I would agree but only if Apple allowed alternative app stores and sideloading. As is, Apple forces Spotify to use their Apple Store. Making Spotify to pay for it would constitute naked racket.
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EU Plans to Let Spotify Direct Users to Other Payment Options on iPhone
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developer program is $99. Several hundred million copies of the app is downloaded per month. Barely covers Apple's cost. and that's just bandwidth which is one of many things Apple needs to cover.
nope. amazon sells third party services too. tire installation, home assembly, computer assembly, accidental insurance coverage, etc..
It still won’t be enough to make Spotify profitable. Now let’s wait till the end of 2025 and see how they intend to service their $1.3 billion debt.
This is the real reason Spotify is going after Apple! Spotify wants Apple to pay its 1.3 Billion in debt! Nowadays everyone wants a participation trophy for free!
well no. Spotify is allowed to sell membership outside the app and apple has to distribute the app to hundreds of millions of customers monthly. literally what's happening now.
assuming 100 million of the 500 million are iOS users, we're talking 15 petabytes of bandwidth Apple has to pay every update, or about $770k. they release update once a week, so that's $3 million per month going by standard S3 prices. Spotify doesn't offer IAP so Apple is losing money just for hosting Spotify.
tell me again how that's not freeloading.
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No. The bandwidth alone to support Spotify is likely a hundred times that amount.
Apple does not need to do it. Spotify can easily handle all this (as they do for their desktop/laptop software). It is Apple that forces them to put their app into their App Store.
Are Spotify freeloading off the Mac or Windows? What a stupid comment.
And how does that work for the Mac and Windows - should Spotify or any app for that matter be paying the platforms to merely exist?
Er, no, it isn't.
And again, no.
Nobody in Europe would give any credibility to the idea that the "EU = Communism."
My own view is that this is both a welcome and overdue move.
Then why are they doing exactly what Google and other companies want from Apple?
They each reap what they sow.
Spotify doesn’t have a sustainable business, underpays its artistes, squandered $1 billion on an advertising network that went nowhere, and recently fired over 1000 employees in the most ignoble manner possible.
But I am apparently supposedly to root for them over Apple, who for some unfathomable reason, is perennially 1 flop away from irrelevancy?
What kind of data are you talking about? The music itself, or your personal play counts, ratings, playlists, etc.?
They have a developer program for $99 and an enterprise one for $299. Spotify likely pays for the enterprise one. There's about 494,000 iOS developers, so even if every one of them paid $99, Apple's getting about $49 million per year. That's not even counting Mac developers.
Now to put your argument to the test, should I have to pay Apple a fee every time I wanted to download something from my iCloud Drive?
Sure but what’s special about Spotify? I’m sure there are lots of free apps that have millions of downloads every month.
Do the two have to be mutually exclusive? Or are you saying that it's fine to charge developers 30% if Apple decides the waive the $99 annual fee?
I always viewed the annual fee as more of a barrier to entry to discourage any Tom, Dick and Harry from signing up for one regardless of whether they are a legitimate developer or not, not so much a revenue stream. I would be surprised if that alone is enough to cover the costs of operating the App Store.
My thought process is this. It's the small developers who add the much-needed vibrancy to the App Store, not so much the big players like Facebook, Epic, Spotify, Netflix or Youtube. These are staples and you know they are going to be on every platform, so it's hardly a key differentiator. That's why I feel a 30% cut is not unreasonable when you look at the programme in totality.
A small developer who releases a free app doesn't need to pay Apple anything beyond that $99 each year (which is why charging by download is neither desirable nor sustainable). Those earning less than $1 million a year also need to pay Apple only 15% under their small developer programme, which is why iTunes makes sense as an efficient way of tracking how much each developer earns via app sales. The other alternative is auditing their sales receipts, which is more troublesome for all parties involved. Alternatively, they should choose to monetise via ads, which Apple doesn't take a cut of.
We also see this in a country's tax code. The more you earn, the more tax you pay, and your marginal tax rate tends to rise as your salary further increases.
It doesn't strike me as unfair that those who earn more, should pay more, and the companies that make a lot of money in the App Store are typically freemium games. These, by their very nature, tend to have zero marginal costs, and is therefore pure profit.
While Apple earns more than enough to keep the App Store afloat even if it doesn't collect a single cent from developers, I really don't see the logic where people somehow expect the App Store to be a loss leader just because Apple sells insanely profitable hardware (the corollary here is that it's somehow okay to charge developers 30% if your hardware is sold at a loss). What's wrong with striving to be profitable in every single aspect of your business?
Question for everyone who thinks Spotify owes Apple: is your argument then that Apple should get rid of the ‘reader’ app category and kick any app off the store that doesn’t include IAP (with a cut of that IAP going to Apple)? Should Netflix, Spotify, Kindle etc. be thrown out of the App Store because they don’t offer IAP and aren’t paying Apple anything (outside of the developer fee)?
Let’s say I buy a carbonated drink maker appliance at Target. Let’s say Target gets a percentage of the sale (or the appliance maker pays Target for the shelf space). But let’s say this drink maker offers a subscription service for drink flavorings or Co2 cartridges. Should you only be allowed to sign up for that subscription service inside Target so Target can get a cut? Or once you take the appliance home is Target out of the picture?
Let’s say I buy a carbonated drink maker appliance at Target. Let’s say Target gets a percentage of the sale (or the appliance maker pays Target for the shelf space). But let’s say this drink maker offers a subscription service for drink flavorings or Co2 cartridges. Should you only be allowed to sign up for that subscription service inside Target so Target can get a cut? Or once you take the appliance home is Target out of the picture?
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Oh, so you think Microsoft should get the 30% cut of the web ad revenue then?
Listen, I like Apple devices and services too, but I can see when they are being blatantly greedy, and that’s what trying to take a 30% cut is in this case.
If you buy a movie from Apple, they deserve a 30% cut because they are hosting that movie. They have nothing to do with the music hosted on Spotify, so Apple does not deserve a 30% cut of Spotifys monthly subscription revenue. That’s just ridiculous. Should your cell phone service provider or ISP get a 30% cut of your Apple Music subscription? You wouldn’t be able to listen to it without them.
For everyone saying Spotify wouldn’t exist without the App Store, you have it backwards. The App Store wouldn’t exist without the apps. Without a good selection of apps, your platform is dead. Just look at BlackBerry and Windows Phone and tell me how they turned out without decent apps.
App stores have existed since before the iPhone, but Apple made the concept a household name for regular people with the iPhone. It has done a lot of good and makes it easy to find new apps. But that doesn’t mean they should profit off the monthly revenue of services offered by other companies.
Oh man, I’m not saying it’s all right or wrong here, but I really wish the EU gets exactly what they wish and vote for. For eternity.
Now onto skipping the next 10s of anti trust, EU this and that news before getting the knack to comment again.
Apple wants customers to have a single source of apps for better UX and security. This is one of the primary reasons why App Store makes more revenue than Google Play even though Google Play has a much larger user base, people prefer Apple's UX.