Apple’s treatment of Netflix highlights arbitrary App Store rules

The latest insider info brought to light by the Epic Games v. Apple trial is the lengths the Mac-maker went to convince Netflix to continue taking subscriptions in its iPhone/iPad app. But Netflix stopped anyway, and Apple took no action.

The court battle between Epic Games and Apple is over how the App Store is managed. And as part of the trial, the game developer got access to many internal Apple emails and is using them as evidence.

That includes ones from 2018 when Netflix was planning to stop taking subscriptions as in-app purchases. Apple didn’t want this to happen because it collects 30% of these fees the first year, then 15% thereafter.

Apple executives worked hard to convince the video streaming service to change its mind. They made a number of proposals, many of which related to Apple helping to advertise Netflix and its movies and TV shows.

In the end, these efforts were unsuccessful. The company stopped using Apple’s in-app purchase system and today the only way to subscribe to Netflix is on their website.

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