/23742
- jowea 3y agoI don't know why it doesn't work well in FF and I haven't tried troubleshooting it but I am not the only one who uses Chrome on Linux only for Netflix.
- politelemon 3y ago> And Safari only matters exactly because of the store. > The day Chrome is allowed to replace Safari, it is over. I keep seeing this rhetoric and it strikes me as missing the entire point. It tries to paint Safari as some kind of stalwart against the web's doom. It is part of the problem and perpetuates the very same problems we're accusing Chrome of. Two wrongs do not make a right here.
- jchw 3y agoIndeed. And look at all of the good our saint Apple does for the open web: still can't use royalty-free codecs and support iPhone/iPad, still can't test Safari support without Apple devices (and trust me, you'll need to) and of course, WebGPU Shading Language.
- scarface_74 3y agoYou don’t pay royalties for the most popular codecs until you are at massive scale.
- jchw 3y agoMy desire for royalty-free "open" codecs has nothing to do with that, though. I know it has a lot to do with why Google and Netflix care about royalty-free codecs, but it has nothing to do with why I do, or why I think they are very important to an open Internet. Case in point, consider Wikipedia.
- scarface_74 3y agoThere is no such thing as an “open” codecs. There are open source implementations of patent encumbered codecs.
- jchw 3y agoUh huh.
- lukeschlather 3y agoI have had zero problems with Netflix on Firefox, I've used it for years. The other streaming services are very clunky but they are also bad on Chrome.
- pjmlp 3y agoUnfortunately Firefox is irrelevant now, it won't recover from 3% and going down. So it is a matter of luck if someone at Netflix still cares to test on it.
- scarface_74 3y agoYep, I just love viewing Netflix on the web when I don’t have an internet connection and I’m watching previously downloaded content…
- lupire 3y agoNo, he said that the App Store provides marketing value.
- danShumway 3y ago> Google offered to make Netflix a “platform development partner” under a program it called “LRAP++”, See, it's not a corporate deal happening behind the scenes. Don't call it a sweetheart deal, it's just a program. It's just a general pricing tier that Google was spinning up. /s > “Netflix is the only one this is being offered to at this point,” the document continued. You know, one of those "programs" that we happen to offer to exactly one company and only if we think there's a chance they have the ability to walk away.
- crazygringo 3y agoNo. For companies with massive cultural recognition and trust and product awareness (Netflix, Microsoft, Spotify, etc.), you don't need the app store for discovery or for security. (Although security is debatable -- e.g. recall the Sony rootkit scandal. I'm still not sure I'd trust a Sony app unless it was vetted by an app store and sandboxed.) But for 99.9% of the apps out there, this is not the case. The app store provides a lot of value in terms of discovery, security, and distribution. It doesn't do a perfect job, but that doesn't mean it's a "predatory racket".
- scarface_74 3y agoIt’s not like well known companies like Google and Facebook convinced consumer to install supposedly internal certificates on their devices to track everything they did on their iPhones or that Zoom installed a backdoor web server on Macs.
- realusername 3y agoNobody needs the appstore for discovery and security, security is done by the OS and the discovery is done by external channels, the store discovery is close to worthless anyways.
- scarface_74 3y agoYes because retail stores never get paid by customers for special deals
- xboxnolifes 3y agoGoogle's attorney confirms what every business owner knows: Big players get bulk pricing.
- Axsuul 3y agoBut I mean, why shouldn't a huge company like Netflix be offered more favorable terms due to the scale and business opportunity they offer? Similarly, Stripe offers lower transaction fees the more transactions you do.
- LewisVerstappen 3y agoyou arent required to use stripe if you want to add billing to your app.
- scarface_74 3y agoAnd you aren’t required to use In app purchases for subscription apps on either platform
- subw00f 3y agoYou are obligated to not mention or link to purchases outside the app.
- mplewis 3y agoBecause the company offering the terms is a monopoly on the Android marketplace.
- eloisant 3y ago...and in a duopoly on mobile app stores
- aaomidi 3y agoIf a Netflix competitor wanted to be a thing, they simply wouldn’t be able to because they wouldn’t get these deals.
- HlessClaudesman 3y agoOf course Google offers sweetheart deals for big accounts, it would be odd if they didn't. Google doesn't want to explicit about cutting into their 30% take, because everyone would want an exemption, so they offer remittances in other ways, giving them more discretion as to when the money spigot is on or off.
- penguin_booze 3y agoTax cut for billionares; price cut for big players. It's all tickle [sic] down economics.
- wouldbecouldbe 3y agoDoesn’t apple just threaten to kick you out of the App Store if you circumvent them?
- code_runner 3y agoAnd this is why Apple is being sued and google isn’t. Google at least will work with you I suppose
- CrazyStat 3y agoGoogle is being sued though? The whole reason we have this story is because the documents were revealed during discovery in the Epic vs Google lawsuit alleging monopolistic practices by the Google app store.
- scarface_74 3y agoThere are literally a dozen apps on my phone where I pay a subscription outside of the App Store.
- wouldbecouldbe 3y agoIt's often allowed if it's not purely a digital product or subscription, otherwise you have to at least also offer in-app purchases; you can still sell outside of the app.
- scarface_74 3y agoNeither Netflix, Spotify, Hulu Live TV or YouTube TV offer in app subscriptions. It hasn’t been required for “reader apps” (strange name I know) for over a decade.
- wouldbecouldbe 3y agoYeah true; mostly do fitness app. Those can also get an exception, but depends on the reviewer & how you present yourself
- flappyeagle 3y agoBREAKING Coca Cola gets favorable pricing from wal-mart.
- mplewis 3y agoYou don’t have to buy Coca-Cola from Wal-Mart.
- simbolit 3y agoFor smartphones, there is G and A. For supermarkets there is some competition. I mean Walmart doesn't even operate in the country I am located. See the difference?
- scarface_74 3y agoYou won’t do too well as consumer product goods company if you don’t sell in Walmart in the US.
- simbolit 3y agoYou may be right about "too well", but how does an android developer do, without Google play? Like you can sell your consumer goods at Target, Costco, Kroger, Albertsons, Publix, Meijer, or just in another country. Where do you sell your android app?
- scarface_74 3y agoYou can side load Android apps.
- simbolit 3y agoWhere do you sell it?
- scarface_74 3y ago
- markhahn 3y agoSo? The implication here seems to be that there's something wrong with offering a client a deal. Is it assumed that Google Play is a monopoly, and thus subject to some rules of "fairness" from public policy? But Netflix is a counterargument to Play being a monopoly...
- mplewis 3y agoWhat? The company offering the terms is a monopoly on the Android marketplace.
- rtpg 3y agoWhy did they take apples deal but not googles? How would googles deal be a loser but not apple, at a worse rate?
- solarkraft 3y agoGoogle doesn't force you to go through them as strongly.
- rtpg 3y agoIt's more that the article said "10% cut with Google would mean we would be losing money", yet they took the 15% deal from Apple. They could have done the same thing with Apple that they did with Google I think? Unless Apple threatened to delist them (though that would be another can of worms...)
- polygamous_bat 3y agoProbably because they assume android users to be more technically capable, and thus think that they can use a browser to pay rather than using the App Store?
- scarface_74 3y agoRight, the 40% of people in the US who use Androids are statistically poorer and less well educated.
- dgeiser13 3y agoFunny that all of my well-paid IT buddies use Android.
- scarface_74 3y agoWell, we don’t need anecdotes - we have real world statistics in every major market in the world that the household income of an iPhone user is higher then that of an Android user.
- markhahn 3y agoIsn't the real message here that payment, app-delivery, and app validation should all be available unbundled? Sure, it's a convenience for them all to be handled by Play, but what are we really asking our lawmakers to do?
- meepmorp 3y agoI don't actually want that, though, as a user. Apple has my payment info, so I don't need to share it with however many entities. They're a known entity that I reasonably trust to prevent malware making it onto my phone. I only need to go to one place to find apps for the platform. I like the App Store model. I understand that it presents problems for developers, and while I sympathize, I ultimately don't care about how it affects them enough to give up what I perceive as the benefits of the current system.
- aaomidi 3y agoThen don’t use apps that are outside of the App Store. I also use an iPhone. I would simply not use an app if it’s on a store that’s painful to maintain.
- scarface_74 3y agoYou mean a company gives large customers discounts as incentives!!! I’m shock! I bet AWS also has a secret deal with Netflix where they don’t have to pay retail prices. (Note sarcasm of course Netflix doesn’t pay retail).
- jezzamon 3y agoI worked for Google Play at this time. Was interesting. Note that the significant thing is not really the 10% deal but the fact that Netflix has to stop using their own in-app payment system with 3% fees (a rule Google Play previously did not enforce for them). (I'm still at Google, so that's all I'll add about an ongoing legal case with my employer)
- neilv 3y agoI'll serve APKs, and provide a payments service, for only 9% of Netflix's revenue on Android. Or, for 5% of Netflix's revenue on Android, I'll serve APKs, and let Netflix use their preferred payments service.
- subw00f 3y agoGood luck having your APK service bundled with virtually every Android device.
- realusername 3y agoYou can be sure that Google made sure that it doesn't happen with scary warnings.
- xnx 3y agoI don't have any subscriptions that go through Google Play, but I hugely appreciate how easy they make it to cancel subscriptions and handle trial subscriptions correctly. I'm able to sign-up, immediately cancel, but still use the service for the duration of the trial with no risk of it auto-renewing on me.
- muttled 3y agoSame reason I'm of two minds about Amazon. I disagree with a lot of their practices, but the first time I bought something from a 3rd party Amazon seller, they shipped it to the wrong address (there was a picture of the package clearly in front of the wrong building) and refused to refund due to "it shows delivered". The seller wanted me to "ask my neighbors". The buildings around me have hundreds of people per building. Then told me it was my problem to take up with the shipping company, saying I'd need a police report, all of that. All for a pair of shoes. I went into the Amazon support chat and they refunded it after the seller didn't respond to them in a timely matter (big surprise). That experience has soured me a bit on going outside the "main channels". Had I purchased that from that seller directly through their website, I'd have either spent hours of time proving to them that I never got the product, have to just eat the money, or deal with the back-and-forth of proving to my CC company that it warrants a chargeback.