1y ago

Netflix confirms it’s cutting off Apple billing for grandfathered subscribers

www.theverge.com

Netflix confirms it’s cutting off Apple billing for grandfathered subscribers::Netflix legacy subscribers who’ve been paying through Apple’s payments system will now have to switch to paying Netflix directly.

37 comments

Yeah. This one is a no brainer. Apple charges a ridiculous fee for transactions. No merchant should accept it.
- I find Apple's subscription management to be a huge boon. It's all right there in my settings and I can cancel subscription with a single click instead of jumping through the actual service's hoops designed to make me give up
  
  Yeh I wonder if this is more the reason. It’s too easy for people to unsubscribe. I much prefer doing any subs through Apple for this reason.
- Netflix charges a ridiculous amount. Honestly don't care if Apple gets a cut of that cake.
  
  Apple taking 30% of some subscriptions makes Netflix even more expensive for everyone.
  
  You don't, but they do. It's a no brainer for them, which the parent comment expressed quite clearly
I took a long hard look the other day and realized there's nothing I can't live without on Netflix. I'm thinking about cancelling. I tend to watch Crave and Disney Plus and rarely even open Netflix.
- Take a look at Plex or Jellyfin and self hosting!
  
  Learn a little today, save a lot tomorrow, preserve media for a lifetime.
  
  Plex is cool, I do use that. What is self hosting? I don't know about it.
- We cancelled all our streaming services this month except Disney+ which is credited back on our credit card each month.
  We had Netflix, Prime, and Crunchyroll that we cancelled. We don't really watch anything on Prime. On Netflix we just watched reruns for background noise while doing other things around the house. And Crunchyroll removed Funimation's digital library after acquisition so I canceled them on principle even though that was easily the most used service.
- I have been checking the thrift stores for DVDs and blu rays lately with a plan to drop one or more streaming services. I'm afraid to tally up how much we pay a month for all that crap.
  
  Netflix alone can cost upwards of $300 a year. Add in Hulu, Prime, HBO, Disney+, etc. and you’re easily dropping over $1k a year on streaming services.
  
  Disney to me is worth it and so is crave. Prime isn't worth wiping your butt with IMO.
Nobody wants to play together anymore.
- "but muh profits!"
- I can't believe how unreliable it is to try to pay with your phone at brick and mortar vendors these days. I really had higher hopes for the technology to catch on, but the politics, fees, greed behind it are screwing it all up
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Netflix confirms to The Verge that it has begun booting longtime subscribers off their Apple iTunes billing plans, and will require them to pay Netflix directly using a credit card or debit card instead.
Earlier today, The Streamable reported that Netflix had begun telling customers in “some territories,” but Netflix representative Momo Zhao confirms to us that all “members on the basic plan who were using an iTunes method of payment” will need to sign up directly.
It’s been a good run for anyone who signed up before Netflix stopped accepting subscriptions through Apple’s payments system.
Alas, if you’re like that person, you’ll now have to join the rest of us and either accept a more-than-$5 price hike for essentially the same plan you’ve had for years or pay $3 less than you have been and let the ads wash over you.
The change is the end of a long saga — despite Apple adding in-app subscription options to iPhones in 2010, Netflix didn’t add them to its iOS app until 2015 because it was opposed to Apple’s 30 percent cut.
In late 2018, Netflix decided it didn’t want to pay Apple at all, dropping in-app subscriptions entirely, and it never looked back.
The original article contains 242 words, the summary contains 203 words. Saved 16%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
My MIL is going to be annoyed about this lol.

37 comments