As I understand it, if you already have a subscription for Amazon Video through the web, then download the Amazon Video app and login to your existing account, Apple doesn't get anything.
Which is why the article emphasized Netflix trying to get customers to sign up through their web site, and not the app.
Correct. Apple gets a cut if a customer subscribes through the in-app one-click subscription, which is extremely convenient for any iPhone user (and thus app publishers) because it’s a single click rather than having to insert credit cards, 3D secure and whatnot. In this case the cut is 30% on the first year and 10% afterwards. If the user subscribes through the website, Apple gets nothing. I find this fair.
What is more unfair is that Apple forbids apps to open/link websites where subscriptions can be done to “workaround” the iTunes subscription. If you take Spotify for instance and login as free user, there are absolutely zero mentions that you can upgrade to premium, because they decided to lose those potential customers and rather let them know through other channels of their purchasing options (eg: emails).
On the other hand, this creates a very safe and simple environment for iPhone users. Absolutely NO app asks for a credit card, ever. You either pay one-click safely through iTunes, or nothing. There is no phishing, no mismanaged credit card handling, no credit cards “stolen by hackers from the app I installed into my iPhone”. I’m not saying this fully justifies the above unfair rule, but it’s at least a partial positive side effect.
I would also note that being able to painlessly cancel a subscription at any time is a big incentive for users to buy subscriptions through the iOS App Store.
Having recently jumped through the series of hoops necessary to cancel an NYTimes subscription, I am strongly biased towards App Store and Amazon-Prime-based subscriptions, even though they are arguably unfair to the providers.
What is more unfair is that Apple forbids apps to open/link websites where subscriptions can be done to “workaround” the iTunes subscription.
Slight anecdote, because of that policy, Amazon doesn't support links to Amazon from Kindle Books. Which is fine 99.999% of the time. Until you buy a book about AWS and you can't click on any of the links to documentation on Amazon's websites....
This is 100% what I'm saying. I think that it does fully justify the rule that people are saying is "unfair". I have yet to hear a good argument that doesn't amount to something totally incorrect like "Apple doesn't provide any value and is just a middleman" or just an opinion like "Apple shouldn't take part of the purchase just because they own the platform" because while it may be a valid opinion, it looks at the situation from only the perspective of the 2 companies in question (Apple and whoever) and not the end-user.
You are correct in that if I subscribe through Apple, that Apple gets a cut, and if I subscribe via the web they do not get a cut. This makes sense, since Apple is providing a subscription service. I don't have any problem with this model. It's convenient and I've used it in the past.
However, Apple also wants a cut if I were to purchase a movie through the Amazon Video app. Amazon has disallowed such purchases for this reason. Instead, I have to go back to the web, make the purchase, and then I can view it with the app.
Some may argue that this is a fair price for having your app hosted on the app store. However, since Apple prevents any other means of me getting apps on my phone, I find it unfair rent-seeking.
Worse, Apple very clearly wants subscriptions to work just like in-app purchases.
One can even download free samples of the books which makes it very convenient to pay on kindle or the website later. But it is sad that Apple decided that apps cannot even mention that purchase has to be done at the website.
You can wishlist and download samples from the app on iOS, but any purchases have to be done from the website. On android, you can buy/download full books directly from the app.
Which is why the article emphasized Netflix trying to get customers to sign up through their web site, and not the app.