Over the past few months, Netflix has been experimenting with its subscription model. Apparently, the company was considering cheaper pricing for India but that was ruled out by the CEO. Then, it announced a new $4 mobile-only tier for Malaysian customers in November, with more Asian countries expected to follow suit soon.
Now, the firm has permanently pulled iTunes billing for new customers using iOS devices.
VentureBeat reports that Netflix will no longer allow new users to sign up for the service via iTunes billing, and will instead direct them to the company"s website. This move is quite significant because it essentially means that Netflix will be keeping all the proceeds that are made towards getting a new subscription instead of handing over 15% of the payment to Apple.
This change in the subscription plan also applies to existing customers who sign up for the service again after canceling billing for at least a month. The company apparently began testing this new model in select countries back in August, but has now decided to roll out the change globally. The decision to do so lines up with the one it made for Google Play customers back in May.
The move is quite similar to the one that Epic took with Fortnite on Google Play, where the company opted to release the game for Android via its own installer instead of the Play Store in order to avoid revenue cuts. This payment model is purported to cause Google to miss out on over $50 million in 2018. With even Netflix now taking this direction, it will be interesting to see if more companies follow suit.
Source: VentureBeat