Steve has been dead for almost 13 years now. It's time to move on and stop worrying about what Steve would or wouldn't do.
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Apple Allows Spotify to Show Pricing Info to EU Users in iPhone App
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Steve has been dead for almost 13 years now. It's time to move on and stop worrying about what Steve would or wouldn't do.
Apple doesn't currently get 30% of every subscription I use on my iPhone, MacBook Pro, iPad, and/or AppleTV. I have Amazon Prime, Netflix, Disney+, Peacock (temp for the olympics), etc.... Apple gets no portion of those subscription services so far as I know.
Now, if I purchased those subscriptions through a "Samsung Store"/"Sony Store" or Amazon/Walmart/Target/Publix, whatever then some percentage or possibly a flat fee would be be appropriate for the "store" to get. I have no problem with this, the world has a rich history of paying facilitators and middle men. I'm happy to do it when they provide value and I accept doing it when they don't add value.
I'll concede that 0/15/30 may not be the correct values. But the entire "App" industry is relatively new and like any new market it takes time for equilibrium to develop and for business models to adjust. It is possible that 0/15/30 made since at the emergence of the market and now maybe it doesn't. That is something that should be worked out between developers, companies, and customers, not legislators (IMO). I think it is safe to say that the least qualified person to provide a meaningful solution to any of these questions is a politician.
Correlation does not imply causation. Maybe Spotify would have grown even faster without the anti-steering rules? The only thing we can objectively say, is that Apple has abused its dominant position in a duopoly between iOS and Android.
Spotify challenging Apple's anti-steering provision is crying? 🤣
They felt it was unfair and they asked the EU to look into it. The EU agreed and found it to be unfair.
The same thing happened in the U.S. Epic Games felt the anti-steering provision was unfair and challenged Apple in court. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled that it was unfair, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with her, and the U.S. Supreme Court agreed as well when they declined to hear appeals of their rulings.
Aren't we taught to challenge things if we see them as unfair?
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Well my TV has a TV brand store with some paid apps, screensavers and games. Yet Netflix, Prime, Apple TV all show links or QR codes to sign up through the build in OS browser or direct my to the corresponding website. The only outlier here is Apple who goes out of their way about showing a link.
But I am sure this is step one. They are going to have to change policies step by step eventually while losing gazillions in lawyer money and then pay billions of fines on top of that.
Saying "maybe this would have happened" is 100% conjecture. I'm referring to what actually happened without the DMA being in place, i.e., Spotify had the best growth curve in the industry while Apple Music had a very similar growth curve to a variety of other competitors in the market. You can't show harm with conjecture.
Great point. I’ve always considered part of the legal argument to be trying to force Apple to allow the advertisement within the App Store itself. However, if the advertisement is contained within the app, that’s a bit different. It’s worth noting that it would be considered rude to open a magazine in a grocery store, pull out the ad insert, and leave without buying the magazine. I say this all the time, and I’m talking to myself as much as anyone else here. Most things are never as straightforward as we initially perceive them to be.
The right to intellectual property is not absolute, for good reasons. Why would we as a society accept a situation, where IP stifles all competition and therefore innovation. That would be the worst outcome for consumers I could think of.
There are many cases where courts sided with consumers and not IP holders. One example is the resale of software licenses. The Google vs. Oracle case is another.
And you can't prove with that chart, that Spotify was not harmed. That's all I'm saying.
Who cares? That's not relevant to any discussion outside of being a shareholder.
This goes back to my US related comment, the rules for what a company can and can’t do are a lot different if that company is declared to have monopolistic power.
Again, I have no issue with Spotify challenging Apple's anti-steering provision. I think the anti-steering provision is bad and I am glad it is going away (even if I think the law that does so, is, on the whole, a bad one).
What I have a problem with is Spotify wanting to use Apple's intellectual property without following Apple's rules for compensation. Right now, to be clear, they are not doing that.
But, if the EU says that Spotify gets to link out to its app, and doesn't have to pay the CTF (or any similar compensation) for Spotify's use of Apple's Intellectual property, then I have an issue. But again, as I said, the EU doesn't care what I think, and clearly thinks stealing Apple's intellectual property is the lesser of two evils, so it doesn't actually matter what any of us think, (well, unless one of you happens to be an EU Commissioner).
Respectfully disagree. The graph is often used to show that Spotify has not been hindered by Apple’s policies, but that chart shows growth in number of users. This would include thier free tier. You can grow users all day long and still do extremely poorly financially. Growth of paid user, or even better, growth in actual currency would be much more meaningful.
Yep. Rightly so. Amazon will surely soon be in the firing line...
This isn't a discussion of Spotify's financials, it's a discussion about the fairness of Apple's App Store rules.
That can be a discussion that is had without taking into account how app makers fare under it. I think the rules are unfarir, regardless of the outcome.
Here you go...they make more $$ from premium but ad supported has more total users. Chart is labeled incorrectly though. Should be "billions" and not "millions".
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Can’t wait to see how the Court rules on what Google will have to do, and if it somehow doesn’t get killed on appeal.
A shareholders are hangers-on, might get something that's thrown their way...They had handed over their rights to the few who actually wields the bat. 😏
I don't think much of anything will get killed on appeal. The government is pretty anti-tech company at the moment, from top to bottom, left and right, and for good reason. They need to be knocked down a peg, across the board.
And a discussion of Spotify’s financials and growth is often used to talk about whether or not Apple’s policies (unfair or not) have caused any direct harm to spotify. It most certainly is not the only thing to consider, but it is important and relevant to this discussion, all feelings aside.
I think you are right. And I am glad an attempt is being made by the DOJ to hold companies accountable by using the tools at their disposal. It would be significantly better if the US Government could actually pass new legislation instead of bringing lawsuits based on laws that over 100 years old.
The chart proves that Spotify's growth was uninterrupted by anything Apple was doing with the App Store rules or with the launch of Apple Music.