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Comment by MichaelGG | Hacker News Reader

Doesn't Netflix's app's first screen say sign in or visit Netflix.com to sign up?

They used to do that, and that is ok. But you can't link them to an external site to pay and sign up.

But now they just bit the bullet and give up a portion of their revenue to Apple and Google. Although I believe 30% is only for the first year. It goes down after that.

But, if you have existing customers and their account has lapsed and must be paid to re-enable service your app can link to a web-page payment form

I suspect a big player like Netflix can negotiate the revenue split with Apple. Nothing we mere mortals can.

The weird thing is why would Apple get any of the revenue. I don't think microsoft gets any from people that watch netflix in their browser, nor google if people watch it in chrome.

In theory either could interfere with your interaction with netflix and demand money to allow it through. Google could start a whitelist of good sites and demand revenue sharing to be allowed on the list but people would go ballistic and firefox would have a lot more users.

I really don't see how apples arrangement is any more acceptable.

What your describing is more like what ISPs will do without net neutrality. Browsers have financial incentives not to do that (e.g. there are well know free alternatives, and it's an important feature of android or windows that you can browse the internet).

Holy shit. I searched this and found [1]. 15% recurring revenue per signup seems like one hell of a commission. But perhaps warranted if it's bringing in people that haven't had Netflix before and legitimately sign up via the app.

1: https://www.macrumors.com/2015/04/13/apple-15-percent-cut-ap...

I don't think they can. Netflix needs Apple more than Apple needs Netflix.

I'd imagine there's some companies that even Apple can't bully.

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