I like Steve's idea... EU wants to cut Apple then Apple start playing ads throughout the app install process to make up for lost revenue
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Apple to Be Fined Over $500 Million in EU Music Streaming Probe
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Well not the DMA itself, it’s the the founding treaty of EU that guide them and other related laws that are the metrics. EU works from the assumption that a free market with healthy competition that can compete on the metrics is good for the consumers irrespective of the cost goes up or down.
You can read the study Impact assessment support study.
You can read the executive summary (36 pages) or the annexes (515 pages)
As you can see from the TFEU above the goal of EU and the commission is in regards to competition and ensure the competitive capacity of undertakings.
The EU uses the threshold of dominance in Article 102 TFEU.
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Do you realise that is what enables Apple to help third party developers?
84 percent of the apps in the App Store pay nothing to Apple when you download or use the app. That’s not discrimination, as Spotify claims; it’s by design:
- Apps that are free to you aren’t charged by Apple.
- Apps that earn revenue exclusively through advertising — like some of your favorite free games — aren’t charged by Apple.
- App business transactions where users sign up or purchase digital goods outside the app aren’t charged by Apple.
- Apps that sell physical goods — including ride-hailing and food delivery services, to name a few — aren’t charged by Apple.
That’s not the only information Spotify left out about how their business works:
- The majority of customers use their free, ad-supported product, which makes no contribution to the App Store.
- A significant portion of Spotify’s customers come through partnerships with mobile carriers. This generates no App Store contribution, but requires Spotify to pay a similar distribution fee to retailers and carriers.
- Even now, only a tiny fraction of their subscriptions fall under Apple’s revenue-sharing model. Spotify is asking for that number to be zero.
So it's not Spotify that's bad - it's the music industry?
"our secure in-app purchase system"
👉 So are you working for Apple's App Store and/or their Services division/team?
Is that why you're so much advocating for Apple's right to charge what they want?
Did you receive that wording from Phil to repost and frame the discussions online?
...which is the only way they allow for in-app purchases.
As you pointed out basically yourself above, that is discriminatory.
Physical goods - no charge.
Ad-supported apps - no charge. (Why not? Don't the ad networks pay a share? If not, why not?)
So you do confirm that a very significant of Spotify's customers come through their third-party partnerships that they freely chose to forge - not from their Apple App Store listing that they were forced to have (to have a viable app to deliver their service)?
They're asking to resume offering in-app subscriptions on equal terms to Apple Music.
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Well these seems to be the anti competitive practices you can see on the left, and read on the documents. You can read the study in full here
You say it’s not anti competitive but the law says it is🤷♂️
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I like that too. 👍I like Steve's idea... EU wants to cut Apple then Apple start playing ads throughout the app install process to make up for lost revenue
👉 With those 5, 10 or 20 seconds of advertising (played for the duration it takes to install an app), Apple surely is fairly and sufficiently compensated for running their App Store and delivering that app to consumers.
Just play an ad and skip the rest of the junk fees.
No need to double-dip on charging outrageous additional commissions, or so-called "core technology fees".
After all, YouTube can do it too: Deliver their streaming service with ad revenue.
Restricting sideloading and alternative app stores is anticompetitive behavior as it stifles app access competition on major mobile (iOS) and tablet (iPadOS) platforms.
The issue is about Apple stifling app access competition by restricting sideloading and alternative app stores on major mobile (iOS) and tablet (iPadOS) platforms.
And every man and his dog installs ad skippers, tunes out and downloads around it. Ads are annoying and rarely lead to sales. It dangles a hope to ad buyers.
That’s the beauty of being a true gatekeeper (on an operating system level):
You can lock such ad-skipping software out and prevent it from running. You have total control.
That’s not stifling competition.
Every closed system does it.
Printers could only use certain inks. That’s why printers were cheap as. Subsidies
Claimed back over use time.
Side loading isn’t allowed on many things.
How many hate their tv experience and can change it? We have a government that wants to ensure free to air apps get first placement on smart screens and all streamers scream over how unfair it is.
Seems people like flexibility when it suits them.
You bought a phone knowing it was a locked environment. Get over it.
Buy the Android one if you want to fiddle.
It really is that simple. The choice is yours.
Okay, lets cut to the chase.
Do you agree that they get more money than Apple through their Music Service by charging more, having more active subscriptions, more advertising, getting special deals from platforms and giving less to artists?
The Music Industry takes a lot of money from the artists. It’s a part of the contract. Just like app developers make a contract with Apple, or Google or Amazon or Fetch or Roku or NVidea Shield TV. Spotify just use the music and refuse to pay what they are supposed to (based on the very numerous law suits against them) and why artists drop them in droves.
Are you working with Spotify?
Nah, I just borrowed it from their website. I left a link in an earlier post. Here 'tis.
Apple have always allowed app developers to put ads in their apps. They have been consistent here. Unlike Spotify who used Apple to gain a huge market share and then demand that those who signed up with Spotify when it was an in-app purchase (those very few people) will have their 15% reimbursed every month.
They could just email each of these people and tell them they are starving and need the extra 15% to eat, so could they please cancel and renew outside the app.
How about they do this, and put that 15% into an artists fund to be paid in addition to the crumbs they give artists already. Apple might listen then.
Are you not understanding this? Spotify get most of their subscriptions through Google, who they pay 4% in a secret, (although no longer secret) deal and through their own website. Spotify just know that by going through the App Store they will get a lot more subscriptions. They want to bypass a rule that Apple has had from the start. They have proven that they could not care less about other developers and the implication that this has because they are that greedy.
So no formal finding — like a court of law. Just some justification that meets an outcome. We’ll see.
So you admit you want to install ad skippers but keep the perks the ads pay for?
Just wish some of the pushers wanting open iOS would actually come out and say it. They want to install stuff for free. Games. ROMs. Pirated apps. There won’t be a flood of money to anyone running an alt store. It’s about making piracy easier.
And yet you can do all that on Android already.
If I wanted it so badly, I would just fork out for another phone to play with. They aren’t expensive anymore. I bought phones just to use as media players. Never made a call on them.
I would guess the rest of us just don’t want changes made to allow this because we see the possibility of bad actors leveraging the openness for nefarious activity.
The barebones changes Apple is being forced to make won’t make you happy. Still has fees to Apple, still needs digital signing. Not the free for all you wanted yet specifically meets the EU directive. Like a badly specified set of system requirements from a user who didn’t clearly know what they wanted and how the hardware works
Including Apple Music then, yes. A few extra fractions of a pence in the pound doesn’t make Apple the musician saviour people around here seem to think it does, I’m afraid.because the music industry have always been about making money for the industry (execs etc) not the artist.
the delivery method might have changed, the business model hasnt
No one likes ads, but what an outrageous claim 😂 this is the type of thing that certainly needs to be backed up with a couple of proofs if you have them.
That’s not why they stopped in app purchase it was because of Apple Music it’s to do with Apple Music being 9,99 & for Spotify it would have to be 12,99 with in app purchase because of the fees Spotify used in app purchase from the start it was only when Apple launched Apple Music things got ugly
So stop spreading miss truths
Please don’t call me a liar.
What you said is exactly what I said. The difference is you think Spotify should get access to the App Store for free. FREE!! Spotify could also have charged $9.99 but would have to take 15% (don’t exaggerate it’s not 30%) but some of that would have reduced their net amount. Thats exactly what the cost is for.
There is a cost in using the App Store, and Spotify would get all of the many benefits of that. They just wanted all the benefits for free. How scummy is that?
But Apple Music doesn’t play by the same rules & that’s the point.
Again there was no issue with in app purchases until Apple Music launched if as YOU say they want to use iOS for free then why did they use in app purchase in first place
At the end of the day this is about sweet money for Spotify to charge 9,99 on iOS it means they would lose money
The utter delusion that some Americans think Apple has some social power hold on people in the EU like it does in the US.
People will just buy a Galaxy or Pixel because they don't give a hoot about iMessage or "broke boi" marketing trash.
We use WhatsApp/telegram/Line etc and don't use a phone that everyone can buy on instalments to show how wealthy we are.
Then they can charge what they want.
Spotify are perfectly capable of taking payments from their own store and get the free ride as they continue to do now, for nothing in the App Store. But they want both. They want to take app payments through Apples Secure Payment system and not pay a dime for it.
We are obviously looking at this from different sides of the room. I think if people want to use a service, they should pay for it. You think they should get it for free.
Saying that, Spotify still charge more than Apple despite going through their own store, they have ad supported versions and get revenue for that. They under pay royalties and they have a much bigger market share. Spotify are not losing money compared to Apple. Despite all that, Apple raised their prices in 2022 and Spotify raised them higher again in 2023. They didn’t have to do that. Apple raised them to pay more royalties. Spotify raised them to 'give customers a better experience'. In fact they stopped giving royalties to artists with less than 1,000 streams….
So, you support Spotify's greedy, artists sucking business model. Got it.
Well the preliminary findings was done 1 year ago… Apple just need to defend themselves currently. And personally I don’t think Apple will be fined 500 milion (0.13%) more likely they will target closer to 10~20 billion(2~5% of max 10%) instead of 0.13%…
A "Statement of Objections" is a document that expresses the European Commission's interim view on possible violations of European competition law under investigation and is not a final decision. Recipients of this document are entitled to express their opinions, including, without limitation, objections
Not all collectively dominant conduct will violate Article 102 TFEU. As established and confirmed in several cases before EU courts and the commission, prima facie abusive conduct by dominant firms will be acceptable for one of three reasons:
- Objective Justification
- Efficiencies
- Abuse in relation to proprietary rights
Well… the DMA is law now so it’s anti competitive.
investigation was ongoing.
According to the Commission, Apple's practices that very likely is in breach of article 101 TFEU on discriminatory pricing in article 102 TFEU on abuses of dominance,
- A margin squeeze: A dominant undertaking may charge a price for the product on the upstream market which, compared to the price it charges on the downstream market does not allow even an equally efficient competitor to trade profitably in the downstream market on a lasting basis (a so-called 'margin squeeze"). In margin squeeze cases the benchmark which the Commission will generally rely on to determine the costs of an equally efficient competitor are the LRAIC of the downstream division of the integrated dominant undertaking. It has no equivalent under US antitrust law,
- Price discrimination: Undertakings with a dominant position are prohibited under EU competition law from applying "dissimilar conditions to equivalent transactions with other trading parties, thereby placing them at a competitive disadvantage."(Article 102 TFEU)
- Self-preferencing: involves actions by an undertaking which are designed to favour its own products or services over those of its competitors.
Just by going with official information I find it very hard for Apple to not fall within these three antitrust categories with their actions.
Facts: can get a pixel 8 for 1 euro with a contract. Same contract requires an initial payment of 400euro or more for an iPhone 15 pro.
I was talking about retail prices, not deals or free Galaxy buds or whatever other tactics companies use to put people on contracts. If you get a phone on a contract, you generally don’t own that phone until the contract is complete or you pay a penalty if you cancel the contract.