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I am on the fence about this. I have no idea who this lady is, but I do think this is a topic that does POTENTIALLY enter the gray area territory with anti-monopoly laws. So, I could see a politician talking about the issue. Now this is coming from someone who has never heard of her before. Judging by the other comments, looks like people dont seem to like her very much. I cannot tell if people really dont like her or that she is a democrat.

Get your head out of the sand and pay attention to what is happening in politics - if you are a concerned citizen.

As for the accusation, no person has to pay to hear his / her music.

Clinton-Warren in 2016!
 
It may be too high, doesn't mean people have to use it though. You don't go around stores and telling them their products is too expensive and they should lower their prices. And you also do not lower your fees just because some politician who will say anything to become a VP said your fees are too high.
It's a bit of a free market dogma. If a market leadership is used to push out competitors in an unfair way, I think that should be guarded a bit. Kapitalism as well as any other system can reach excesses and that's what governments should guard.

Where I'm from; prices of public transportation, healthcare fees, education fees and unfair lock in contracts are limited, and I think they should be. As for the subscriptions: I hope that apple competes in a fair way. I think they do this already by giving access to API functions that allow for integration of third party services (like, to an extent, mail apps for example) and the pricing should be reasonable.

Keep in mind; we as humans are very very very flawed and easily manipulated. We need protections and reasonable limitations.
 
Not being in the US I am amazed at the level of hate towards the woman from some of the posters and generally most being Ok with it - what is even more bewildering is that this is just a dabble around dominant companies in the market - nothing to suffice the kind of remarks that are being made here - sad
 
Get your head out of the sand and pay attention to what is happening in politics - if you are a concerned citizen.

As for the accusation, no person has to pay to hear his / her music.

Clinton-Warren in 2016!
Oh geez. Didn't know that was a possibility. If Warren ends up being Clinton's running-mate, I'm going to seriously reconsider my decision to vote for Clinton, not for any reason related to the article (I don't really give a crap about iToys and Spotify).
 
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Get your head out of the sand and pay attention to what is happening in politics - if you are a concerned citizen.

As for the accusation, no person has to pay to hear his / her music.

Clinton-Warren in 2016!
Disagreeing with your statement doesn't mean his head is in the sand nor does it contradict him being a concerned citizen.

No one has to pay, but if you want to compete in the biggest-by-earnings marketplace you have a 30% disadvantage (60% actually, the profits are not lost but paid to the competition). Hopefully you'll let reason decide on the fairness of that, not commerce.
 
No, it would be like Microsoft taking 30% because people bought the subscription through the Games for Windows Live store (if that exists) instead of going to Blizzard's website.

Right, but the difference is Apple forces their 3rd parties to use the App Store to pay for sub fees through the app, while MS, Google, and the rest would probably allow developers to contact their own servers directly from inside the app.
 
You know, I see free stuff on Steam all the time. The files hosted there can easily be 30x the size of even the largest app on the App Store. They take a 25%-30% cut off sales, but even they don't take a perpetual cut off sub fees.

As far as I'm aware, Apple is the only company that does the latter, and all it's done is create all kinds of pointless workarounds and loopholes for end users to jump through.

As far as I'm aware Apple is the only company with:

- 5X the revenue of Android (per user) for online shopping.
- 4X the revenue of Android (per user) for App sales.
- Has paid out over $50 billion to developers from sales of their Apps and in-App purchases/subscriptions through The App Store.
- The worlds most popular smartphone/tablet.

You want to be a part of the worlds most successful mobile device/ecosystem, that generates the most revenues, then you gotta play by their rules.
 
In the real world, you pay for that kind of visibility that being hosted in a popular store front affords you. Why should it be any different in the digital world?

Because the one biggest difference here that Apple does something that no one else does: they force developers to give them a cut from monthly subscription fees for any services subscribed to through the apps.

This isn't about taking a cut off the top for items sold, or asking for payments for services rendered. This is Apple taking a good chunk from 3rd party revenue streams.
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You want to be a part of the worlds most successful mobile device/ecosystem, that generates the most revenues, then you gotta play by their rules.

Well, no. You don't. App developers have found ways to work around Apple's restrictions.

Either way, the end result doesn't benefit you or I. Running the Kindle app on an Android device allows you to buy books directly through the app. On iDevices, you have to buy books from Amazon's website, then hop into the app, and download it from your account. It's just kinda pointless.
 
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Right, but the difference is Apple forces their 3rd parties to use the App Store to pay for sub fees through the app, while MS, Google, and the rest would probably allow developers to contact their own servers directly from inside the app.
If that's true, I don't see why they do that unless they're just desperate for developers. It's a self-renewing subscription. Should the cut only apply to the first month?

Edit: Oh, I see, the problem is that App Store restrictions prevent developers from selling stuff in their app, and the Android apps aren't going through Google at all for the purchase. Didn't know about that. Really, the unfair part is Apple banning apps from using a third-party IAP store. Their own IAP mechanism has the right to take a cut. Yeah, I agree, Apple should allow third-party IAPs.
 
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And for the people comparing this to Microsoft or IBM, it's the not the same thing. Apple has plenty of competition in the mobile phone industry and DON'T have a monopoly.

Monopoly isn't simply about competition - it's about marketshare - and if those integration features you mention help them enlarge it while shutting out the competitors then that's an unfair advantage that could be a problem.

Also, Spotify wants to whine about Apple inserting themselves between the customer and developer? It's THEIR STORE. It comes with the territory. Spotify is more than welcome to go and invest billions of dollars into building out an ecosystem if they want, and good luck to them and their handsets.

Also all of the ludicrous arguments about spotify building their own infrastructure is ridiculous. It's like arguing anyone that buys a sony TV should only expect to watch sony programming. Monopoly laws (which are completely lax in the US anyways) are not simply there for spotify or other competitors but for consumers. It doesn't benefit anyone but Apple for them to have total market dominance - anyone arguing otherwise is either a fanboy or a shill.
 
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What an idiot! Another case of a dumb politician sticking their nose into something they are clueless about!
She is absolutely correct. Every business pushes the envelope when utilizing a near monopoly to their advantage. It's what the investors expect.
 
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If that's true, I don't see why they do that unless they're just desperate for developers. It's a self-renewing subscription. Should the cut only apply to the first month?

Edit: Oh, I see, the problem is that App Store restrictions prevent developers from selling stuff in their app, and the Android apps aren't going through Google at all for the purchase. Didn't know about that. I don't see any problem with Apple taking a cut for using their store's IAP mechanism as long as they also allow devs to use their own IAP servers as an option... but they don't. They should fix that.

Right. If the choice to use Apple's infrastructure were left entirely to the discretion of the developer, or if Apple only took a cut of their sub fees for a limited time, like a month, or two, or three, this wouldn't be an issue at all.
 
What an idiot! Another case of a dumb politician sticking their nose into something they are clueless about!


Britain has done the right thing and now the western world need Trump to kick these dangerous religious nutters back to the country they came from.
 
This is what I've never understood about Spotify/Amazon/etc.'s complaints - couldn't these apps just present the user with a "Sign up on Spotify/Amazon and log in here!"? Hell, it could even take the user to a nice Safari link where they could sign up.
Apple isn't stupid, apps are obviously not allowed to do this.
 
What an idiot! Another case of a dumb politician sticking their nose into something they are clueless about!


Britain has done the right thing and now the western world need Trump to kick these dangerous religious nutters back to the country they came from.
Too bad morons in the western governments screwed up all the countries they came from... by sticking their noses into things they're clueless about. And Trump probably wouldn't do any better. In fact, he'd probably be the absolute worst in this respect. Gee, I hope having Israel as an ally was worth it. Maybe they'll accidentally hit ISIS with a rocket aimed at some Arab civilian's home.
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Apple isn't stupid, apps are obviously not allowed to do this.
I don't know about that. If it opens in Safari, it's not an IAP, is it?
 
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Apple isn't stupid, apps are obviously not allowed to do this.

Except for the fact that, as far as I know, none of the big services offer up any mechanisms to sign up through the app. I know Netflix and Kindle only give you space for your user name or password, but no "sign up here" options.

All this has accomplished is create a stupid dance were Apple and their bigger developers just kinda try to outdance each other, while their mutual customers go scrambling to Google to find out how they sign up to Amazon Video et al. on iOS.
 
Except for the fact that, as far as I know, none of the big services offer up any mechanisms to sign up through the app. I know Netflix and Kindle only give you space for your user name or password, but no "sign up here" options.

All this has accomplished is create a stupid dance were Apple and their bigger developers just kinda try to outdance each other, while their mutual customers go scrambling to Google to find out how they sign up to Amazon Video et al. on iOS.

I think it's weird when services do let people sign up through iOS at a higher price.

Take Spotify for instance.

What kind of experience does it create when someone ends up subscribing for $12.99 a month because they used their iPhone... while their neighbor only pays $9.99 a month since they used their computer?

I know Apple's rules state that you can't have a link in the app... but they should at least be able to put a message that reads "Sign up at spotify.com" and not allow them to subscribe through the app.
 
Quote: "Apple has long used its control of iOS to squash competition in music, driving up the prices of its competitors, inappropriately forbidding us from telling our customers about lower prices, and giving itself unfair advantages across its platform through everything from the lock screen to Siri. You know there's something wrong when Apple makes more off a Spotify subscription than it does off an Apple Music subscription and doesn't share any of that with the music industry. They want to have their cake and eat everyone else's too."

Definitely no fan of Elizabeth Warren either, but there is some truth in those pricing policy observations.
 
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I know Apple's rules state that you can't have a link in the app... but they should at least be able to put a message that reads "Sign up at spotify.com" and not allow them to subscribe through the app.

It's not a link, so it's not officially against the rules!

Though it skirts that grey area just enough that I'm sure Apple wouldn't be too thrilled about it.
 
Look how everyone's so quick to defend Apple, but will cry a storm towards cable/internet providers.
It's not really the same. In most areas people only have one choice of cable or internet provider. There are tons of smartphone makers besides Apple and a large amount of streaming music services other than Apple Music.
 
Right. If the choice to use Apple's infrastructure were left entirely to the discretion of the developer, or if Apple only took a cut of their sub fees for a limited time, like a month, or two, or three, this wouldn't be an issue at all.

It's not an issue right now. Except for the whiners/freeloaders who want to ride the back of a successful ecosystem like iOS and make money from it without having to pay.
 
I think all the people whining about Apple and their fees show go on Shark Tank.

Explain to the "Sharks" how you want access to their contacts and marketing prowess but don't feel you should have to pay them for it. The beatdown they'd get from the Sharks would be hilarious.
 
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