While The Daily was first it certainly won't be last, not with Apple announcing their new subscription service is now available to all publishers.
“Our philosophy is simple—when Apple brings a new subscriber to the app, Apple earns a 30 percent share; when the publisher brings an existing or new subscriber to the app, the publisher keeps 100 percent and Apple earns nothing,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “All we require is that, if a publisher is making a subscription offer outside of the app, the same (or better) offer be made inside the app, so that customers can easily subscribe with one-click right in the app. We believe that this innovative subscription service will provide publishers with a brand new opportunity to expand digital access to their content onto the iPad, iPod touch and iPhone, delighting both new and existing subscribers.”
This obviously raises a lot of questions. Will Netflix have to -- and can they afford to -- give Apple 30% of the subscriber revenue? Sure existing subscribers are exempt but if someone downloaded the Netflix app, Apple no longer allows external linking to websites for subscriptions so would Netflix have to offer the same $8 streaming package in-app and split the revenue with Apple? Or is this service meant to be magazine/newspaper specific and not carry over to
Will Apple push this same philosophy to all in-app purchases? They might, given it sounds like that's what caused Sony -- and could cause everyone from Amazon to Hulu -- some consternation. In-app purchases will be lower friction (since outside linking is no longer allowed) for users and with Apple requiring the same or better offers in-app, high-volume goods like eBooks could see their entire profit margin get shifted to Apple. (i.e. Amazon makes 30% on eBooks, Apple wants 30% on in-app purchases. That's not tenable.)
Full press release with all the details after the break, and let us know what you think in comments!
[Apple PR]
