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Apple to Be Fined Over $500 Million in EU Music Streaming Probe
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Gonna go against the grain here and say that Apple could have avoided some of this by being less obstinate. Apple is seriously reminding me of the worst days of Microsoft. They feel like they have the upper hand and they are playing it hard.
There’s protecting their business model and walled garden, and there’s straight up anticompetitive abuse. Apple has been leaning too far into the latter.
There’s protecting their business model and walled garden, and there’s straight up anticompetitive abuse. Apple has been leaning too far into the latter.
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Imagine hating Apple but frequenting Mac Rumors. LOL
Wow. What a well thought out and cogent argument. A stellar mind at work. Congrats.
The EU are right to hit Apple with a fine. It is extremely anti-competitive behavior that as a condition of being allowed to put an app in the app store developers are not allowed to inform users via their app that cheaper options exist elsewhere. It is utterly absurd if a music streaming app was to have a sale on, the only way they can inform users of the app is via email due to app store T&C's preventing developers from putting notices of such in their app.
Apple fan's will come out in force to defend Apple but Apple are wrong in this case, so so wrong.
Apple fan's will come out in force to defend Apple but Apple are wrong in this case, so so wrong.
Nice fiery rhetoric. You do realize that Apple has 13.7% of the streaming marketshare compared to Spotify's 30.5? So, who has the advantage?
And miss out on the very convenient routing of revenues through Ireland and Luxembourg to avoid paying full taxes? Not happening any time soon.It's death by 1000 cuts.
Adding everything together, is Apple really making any money in the EU ?
I used to scoff at post asking Apple to leave but now I think it's just a matter of time.
(of course Apple isn't the only one doing this, I'm aware)
As it goes in the EU and everywhere else, Apple just needs to spend more $ on lobbying, it works wonders unfortunately. This said, paying $500m is possibly the cheaper way out of this, otherwise we're talking dozens of billions.
'...don't honestly care about consumers..'. That is a really profound claim to make.
What argument would you use to back it up?
And Im sure with all of their additional revenue Spotify will pay the artists who they initially stole from more.
So, email is the only option that Spotify has to reach its customers? And what of traditional forms of marketing? Spotify is incapable of doing that?
Every single form of marketing is available to Spotify, minus 1.
Apple provides a platform for Spotify. Does Spotify provide a platform for Apple music? So Apple can't go onto to Spotify.com to advertise their business? Or does this only go one way?
You can compare almost ANY prices you want in EU vs US. Especially apple hardware. What will you find?
If you're defending a capitalist corporation that put in place blockades stopping customers saving money and it quite happy for you to pay them for perpetual rental of things you should be wanting to own then, well....
I can't see the graph, but this statement does not say the EU is their second-largest market. "Europe and Greater China are two other major markets for Apple."
Every government has lobbyists, which directly lead to corruption. We know this and it’s the way lobbyists are benefiting. That’s the entire point of lobbying. Now you multiply that by 27 governments.
The EU is not immune to this and there are plenty of examples available.
I’m not denying they do some good things and business is the biggest benefit. But businesses benefit from their actions. Now take a non EU business and try to get other businesses to benefit from it and you get this.
Aren’t Spotify Swedish? What a surprise.
Are you talking about Spotify? Because so far as I'm aware, Spotify has never advertised any one's services but their own. Are you suggesting that Spotify should tell their customers if another streaming service has lower prices?
EU funding all their “free” services by extorting billions from American technology companies.
2 years. 2 more years till Spotify’s 1 billion dollar debt becomes due. I am very interested to see how they settle it then.
Let's see what happens with the share holders when Apple dumps 25% of its annual turnover. Something tells me the board won't survive and that 3 trillion dollar market value will plummet.
This is a good decision by the EU in this case.
Apple has been a predator of successful third-party app businesses. They see what's hot and then come up with their own service or buyout an existing one, they make it come preinstalled, free for x amount of days period.
Apple Music should not come preinstalled, nor it should be advertised on the appstore headers. Just then it's the level playing field. No fines can change that and make it right.
Apple Music should not come preinstalled, nor it should be advertised on the appstore headers. Just then it's the level playing field. No fines can change that and make it right.
So, for $99/year, Spotify is given a platform to host their app, and provide millions of downloads of their app into a very lucrative marketplace with qualified buyers. That's essentially free to Spotify. It certainly costs Apple quite a bit more to build, maintain and host the marketplace than Spotify is paying to Apple.
Spotify, in large part likely due to this free platform that Apple provides, has managed to gain 30.5% of the streaming music business, nearly tripling Apple's marketshare of 13.7%.
EU citizens, who seem incapable of managing the overly burdensome task of managing their Spotify subscription in a web browser (also available on the iPhone), are crying that this arrangement is somehow unfair to Spotify. Which boggles the mind—Apple is giving a lucrative platform to Spotify for free. And Spotify is crying about it.
Spotify, in large part likely due to this free platform that Apple provides, has managed to gain 30.5% of the streaming music business, nearly tripling Apple's marketshare of 13.7%.
EU citizens, who seem incapable of managing the overly burdensome task of managing their Spotify subscription in a web browser (also available on the iPhone), are crying that this arrangement is somehow unfair to Spotify. Which boggles the mind—Apple is giving a lucrative platform to Spotify for free. And Spotify is crying about it.
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Apple didn't stop them just didn't let them do it directly on an app Apple hosted for free and which Spotify could sign up users outside of Apple and Apple not get a cent, essentially free riding on the App Store. The of course, Spotify pitched a fit and charged more on the App Store to show how "unfair Apple was that they could not get subscribers for free."
Once the whole alternative App Store market settles down, I think Apple would have a stronger case for simply charging, like they propose with the CTF, for access to the store for subscription app downloads vs a cut of subscriptions, since companies can chose to go to an alternative App Store and bypass Apple's. You would now have competition in the EU and thus Apple would be freer to respond to it.
I wonder how Epic would respond if their App Store got big enough to be a gatekeeper and all of a sudden has to play by new rules? Or Spotify if their user base got big enough?
Which pitted Ireland's interests against the rest of the EU. The EU is not the monolith of similarly thinking countries any more than the US and its states.
I would not be surprised if it spent years in court over the fine.