Not only that, but I remember in the late '90s when malls were scared to death of the internet and what it meant for online shopping, and by extension brick and mortar stores. There were strict rules for merchants about not advertising their online stores in the malls. Gap was not allowed to use bags that had gap.com on them, for instance. That lasted about a week it seems (probably about two years, really). This feels about like the same thing. Apple shouldn't restrict their merchants from emailing customers about their online deals OUTSIDE of the App Store.
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Apple Says Spotify Only Pays 15% Fee on About 0.5% of Subscribers in Response to App Store Complaint
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Not only that, but I remember in the late '90s when malls were scared to death of the internet and what it meant for online shopping, and by extension brick and mortar stores. There were strict rules for merchants about not advertising their online stores in the malls. Gap was not allowed to use bags that had gap.com on them, for instance. That lasted about a week it seems (probably about two years, really). This feels about like the same thing. Apple shouldn't restrict their merchants from emailing customers about their online deals OUTSIDE of the App Store.
It's because Spotify removed the ability to subscribe in the app more than a year ago.
Your first post is a good point-- Spotify must have lost some potential customers because they couldn't sign up using the iOS app. Spotify should remedy this by enabling a customer to sign up from within their iOS app.
On Apple's response, exactly what did they lie about? And why would they lie to the government about something so easily verified?
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I wish it was that simple. We simply don't have anything prior to judge upon. So there is really no right or wrong in this case. A lot of people argue it like Supermarket and Walmart. Where they have their own labels, which can undercut big brand because they have no restocking fees etc. But this argument works because you have many Supermarket to choose from, and you can buy ketchup from everywhere. In technology you only have two players, Apple and Google.
Does that mean Apple should not be charging 15%, again people using the Walmart example, they will have their own cost, Staff, and also Rent, which is big part of Supermarket operational expenses. Except in Apple's case Apple is also "the" landlord.
Apple definitely provides value on top of just distribution, their security, safe guards, curation, and Credit Card Processing fees. But the argument would be, is 15% too much? ( Personally I don't think this would sit well with EU when Apple is making a Net 20% Profit Margin, to copy Apple's word, this would be like Double Dipping )
We are back to the FRAND case to Qualcomm. Qualcomm has the BEST technology along with most of the patents. And they charge a premium for it. And Apple started arguing $7.5 ( initial figure ) per iPhone is too much. When is it too much ? And who decides it? And that is why they end up in court.
Couldn’t care less, Apple fully deserves to be dragged through the EU competition commission and fined heavily!
I don’t trust a word Apples dodgy lawyers claim either! Hell according to them Apple invented round corners and the colours black and white! Take every single thing Apples legal team says with one gigantic pinch of salt....
It's always funny seeing these comments on threads like this, and just how far people bend over for Apple.
That 100% needs to be the deciding factor on whether companies owe 15% on iAP - is Apple actually providing anything beyond hosting the app on the App Store? If not, then this is just money grabbing, just like they do with us as consumers each year as the Apple product prices spiral out of control.
Ummmm because Apple forces Spotify to give Apple a cut even though all the media serving heavy lifting is done by Spotify servers? It doesn't matter how many people subscribe through iAP - the entire premise that Spotify owes Apple anything even though, to Apple, Spotify constitutes nothing more than a free app from a serving heavy lifting perspective.
Except Spotify is effectively free. It's free to operate for Apple, premium or not. Apple isn't doing any of the media serving for Spotify.
That 100% needs to be the deciding factor on whether companies owe 15% on iAP - is Apple actually providing anything beyond hosting the app on the App Store? If not, then this is just money grabbing, just like they do with us as consumers each year as the Apple product prices spiral out of control.
Sorry, you are 100% wrong. Nothing Apple said is a lie.
On the other hand, Spotify has made several lies over the years regarding Apple and The App Store. I think you have your liars backwards.
In other words, Spotify cannot compete in the App Store judging by the low numbers. Not good for Apple, especially when Apple their own app can be 30% cheaper than competitors like Spotify!
Does Kroger need to pay their competitors when the put Kroger branded products on the shelves?
Not as funny as seeing people take the side of whoever is against Apple, regardless of the merits of the case.
Apple doesn't force Spotify to give them a cut. Spotify (and others like Netflix) aren't required to use IAP to sign up customers. They only have to pay a cut IF they use IAP. They are 100% free to sign up customers exclusively through their own website. They have a CHOICE and are 100% in control of that choice.
You think that Apple would lie to the government about something that can be easily verified?
With all those exclamation points I can see you're really worked up about this.
A billion? 900 million? And of that only 680K signed up for Spotify via the App Store? Of course not all iOS users are the potential market for Spotify.
Wrong. What those low numbers show is that Spotify has been very successful in getting practically all of their subscribers to sign up directly at their website.
How can Apple be 30% cheaper when Spotify subscribers ARE NOT paying through the App and 100% of their fee goes directly to Spotify?
Sure but everybody knows even a little bit of friction added to the process could result in a potential customer not signing up. Also, Spotify and Netflix sign up using their own payment processing in the app if it was allowed.
Apple will win. Hopefully that fact doesn't give you an aneurysm, as you seem pretty wound up about this.
Is Spotify arguing that it’s losing customers because they can’t sign up via the app?
Except, running and maintaining a platform costs billions of dollars every year: App store editorial, app store reviews, server costs of delivering apps, Xcode, API development and maintenance, CloudKit, iCloud drive, push notifications, research and development, MapKit, macOS notary services, app store analytics, in app purchase servers, TestFlight services, etc...
Sure, Spotify doesn’t use every single one of those features, but Apple makes these services available to all developers to use. That’s not free.
If it was so easy to run a platform, Spotify can go fork Android.
Spotify doesn't run a app store, so how does this new info from apple invalidate the monopoly and anti competitive complaints? Apple still gets to use iOS notifications to show apple music ads.
Apple has over 1.4b active iOS devices (https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/29/18202736/apple-devices-ios-earnings-q1-2019), with over 80% on their latest operating system (https://www.cultofmac.com/608798/ios-12-adoption-80-percent/), and the App Store sees over 500m visitors every week (https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-app-store-statistics-2017-2018-1).
Because the fee issue was only one issue in the complaint out of many.
Apple has overhead to provide a seamless experience just like any other company and they need to recoup it as well as make some profit. Charging fees directly at the app level makes the most sense. If that policy were banned, they would have to bake that cost it into the price of each phone, and I for one do not want that additional overhead when I don't even use Spotify (or many other of these apps).
Because you have to provide proof of harm for any monopoly/antitrust case. Spotify can't prove any harm because they have practically all of their users paying subscription fees to them directly.
Walmart and other retailers promote their own brands along side others they sell. There's is absolutely nothing illegal about that.