Google Play Store Now Letting Spotify Use Alternative Billing for In-App Purchases

[The Phazer]

It's a tiny step in the right direction, but still nowhere near enough.

Criminalise the rent seeking of app stores. Use antitrust law to prohibit default app stores. Break up companies so that no OS or hardware vendor can own an app store.

 

[compwiz1202]

Apps are a dying business just use the websites.

For the most part the sites mobile versions are trash. Sure if I'm home I might use the site then. But then on the same token, there are also some poor apps. But mostly apps are easier then websites.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

4% reduction is ridiculous....Google nor Apple are responsible for consumers buying something content from a app developer.

I mean… I’d like to see a developer release an iOS app without iOS. Or an iPhone. I think that would be a neat trick.

 

[M3gatron]

You're ignoring the elephant in the room. Apple invests billions in maintaining the platform. And, of course, Apple still has the credit card fees and other transactional and distribution costs. So "don't have to pay a cent in app store fee" is misleading.

The Apps Store is very profitable for Apple, it's not a burden.

 

[AppliedMicro]

I’d like to see a developer release an iOS app without iOS

I'd like to see Apple release an iPhone without third-party apps.

It goes both ways.

 

[djphat2000]

I'd like to see Apple release an iPhone without third-party apps.

It goes both ways.

They did that already. I mean the first iPhone didn't have 3rd party apps.
People waited in line (long lines) for it. So, yeah.

 

[AppliedMicro]

They did that already. I mean the first iPhone didn't have 3rd party apps.
People waited in line (long lines) for it. So, yeah.

Touché! 😂

That said, neither did the competition have apps (well… yeah, technically there were some apps. But apps weren’t a „thing“ back then).

And when the rumours about Android must have flown around only months later, Apple was quick to (very uncharacteristically) pre-announce an SDK. Smartphones without native apps but a great browser were awesome back then - they don’t cut it in 2022. And they didn’t do it for Nokia’s and Microsoft’s Lumias.

Apple wouldn’t have an iPhone business, had they restricted themselves and their developers to the web apps Steve was touting.

So yeah.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

I'd like to see Apple release an iPhone without third-party apps.

It goes both ways.

Oh, THAT has been done. The first iPhone was released without third-party apps. The YouTube App back then was developed by Apple.

Did Apple go running at developers “PUH-LEEEEEEZE develop for our phone!!”? Nope, it was the developers breaking down Apple’s door screaming “Let us make money on top of all that you’ve made, we’ll be good, we swear!”

Today, if Apple cut off developers direct access, Apple could still publish the iOS version all the mass market apps that folks use for consumption by licensing them directly from the developer. Revue times would be extended, the developer cut would be reduced and folks would buy the apps from Apple. That’s just another set of contracts and agreements to restructure Apple’s device to be more like the Switch, Xbox, PS, etc.

There’s NO set of contracts and agreements that a developer could produce which would magically lead to there being a sophisticated powerful bit technology in billions of users hands poised and ready to run just. that. one. app. It in no way goes both ways.

 

[AppliedMicro]

Oh, THAT has been done. The first iPhone was released without third-party apps. The YouTube App back then was developed by Apple.

Yes, I obviously meant another one.

They‘ve done it in 2007.
Today is not 2007 anymore.

Today, if Apple cut off developers direct access, Apple could still publish the iOS version all the mass market apps that folks use for consumption by licensing them directly from the developer.

Yes - until the DMA‘s rules enter into force and they have to provide access.

 

[BaldiMac]

Yes - until the DMA‘s rules enter into force and they have to provide access.

Of course the DMA wouldn't apply if Apple kept the number of apps they offered in the EU under 10,000.

At least, that's how I interpret the requirement that a platform has to have "10,000 yearly active business users established in the Union in the last financial year" to qualify as a gatekeeper.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Yes - until the DMA‘s rules enter into force and they have to provide access.

Actually, EXCELLENT point. If it “went both ways”, the DMA’s rules wouldn’t be needed.

 

[AppliedMicro]

Of course the DMA wouldn't apply if Apple kept the number of apps they offered in the EU under 10,000.

At least, that's how I interpret the requirement that a platform has to have "10,000 yearly active business users established in the Union in the last financial year" to qualify as a gatekeeper.

10'000 business users is not a "requirement" to designated a gatekeeper.
That's only a requirement for the legal presumption set out in the act.
The EU can still designated them a gatekeeper anyways.

If it “went both ways”, the DMA’s rules wouldn’t be needed.

Apple benefits as much from its ecosystem of third-party apps as do the developers benefit from the platform/Apple.

Revenue from (hardware) sales of iPhones was about 200 billion USD last year.
While Apple said that they paid out about 60 billion USD to developers from the app store.

Since there's only one platform operator that's holding all the (signing) keys and they can play off the thousands of developers against each other, there's an imbalance in power. But without third-party apps, not all of them expensive or paid at all, Apple would only sell a fraction of all those iPhones.

 

[compwiz1202]

Can anyone not even pick Google now? I only see CCs and PP now. There's nothing like in the picture