No, Apple's model is different. Apple does all the distribution, handling payments, handling sales tax, for free. If you have a free app (for example an airline that distributes an app for free that makes it easier for the customer), Apple doesn't charge you anything except for a $99 developer fee. Apple takes 30% when you make money from it. So companies like Spotify pay for everyone's bandwidth and so on.
It's one business section (the App Store) subsidising another (Apple Music) by not charging it the usual 30% cut, as Apple Music probably would be loosing money otherwise. But Apple could be charging Apple Music this 30% in their internal bookkeeping and simply operate Apple Music at a loss. To Spotify that wouldn't make any difference.
Which of the two, (a) or (b), do you consider to be unfair competition? Note that 'problem' (b) would exist even if there were no Apple Music.
No, it's more like the city charging sales tax on your electricity bill.
If the general costs and margins for a music streaming service are similar for Apple and Spotify, then Apple is earning more money if people signup to Spotify from within the app compared to them subscribing to Apple Music. The former gets them $3 (or $1.5) per user and year and the latter probably more like $0.5 per user and year. Of course, over a longer time frame, the percentage of Spotify users signing up via the app (and thus paying more) is bound to go down as the news that you can save money by subscribing via the web will spread over time. And music streaming might also get more profitable as the number of users grows (spreading the development overhead over a larger number of users, competitors dropping out, allowing an increase in prices).
Selling phones and creating deceptive ways to get people reliant on their proprietary garbage. What they are asking for is anti-competitive. I don't think Spotify has this problem with Android. I'm guessing here, but Android seems to manage just fine without this fee. Think about it... The percentages for Apple are arbitrary. How else would they be able to lower the rate from 30 to 15 without batting an eye. There is no competition or the ability to have competition on iOS. This prevents us from ever knowing what the real cost is to them.
5 computers and an iPhone. I see the ship going the wrong direction and am voicing my concern. If you read all of my posts you'd know this has nothing to do with Spotify and everything to do with forcing Apple to break into smaller companies or at least stop being anti-competitive.
Um, by selling a $650 phone?
I agree with all 4 of your points. I'd like to add a 5th that Spotify will likely succumb to Apple due to their non-competitive advantage. Further I'd be willing to guess you hope Spotify goes out of business. If this is the case, you are a fool. I also bet you think the iPod was a godsend to the music industry.
Regardless of credibility, I'm not wrong.
I never said the streaming did. The subscription is an in-app purchase so it's subject to the fee. That's how it works.
Absolutely not. Apple is advertising and informing. Any company will naturally highlight the positive aspects of their products when they describe them. Is this news to you? A smarter consumer will always look for alternative viewpoints (reviews and such) when shopping for big ticket items, to make an informed decision about what they are spending all that hard-earned money on.
It's hard to take anyone seriously who keeps using the word "sheeple".
Sure they are. They can advertise this information EVERYWHERE except in the app. If Apple were to allow this, then eventually all software would charge money only outside the App Store ecosystem, which would then become unsustainable.
