Netflix has been at odds with Apple for years and the saga continues, but unfortunately, it’s the subscribers who are bearing the brunt of this ongoing battle.
The streaming giant is reportedly moving to scrap Apple payments completely with the removal of ongoing subscriptions from people who are still somehow paying through App Store in-app purchases.
In 2018, the company started to dodge Apple’s tax on top of iOS and Apple TV payments and instead started to direct customers to browser versions to pay for their subscriptions.
As reported by The Streamable and confirmed by The Verge, to be affected you’d have to have started your ‘basic’ Netflix subscription before Netflix’s decision in December 2018 to stop support for subscriptions though in-app purchases. You would have had to sign up on either your Apple TV device or on your iOS device (iPhone or iPad). If you don’t have an ongoing subscription from before this, you’re fine, don’t worry about it.
If you do, however, still have a subscription set up before December 2018, then you’re set to receive an email from Netflix indicating that you’ll need to update your payment information. It’s simple: just hop on your computer and update your payment information through your Netflix account.
As for why Netflix is doing this, it’s simple: Apple takes a 30 per cent commission on digital transactions through Apple Store in-app purchases. That’s a sizeable amount in the long run – about $US3 ($AU4.60) for every $US10 ($AU15.30) ‘basic’ plan through in-app purchases, which supposedly didn’t receive a price rise in line with other plans (I guess until now).
Apple App Store in-app purchases remain the only payment method available on iOS and in Apple TV in most territories (excluding the European Union, which has pressured the tech giant over this issue) and there are no alternative payment methods. You can’t just direct debit; it’s in-app purchases or bust.
No doubt that this will be an issue in Australia – Netflix changes seem to happen in limited markets and then eventually trickle down to us. Watch this space.
Image: Gizmodo Australia
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This article has been updated since it was originally published.