larrya

DanielEran said:

rufwork said:

[That 250 mil includes this and that...] and App Store continuing payments.

Oh, DED. Of course if you include every freaking HBO, Showtime, MLB, Overcast, NY Times... subscription, Apple has more than Amazon. 

But those aren’t Apple’s subscriptions. They get a cut, and that’s great for my AAPL, but let’s not compare Apple’s apples to Whole Foods’ oranges.

(◔_◔)

The comparison isn't a pissing match. The fact is that 100M paying subscribers is a significant accomplishment for Amazon, and it is similarly important to understand that Apple already has +250M paid subscriptions that it is making money on.

Amazon's Prime memberships are not pure profit. It's not selling a software license, it's providing a range of shipping/streaming services and other perks that cost money to deliver. Apple Music and iCloud both also involve expenses to serve. 

But what you take the most issue with is Apple's subscription cut from app and service partners, which is much closer to being pure profit for Apple. It goes directly into subsidizing the rest of Apple's Services business, infrastructure and merchandising in the App Store. And somehow you think that is less significant than a Prime membership? Please explain your logic! 

Also, Prime is a single fee commonly stretched across individuals, such as a household. An individual user may have several paid subscriptions in the App Store: Apple Music, iCloud, HBO, Netflix etc. In fact, if you're a subscriber of one you're more likely to be a subscriber to other Apple-sold services as well. And many family members either buy a shared family membership to Apple Music or have their own. So Apple's subscriptions are more valuable, stacked higher and cross-sell each other. And Apple is selling 2.5x as many, most of which probably return higher margins than the Prime fee.

Again, on what planet is it "better" that Amazon sells fewer Prime versus Apple's multiple subscriptions per person?