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Spotify Calls Apple's App Store Restrictions 'An Abusive Power Grab'
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This is factually incorrect. Yes, when phones first became ubiquitous, AT&T required people to rent their equipment. Not because Congress gave them special treatment, but because nothing prevented it. Congress intervened later and required the phone company to allow personally-owned devices.
The change happened in December 2018... so a little over two years ago.
And this was only for new subscribers. You, an existing subscriber, could still pay through Apple.
Question... how much are you paying? Didn't Netflix make the App Store price higher to offset the extra 30% cut?
I thought they did that... though I might be confusing them with another company.
Yeah, I had completely forgotten about that change!
Interestingly I'm paying a dollar LESS than I would directly. $12.99 through Apple, $13.99 if I switch to direct. I actually looked into it to see if there was a difference and I expected it to be the other way around!
Oh well, if it cost the same I'd switch it just so Netflix gets to keep more of the money. But if I'm saving a buck a month leaving it on iTunes, so be it. Maybe it's an "ancient customer discount"? I've had Netflix through Apple for many years.
I stopped reading comments after this one. I’m sure there were more after, but this was the first logical comment in this thread.
These companies did their best to innovate under Apple’s restrictions, but Apple doesn’t have the same limitations. If Apple wants to offer a feature that their OS doesn’t support, they can change the OS. If Apple wants to undercut the competition with similar services, they can because they don’t lose 30% of their revenue.
What can be done about that, though? If you say Apple shouldn’t take a cut from developers who offer similar services to what Apple offers, you’d have an excess of companies copying these services because they can keep all of the revenue. If you say it should only apply to developers who offered a service that Apple uses before Apple adopted it, that could stifle further innovation.
Maybe Apple should take 30% of the revenue it makes from services and donate it to charity. That puts them on an even playing field with other developers and then various charities also benefit. Win/win
The one from LA to Hawaii? Or Cape Canaveral to Mars?
Spotify could always go full hardball and withdraw from IOS entirely, or take the premium price that people who do want to pay for their service and enjoy that while finding something else to offer to make them more compelling than Apple Music.
I decided to listen to the entire hearing rather than relying on brief quotes or others’ opinions on it. It was ugly for Apple and to a lesser extent Google.
I said it elsewhere earlier today, but there’s a line of thinking that the “correct” politicians will be bought off. If big tech companies had political favor on either side of the aisle, I’d buy it. But which side is going to go to bat for Big Tech in 2021? Setting aside the antitrust complaints, Democrats are against Big Tech as a whole because they don’t do enough to fight right-wing misinformation for their liking, and Republicans are against Big Tech as well, but over perceived bias against them.
It wasn’t a situation where the senators were geriatric and completely out of touch with technology as they asked their questions. With a few exceptions, the questions were fairly focused and pertinent to the issues at hand rather than IT support. There was abundantly clear bipartisan consensus against Apple and Google here, and it’s tough to watch the hearing and think that there’s any way the App Store is getting out of this unscathed.
I said it elsewhere earlier today, but there’s a line of thinking that the “correct” politicians will be bought off. If big tech companies had political favor on either side of the aisle, I’d buy it. But which side is going to go to bat for Big Tech in 2021? Setting aside the antitrust complaints, Democrats are against Big Tech as a whole because they don’t do enough to fight right-wing misinformation for their liking, and Republicans are against Big Tech as well, but over perceived bias against them.
It wasn’t a situation where the senators were geriatric and completely out of touch with technology as they asked their questions. With a few exceptions, the questions were fairly focused and pertinent to the issues at hand rather than IT support. There was abundantly clear bipartisan consensus against Apple and Google here, and it’s tough to watch the hearing and think that there’s any way the App Store is getting out of this unscathed.
Disadvantage rival services?
Is this the same Spotify who has twice as many paying subscribers as Apple Music? And they have even more users on their free tier that Apple doesn't even offer. So Spotify seems to be doing OK.
And Match? I'm unaware of Apple getting into the dating app scene.
No alternatives?
Look at Netflix. You must sign up on their website and all the money goes to Netflix. No cut to Apple.
Same for Amazon Kindle books. You can buy them on the web. No cut to Apple.
Spotify likes to make a lot of noise... but these are solved problems.
If Spotify doesn't want to give Apple 30%... they don't have to. Those other companies don't!
What an idiotic statement. There are many app stores. You have plenty of choices. You don’t like Apple? Go away.
It worked for Netflix... this is a screencap from the iOS app:
Why is it that Netflix figured this out... but Spotify cannot?
Maybe if Spotify didn’t overpay their incompetent executives so much they could make money and pay the artists they mooch off of.It worked for Netflix... this is a screencap from the iOS app:
View attachment 1761894
Why is it that Netflix figured this out... but Spotify cannot?
That’s all well and good but a) users can sign up outside of the Apple Store and b) the vast majority do so Spotify keep 100% of that subscription. Spotify are whining for the sake of it.
You say abusive power grab, I say a private company running a business that they created, the way they want to.
Do I really have to explain what being price competitive means?
I would love to know how this is a monopoly, is using Apple processor in iPhone a monopoly ? should Qualcom go to court ? if Apple had majority market share in mobile phone space then they do have a monopoly.
What's the endgame here?
After all these anti-trust Senate hearings... what will be the result? Will the Government force Apple/Google to change the rules they made for their companies? Because it's not "fair" to some other companies who want to use their platforms to make money for themselves?
And with all that's going on in the world... is this what we should be spending our time on?
After all these anti-trust Senate hearings... what will be the result? Will the Government force Apple/Google to change the rules they made for their companies? Because it's not "fair" to some other companies who want to use their platforms to make money for themselves?
And with all that's going on in the world... is this what we should be spending our time on?