Also true. I edited the post to say that it's a mutually beneficial relationship.
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EU Plans to Let Spotify Direct Users to Other Payment Options on iPhone
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It is. Because more can actually come to the parties and not let ourselves be sold out and ruled by corporations.
No... because you can pay with Visa, AmEx, Mastercard, etc. in the App Store. The system that reports the charge to those payment networks is Apple's. They want to circumvent that system so they pay less to Apple. Apple keeps track on what money is theirs and the developer's tight so they can maintain their projected product development, growth and profitability thanks to their successful products. Third parties lobbying capitalist governments to not respect private intellectual property and the revenue those IPs produce is worrisome.
In my view there is an real conflict and unfairness when a company owns the platform and also competes on that platform, and where there is a no real competitive or alternative platform. Simply allowing alternative app stores would fix the problem, but I don't think it's the most optimal fix to the problem.
Apple owns the App Store, but it also competed against other sellers on the platform (Music, TV, etc.). And, as I explained above, since almost all smartphones are designed such that it's impossible to cross-shop on other platforms, there is no true competition.
Amazon owns the Amazon marketplace, but also competes on against sellers in the marketplace (Amazon Basics and other in-house brands). And there is pretty much no competition. Sure Walmart has a third-party platform, and technically ebay is another selling platform, but both of those in terms of third-party retail platform are tiny compared to Amazon.
Google does this with Android smartphones and the Play Store same as Apple. But Google also does this with advertising - they own the advertising platform, and it competes against it's own customers in a ton of areas.
All of this, to me, should be illegal. In my view, there should be a blanket rule that a single entity cannot both own/control a platform and compete on that same platform. You have to pick one or the other, but you cannot do both.
Technically Spotify is a company which main purpose is to earn money off others work.
All the stories of a billion streams giving $ 5 and 60 cents makes me wonder why people are in such a rush to defend them. I get Apple - they host their app and direct a TON of traffic their way - why should they do that free?
It sure is. Apple's App Store infrastructure is paid for by App Store revenue. Why would any app use in-app purchase when it's literally just one extra click to bypass 30% fee?
nope. apple wants Spotify to sell their own membership outside the App Store and not freeload off of apple's infrastructure to sell memberships.
if apple got a customer to download Spotify app before customer purchased a Spotify membership, they deserve a finders fee.
it's Spotify's job to sign up the user before the user discovered Spotify on the App Store. otherwise apple played a role in acquiring the user for Spotify.
Amazon sells Amazon basics on their store that competes with plenty of products.
So does Target on their own store.
So does CVS/Walgreens/Walmart/etc...
Do you think Anker can list their products and advertise "hey, you want this product for 30% less? go to Anker.com and buy it directly" on Amazon's store?
So, you just should invent stuff so others can make money out of your invention/special skills, and you get to make as little as possible. Great system.
These companies are competing producing one-stop solution products, or ecosystems. The ones that have the weakest products are the ones complaining that they want more of what the bigger ecosystems are producing. Why not improve your revenue schemes, your product, your general view on assets/development management? Why demand that more successful companies (that your product depends on) give you their money? Wasn't your fault from the beginning to make the choice to depend on other's assets?
developer's license is $99/year.
Spotify has hundreds of millions of downloads per month. $99 barely pays for a small percentage of bandwidth by Apple.
What you just described above is Communism! You cannot do this because of... You can do this because of... Who makes the rules for that and based on what arbitrary logic and authority? Governments do a horrible jobs of making these types of decisions in a functional economy! Supposed you are a car company and you want to make tires for the cars you produce! Are you allowed to do that? The absurdity can go on and on to infinitum! Ultimately History has shown that it will collapse in on itself! And usually it will destroy itself based on supposedly upholding good virtues! All we have to do is sit back and watch!
The EU is not a county and all the parties have a different social support system. You might as well compare the EU homelessness to NAFTA homelessness, which would be 21 per 10,000.
In addition, this has zero anything to do whatsoever with what we are talking about.
Spotify already pays the enterprise fee. Does Spotify's music library run on Apple's servers or infrastructure?
By this argument, brick and mortar stores would be required to tell you that another store has the same product for less.
More than likely Spotify wouldn’t exist without the App Store, maybe a little presumptive there, but by now I think most people who use Spotify regularly knows about the website payment option. Especially if during the sign up process they send an email saying “pay via our website for cheaper access!”
Indeed. There are many 3rd party apps I consider essential, an iPhone without them is useless. Apple isn't satisfied getting these critical "components" for free, they are charging the suppliers. I wonder what would happen if the big app developers formed a union and demanded a share of each iPhone sale, or else they boycott the iPhone. I do think it is justified, but I doubt this would happen.
The $3trillion maybe something to do with charging $1000 for something that costs $250 to make, not to mention by holding the profits offshore, they're avoiding paying the tax they should be.
Where in the article does it say Spotify wants to be able to sell their subscriptions for free via their App?
Developers aren't trying to use the App store free of cost, their complaint is they're the ones spending their time and money making Apps and then Apple takes 30% for either the cost of the App or/and anything sold within the App.
The fact is that the EU will force Apple to play by the same rules other brands are playing by. Whether Apple wants to apply that outside of the EU is upto them but I'd imagine if the App store was opened up solely in Europe, other nations would bring in their own legislation.
Apple can of course side with your point of view and take the 10% annual sales fine.
Who would be buying iPhones without all the apps?
It would have been fine if Apple didn’t offer a rival music app which had a huge competitive advantage. But alas Apple played the greed game, as did a Microsoft in its long history.
You’re confusing products and services which are not the same thing. Services are always intangible. The only services that Amazon list are the prepaid gift card type. Apple could offer prepaid Spotify services with an included 30% commission, and leave Spotify alone to handle its own service subscription payments. Or Apple could ask every subscription based app to charge an initial fee for the app, of which Apple would make their commission from the sale.
The problem is, Apple force themselves into every paid subscription service offered on their platforms. They are profiteering from services provided by others, rather than properly selling their own services to the developers.
Once again: less than 1% of Spotify subscribers on iOS pay via the App Store.
So it's a moot point regardless of what the EU does. Spotify has always been lying about the "competition" part. They successfully moved the vast majority of their customer payments to the web a looooooong time ago.
So it's a moot point regardless of what the EU does. Spotify has always been lying about the "competition" part. They successfully moved the vast majority of their customer payments to the web a looooooong time ago.
