John Siracusa

Apple does not want you to be able to buy Kindle books without giving Apple 30%. But unfortunately, there's not 30% to give Apple in the book business. And so they were at a standoff. For customers, it would be better if you could launch the Kindle app on your phone and buy a book. And you didn't have to know that you had to go to a web page and do it, blah, blah, blah.

Apple does not want you to be able to buy Kindle books without giving Apple 30%. But unfortunately, there's not 30% to give Apple in the book business. And so they were at a standoff. For customers, it would be better if you could launch the Kindle app on your phone and buy a book. And you didn't have to know that you had to go to a web page and do it, blah, blah, blah.

It would be better for consumers. I think even Apple would agree this would be better for consumers. But financially and strategically, Apple demands money that Amazon cannot give them and will not give them. And so the reality is that for customers, the experience of reading e-books on their phone through the Kindle app is worse.

It would be better for consumers. I think even Apple would agree this would be better for consumers. But financially and strategically, Apple demands money that Amazon cannot give them and will not give them. And so the reality is that for customers, the experience of reading e-books on their phone through the Kindle app is worse.

And in that case, it's much more cut and dry where it's like, this is just a money thing. Apple wants 30%. 30% is not available. They're at a standoff and consumers get hurt. For the Netflix thing, I think it's a little bit different because you've got Apple who has an app called the Apple TV app on the Apple TV puck where you can watch Apple TV+.

And in that case, it's much more cut and dry where it's like, this is just a money thing. Apple wants 30%. 30% is not available. They're at a standoff and consumers get hurt. For the Netflix thing, I think it's a little bit different because you've got Apple who has an app called the Apple TV app on the Apple TV puck where you can watch Apple TV+.

Anyway, they have an app that tries to unify your viewing experience. Go here. Here's all your stuff. You can connect it to all your other services, unified, continue watching, watch next list or whatever. In theory, this is a unified interface to all of the streaming services that you might want to watch.

Anyway, they have an app that tries to unify your viewing experience. Go here. Here's all your stuff. You can connect it to all your other services, unified, continue watching, watch next list or whatever. In theory, this is a unified interface to all of the streaming services that you might want to watch.

And if you have this app on your phone or on your television or on your Apple TV puck, this can unify your experience. But Netflix, because they're the biggest, most important, most popular, whatever, like said, we're not going to participate in that because we think we should be the top level destination.

And if you have this app on your phone or on your television or on your Apple TV puck, this can unify your experience. But Netflix, because they're the biggest, most important, most popular, whatever, like said, we're not going to participate in that because we think we should be the top level destination.

And it looks a lot like the Kindle scenario where you're like, wouldn't it be better for consumers? if Netflix, the lone holdout, didn't think they were too big to be involved in this and just let themselves be subsumed into the Apple thing.

And it looks a lot like the Kindle scenario where you're like, wouldn't it be better for consumers? if Netflix, the lone holdout, didn't think they were too big to be involved in this and just let themselves be subsumed into the Apple thing.

But I think the situation is slightly different than the Kindle app being able to buy books in the Kindle app because what Apple is doing here is not as straightforwardly consumer-benefiting as being able to buy books in the Kindle app. That just benefits consumers.

But I think the situation is slightly different than the Kindle app being able to buy books in the Kindle app because what Apple is doing here is not as straightforwardly consumer-benefiting as being able to buy books in the Kindle app. That just benefits consumers.

It's something you should be able to do technically, and there's not really a lot of downside to it because it just makes it more inconvenient to do something. You just have to go to a web page to do it, right?

It's something you should be able to do technically, and there's not really a lot of downside to it because it just makes it more inconvenient to do something. You just have to go to a web page to do it, right?

But allowing Apple, one of the reasons Netflix doesn't do this is allowing Apple to be sort of the top level of the funnel, the interface to watching television, surrenders a bunch of control that Netflix thinks, and is probably right, that it has now. A lot of people, when they want to watch something, they go to the Netflix app first.

But allowing Apple, one of the reasons Netflix doesn't do this is allowing Apple to be sort of the top level of the funnel, the interface to watching television, surrenders a bunch of control that Netflix thinks, and is probably right, that it has now. A lot of people, when they want to watch something, they go to the Netflix app first.

And maybe it's the only streaming service they subscribe to, but there's a lot of stuff in Netflix. Giving that up and saying, oh, they won't come to us first. We'll just be another alphabet soup of connected services.

And maybe it's the only streaming service they subscribe to, but there's a lot of stuff in Netflix. Giving that up and saying, oh, they won't come to us first. We'll just be another alphabet soup of connected services.