Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Spotify Calls Apple's App Store Restrictions 'An Abusive Power Grab'

now i see it said:
If anyone cared to look up the definition of "monopoly" they'd see right there that the App Store is one. And by the way- monopolies are illegal
Click to expand...

1) Monopolies aren’t illegal per se.
2) It’s not illegal to be a monopoly.
3) It’s not illegal to have a monopoly on your own products - it’s expected. Of course Apple has a monopoly on iOS, of course they have a monopoly on the iOS App Store - it’s THEIR product. Just like MacDonalds have a monopoly on Big Macs.
4) It’s not illegal to become a monopoly through better products, services or business acumen.
5) It’s not illegal to become a monopoly through happenstance.

The only time it is illegal to be a monopoly is if you abused your position to attain or maintain a monopoly.
 
  • Like
Reactions: duffman9000
Hee hee, they think that Apple has to GRAB power… the power was Apple’s the whole while, my friend, you just failed to understand that.
 
Robospungo said:
It's absolutely amazing that Apple's been able to get away with this for so long. Microsoft was taken to the woodshed and forced to be broken up over far less than Apple's nonsense.
Click to expand...


”But Microsoft was sued because they bundled IE with windows!” - that’s an incredibly simplistic and factually incorrect view of what happened. MS was a monopoly in desktop OS‘s which is not in itself illegal. What was illegal was using it’s position to coerce OEM’s to pre-install Windows on their hardware at threat of sanctions which further reinforced their dominance. This bundling of IE was tied to Windows which was tied to the coercive tactics used against OEM’s to have Windows pre-installed on every desktop. Then, IE was given access to undocumented API’s that third parties (Netscape) didn’t have access to and the whole shebang was premeditated.

Apple is vertically integrated which makes a big difference here - they ARE NOT forcing other device manufacturers to preinstall either iOS or any Apple service. There are no coercive tactics being used against any 3rd party. They are not a monopoly in any market that they operate and it is LEGAL/ expected that you have a monopoly on your own products and services.


FTC Single Firm Conduct.

Section 2 of the Sherman Act makes it unlawful for a company to “monopolise, or attempt to monopolise,” trade or commerce. As that law has been interpreted, it is not illegal for a company to have a monopoly, to charge “high prices,” or to try to achieve a monopoly position by what may be viewed by some as aggressive methods. The law is violated only if the company tries to maintain or acquire a monopoly through unreasonable methods. For the courts, a key factor in determining what is unreasonable is whether the practice has a legitimate business justification.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: bastoshaq, Ethosik, kelemor88 and 4 others
Michael Scrip said:
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?
Click to expand...
No, they won’t force them to change the rules. If it even gets CLOSE to that point, you will have companies from all over, (Sony, Microsoft) filing amicus briefs in favor of Apple. Because, they know, if this wins and becomes a precedent, there’s nothing stopping a developer with a bit of money in their pocket (don’t even THINK that Epic’s happy about having to go through the Playstation Store :) from coming after their platforms next.
 
  • Like
Reactions: bastoshaq, Ethosik, _Spinn_ and 2 others
duffman9000 said:
Do I really have to explain why not all things are priced the same?
Click to expand...
Directly competing services, like music streaming, absolutely want & need to be price competitive. You're too caught up in defending Apple to be capable of seeing the problem.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: pdr733 and jonblatho
theotherphil said:
1) Monopolies aren’t illegal per se.
2) It’s not illegal to be a monopoly.
3) It’s not illegal to have a monopoly on your own products - it’s expected. Of course Apple has a monopoly on iOS, of course they have a monopoly on the iOS App Store - it’s THEIR product. Just like MacDonalds have a monopoly on Big Macs.
4) It’s not illegal to become a monopoly through better products, services or business acumen.
5) It’s not illegal to become a monopoly through happenstance.

The only time it is illegal to be a monopoly is if you abused your position to attain or maintain a monopoly.
Click to expand...

Hell, a patent grants a 20 year monopoly on the invention that is patented - the government literally hands out monopolies.
 
  • Like
  • Haha
Reactions: MORGiON666, WiseAJ, theotherphil and 1 other person
DoctorApple said:
Why wouldn’t Apple allow Match Group to add ID verification?
The comment made by that Apple executive is indefensible.
Click to expand...
Agreed. Seems like a great thing for users. I’m guessing the exec was Eddy Cue, though I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Phil Schiller.
 
DoctorApple said:
Why wouldn’t Apple allow Match Group to add ID verification?
The comment made by that Apple executive is indefensible.
Click to expand...
Thats assuming its even true. Match is the company who was discriminating against gay clients at one point. Apple put them on the app store any way.
 
brofkand said:
I think Spotify just wants to be an equal citizen with Apple Music on iPhone. You should be able to ask Siri to play a song without having to add "from Spotify" to your command. Apple Music should pay the same rate as Apple Music for store fees. Does anyone believe that Apple Music pays a 30% commission to the App Store for every subscriber?
Click to expand...
this I agree with, Spotify can complain about this, but they can't complain about 30% cut.
 
I’d have to agree here with Spotify. I’m assuming Spotify can only provide artist with lower rates because they have give 30% to Apple.

Music is Spotify’s only business. Apple on the other hand can poor money into Apple Music. They can run Apple Music so that it loses them money until their competitors vanish (sounds very much like Walmart killing mom and pop shops and then jacking prices after everyone else was forced out of business.)
 
  • Like
Reactions: jonblatho
nutmac said:
30-15% cut is high, at least for services where most of the contents are on their hosted service.

Services like video and music streaming, podcasts, books, and file hosting, maybe subscription-based games with significant hosted contents and multiplayer infrastructure, should be reduced to 15% first year, 7.5% the next.
Click to expand...
Spotify agreed to the rules. They made the apps with the rules already in place knowing full well what they were getting into. Spotify now wants Apple to completely subsidize their app distribution without paying for all that bandwidth they are using up or contributing back to the platform that helped their business.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Michael Scrip
btrach144 said:
I’d have to agree here with Spotify. I’m assuming Spotify can only provide artist with lower rates because they have give 30% to Apple.

Music is Spotify’s only business. Apple on the other hand can poor money into Apple Music. They can run Apple Music so that it loses them money until their competitors vanish (sounds very much like Walmart killing mom and pop shops and then jacking prices after everyone else was forced out of business.)
Click to expand...
The problem with the logic is thats not what Apple has done here. Apple has priced their service at the same rates as spotify. The difference comes in that spotify has a free teir. They pay artists half of what apple does and atill are unprofitable. The artists under spotifys platform are getting the squeeze because spotify is giving the product away for free.
 
raghu8912 said:
Microsoft was broken into two companies ? where did you hear this ?
Click to expand...

Yes. One is called Micro and the other is called Soft, and they like to meet up from time to time and talk about the old days when they used to spend the night together copying floppy disks.
 
arkorott said:
What? Why? No logic there. Is macOS the same as Android?
Open Platform != Malware. Don't repeat nonsense.
Click to expand...
At least on our macOS we have built in malware protection. I don't know about Android, but all apps on macOS are at least Apple notarized...
 
btrach144 said:
I’d have to agree here with Spotify. I’m assuming Spotify can only provide artist with lower rates because they have give 30% to Apple.

Music is Spotify’s only business. Apple on the other hand can poor money into Apple Music. They can run Apple Music so that it loses them money until their competitors vanish (sounds very much like Walmart killing mom and pop shops and then jacking prices after everyone else was forced out of business.)
Click to expand...

And Google.

Funny how we always seem to forget that.

With Spotify having twice as many customers as Apple Music... and Android powering 85% of the world's smartphones... I would guess Spotify is dealing with Google far more than Apple.

What is Spotify's opinion on Google taking a 30% cut?

:)
 
  • Like
Reactions: AdonisSMU
swingerofbirch said:
Ca. 25 years ago Apple was in the middle of an 8 year lawsuit (including appeals) against Microsoft (they lost) for saying Microsoft copied ideas that Apple itself had copied. In 2001 they were still complaining to the DoJ about the Microsoft settlement (Microsoft was paying the settlement by buying and distributing copies of AppleWorks to schools, which Apple argued was worthless as payment—they said this about their own product).

The truth is Spotify's software inside and out *is* better. Both Spotify and Apple Music are like browsers to essentially the same catalog. One is better than the other and has outperformed the other despite the fact that Apple has every single advantage in attracting customers. They can preinstall the app, they can push ads that no other developer can to iOS users for Apple Music, and they can charge less. And yet it's garbage software:


If you've not tried Spotify on a Mac to compare, give it a go.

If Apple Music were a product that came from a standalone company, it would have disappeared by now because it's just bad. Their position is what enables them to continue competing in this space and suppressing others.
Click to expand...
Umm spotify was literally destroying macs and storing cached files and who knows what else which was causing macs all kinds of technical problems. Spotify still has yet to resolve the issues. Thats one of the reasons I stopped using it. The other is the search was terrible.
 
ian87w said:
I see the trend of some Silicon Valley companies. When their revenue go down, instead of focusing in making better products, they actually spend more money in litigating the platform where they’re on (eg Epic). Strange business decisions.
Click to expand...
Epic and Spotify are not Silicon Valley companies. Apple is.
 
rjohnstone said:
Apple takes a 30% cut of Spotify's subscription fee for iOS users.
They really cannot compete with Apple Music on price. Both can offer a $9.99 monthly subscription, but Apple is making more by taking the cut from their competition. I don't really see how that will sit well with regulators in the long run.
MS got beat up over a simple browser that cost nothing. This has deeper implications.
Click to expand...
But Apple is loosing 30% cut from customers moving from Spotify to Apple. I don't think Spotify is loosing here, they just don't want to pay 30% cut, they want all the money for themselves, that is the plan.
 
brofkand said:
Who is calling for Apple to be broken up? Companies are just asking to be treated just like Apple's apps on the platform.
Click to expand...
Thats not realistic. Spotify was paying 30% cut long before Apple bought and rebranded Beats music service. They just dont want to compete against Apple. Google Play isnt a threat to them right now. Apple is known for iTunes. They were always going to be in the music streaming markets at some point. Thats a basic feature of a phone. Apple Music is the default if you want spotify to be the default tou can select that. 🤷🏾‍♂️
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back