Netflix rolls out a button for iOS and iPadOS users to take them directly to its site to sign up, which avoids the App Store cut via an API for “reader apps”
Earlier this year, Apple began allowing “reader” apps to provide external links for customers so they can log in and pay …
The change matters because it removes a long-standing friction point between Netflix’s app and its direct subscription channel while preserving Apple’s role as the app distributor.
First-order effects
Netflix can send iOS and iPadOS users from its app directly to its own sign-up page, keeping the subscription transaction outside App Store in-app purchase.
Apple no longer intermediates the payment for Netflix sign-ups reached through the reader-app link, so Netflix controls the checkout path and customer billing relationship.
Second-order effects
Other eligible reader apps have a clearer template for pairing App Store distribution with direct web subscriptions, increasing pressure on Apple’s in-app-purchase model within that category.
Netflix’s direct subscription funnel becomes easier to access from its mobile apps, making its web checkout experience a more important competitive asset than its prior app-only sign-up dead end.
Third-order effects
If reader apps broadly adopt external links, Apple’s mobile platform role shifts in that segment from payment intermediary toward distribution and policy gatekeeper, while subscription services concentrate billing control on the web.
The trend: Mobile subscription services are increasingly separating app distribution from payment collection where platform rules permit direct web checkout.
This is the warning Apple shows you if you try to go to Netflix's website from the app to pay for a subscription. Apple doesn't get a 30% cut of those transactions and so makes seem scary to pay for Netflix on their website. Same self serving trick they played for ads via ATT. ht…
I'm pretty not-outraged by this pop up? Feels fairly neutral and necessary? It's good to let people know when they leave your ecosystem and are now governed by someone else's TOS https://twitter.com/...
Now Netflix is sending iOS users to payment methods outside Apple's 30% App Tax. Games aren't allowed to do this. Can Roblox do it? Is that what the bizarre court exchange about Roblox graduating from “game” to “experience” was ultimately about? https://appleinsider.com/...
Though Netflix is escaping Apple's 30% revenue tax, Apple is imposing a new tax - the “scare the hell out of customers by making all competing payment processors look untrustworthy” tax. Shame on Apple for this horrid sham. https://twitter.com/...
Apple is playing a sleazy game that IBM perfected decades ago in the tech industry: FUD, which stands for creating “fear, uncertainty, and doubt” that has no basis in reality. https://twitter.com/...
Why does Apple show me this warning when I want to pay for Netflix but not when I click a link to a phishing site in Discord's app or a Twitter bot trying to get my Coinbase/Metamask info? Does Apple believe Netflix's website is less safe than random links on Twitter & Discord?
The wildest part is that this approach by Apple is actually a concession to appease various antitrust investigations around the world. Instead of rejecting Netflix's app or forcing them to give Apple 30% at least now Apple just scares users. How gracious. https://9to5mac.com/...
@TimSweeneyEpic I already disabled photos backup to iCloud and it kept re-enabling by itself at least 3 times. The fact that they don't even ask for your permission to send your photos to their servers is a disgusting breach of privacy. How has there not been any lawsuits regardi…
Once again we see the use of heavy-handed, intimidating language in intransigent, disruptive modals designed to suppress consumer use of off-platform services. This is clearly a significant hurdle to open payments and commerce. And the privacy point is absurd. https://twitter.com…
@RyanHavar It's possible to bypass this as Chris says below. It took me a year to figure this out after multiple times Apple started sucking my personal data into iCloud by default, without explicitly asking.
Apple's “App Tracking Transparency” (which displays terrifying warnings about Apple competitors, while using comforting language about Apple's own tracking) is another brazen anticompetitive move to foreclose on competition. But since Facebook was the #1 victim, folks cheered it.
And remember, this warning is coming from **inside** the Netflix app. So, people are getting this warning when they are going from Netflix to Netflix. It's just a 100% antitrust violation. https://twitter.com/...
Lots of people responding to say the dialog is technically true so what's the problem? The problem is that the statement is true every time you click a link in an app to go to a website. However Apple ONLY shows this warning when an app refuses to give them 30% of their revenue. …
If Apple showed this warning every time I clicked a link in the Twitter app then I wouldn't call out this behavior. However they don't because this is obviously a terrible user experience. However they have no qualms doing this when it makes it harder for people to pay Netflix.
@TimSweeneyEpic This isn't anywhere as bad as what Apple is doing with iCloud. You can't download any apps on iPhone without being forced to login to iCloud, which will automatically send all your photos, messages, notes, IP in plaintext to Apple servers for any government/apple …
I like the language that makes it sound like they're sending you to some random company Apple has never heard of called “the developer “Netflix"". https://twitter.com/...