Apple's 2008 App Store commission split subscription apps in half. Netflix couldn't afford 30% on every subscriber. Neither could Spotify or Amazon Prime. The math didn't work.
So they built around it. Mobile apps for content consumption. Web portals for payment processing. Two separate systems because one business decision made unified architecture too expensive.
Netflix paid an estimated $256 million in Apple Tax during 2018 alone before pulling in-app payments entirely. That dual infrastructure pattern stuck. Regulatory changes came later, but the architecture stayed. When you build a subscription app today, you're still navigating the split that a 2008 commission rate created. The workaround became the standard.