Spotify CEO on Apple and Google: 'If You Want to Be the Referee, You Can't Also Be the Player'

[cocky jeremy]

you can extend this logic to any monopoly or antitrust in history though. the govt has a duty to ensure capitalism doesnt get too crazy

Apple isn't a monopoly in anything they do, and it isn't even close to being one.

 

[cocky jeremy]

Or you could say don’t questionable business policies.
Then governments wouldn’t have to keep looking into your business model

If as you say it’s apple’s platform & they can do what they like.
Then why are they getting investigated for anti steering policies?

Because the world is full of whiny pansies that want to blame other people (or companies) for their inabilities.

 

[cocky jeremy]

So you feel there should be no antitrust laws regarding dominant companies and anticompetitive behavior? Netscape, Sun Microsystems, computer OEMs, etc. should've had no arguments against Microsoft (Windows) in the 1990s because each of them made or could've made their own OS or hardware? Similarly today, companies should have no arguments against Apple (iOS), Google (Android), etc.

Yup.

 

[Hails09]

You can't run Windows software on MacOS and you can't run MacOS software on Windows either. I wouldn't call it lock in, it's just how it works.

There is a big difference not everyone owns or uses a computer anymore.
Yet most people use there mobile for everything & that’s why Apple are desperately clinging on to the 30% tax.

 

[Hails09]

Because the world is full of whiny pansies that want to blame other people (or companies) for their inabilities.

If as you say people are just whiny pansies sounds like bullying talk?
I don’t get what you mean companies inabilities in blaming what failure?
I know it’s very difficult not to some times lay the blame at the 2 trillion plus company trying to make even more money.

 

[Mark.g4]

If as you say people are just whiny pansies sounds like bullying talk?
I don’t get what you mean companies inabilities in blaming what failure?
I know it’s very difficult not to some times lay the blame at the 2 trillion plus company trying to make even more money.

From what I see, who trying to make money more easily with music streaming is Spotify:
offers lossy music at a similar price to apple's lossless-hi-res music, which in addition also offers the classical app, previews and music videos.
All this while paying artists 65% less, per song on average, compared to Apple Music.
My2cent.

 

[Hails09]

Let's put this into a perspective that perhaps our EU and UK friends might appreciate...

Spotify claiming that the market unfairly benefits Apple would be like Real Madrid saying that Manchester United has an unfair advantage.

Again la liga in which Real Madrid play in has come against the premier league & saying how unfair it is due to value in the premier league tv contracts.

 

[cocky jeremy]

If as you say people are just whiny pansies sounds like bullying talk?
I don’t get what you mean companies inabilities in blaming what failure?
I know it’s very difficult not to some times lay the blame at the 2 trillion plus company trying to make even more money.

Easy. Companies make garbage products, then blame other companies for their failure.

"Our OS failed because Apple is too big."

No it failed because it sucked. If you want to beat Apple, it's simple. Make something better than Apple.

 

[Hails09]

For you Spotify Loyalists...who say the service is dramatically better than Apple Music...

Would you pay $2/month more for what you consider to be a far superior service?

If the answer is NO, then you're admitting that Spotify really isn't superior. And if it isn't superior, then on what basis should it expect to compete in the market?

If the answer is YES, then Spotify can absorb the extra cost for access to premium customers on Apple's platform. And still compete. They could even offer a discount subscription on their site to encourage Apple customers to go to their site to subscribe. This can be advertised in simple emails to customers who sign up through the Apple App store.

And still, after all this nonsense back and forth, it needs to be repeated that Spotify kick's Apple's ass in number of subscribers. It's simply laughable to suggest that the market isn't competitive enough when you're kicking ass in the market place.

In your opinion if a company wants to charge customers 10.99 for a product & then says to said customers we are having to put up the price to 12.99 because Apple wants their cut.
Yeah that’s a great idea.
Quick question what does it matter if Spotify or any other company wants to stick a link to say this is price here & you can buy it here.
What’s the actual issue with that?

 

[Hails09]

Easy. Companies make garbage products, then blame other companies for their failure.

"Our OS failed because Apple is too big."

No it failed because it sucked. If you want to beat Apple, it's simple. Make something better than Apple.

What’s that to do with Spotify?

 

[Mark.g4]

spotify is playing who shouts the loudest, the 30% problem is non-existent, it has solved the problem but continues to complain...maybe because it's scared?

 

[BaldiMac]

Part of this thread may be about "more regulations" but you responded to a reply I made to a post stating that, "The real solution is to REDUCE regulations."

I also stated in the reply you responded to that, “If regulations are reduced..."

The discussion you came in on (replied to) was clearly about reducing regulations.

And none of that changes the question that I asked you.

Netscape, no, I don't believe they had any ground to stand on. Microsoft may have made their product the default but what was stopping anyone from installing Netscape? Right, nothing, except maybe ignorance of how to do so. Perhaps if Netscape had a better product or better marketing they would have done better.

The problem wasn't that Microsoft made IE the default. The problem was that Microsoft made it technically difficult to not use IE and leveraged their monopoly to incentivize their partners to not install competing browsers.

From the FTC:

Monopolization Defined

The antitrust laws prohibit conduct by a single firm that unreasonably restrains competition by creating or maintaining monopoly power.

www.ftc.gov

Because it’s not the music market being regulated or questioned. It’s the applicationstore market. Especially the specialized market known as the iOS AppStore. And the fact Apple uses anti competitive practices to keep their advantage over competing solutions that is provided to the consumers who own an Apple device

Spotify is certainly in the music market and are discussing regulations that would affect the music market. I certainly understand that you want to only discuss a market as a single store because your argument falls apart when you consider any other market definition.

But this is anti competitive because as Spotify say we where happy to pay the 30% & charge 12.99 but Apple has made a competing app & deliberately made it cheaper because they are not bound to the 30% charge.

That's silly. Sure Apple doesn't pay 30% on their own store, but they spent billions of dollars to create the platform.

And in reality, Spotify has a 30% share of the music market while Apple has around 13%. Seems like they are competing just fine.

And, to be clear, Spotify is currently paying Apple nothing more than the $99/year developer fee for access to a massive platform. While Apple is spending billions on that platform.

This is what it comes down to the in app practice there is no legitimate answer as to why Apple won’t allow a company a link to other payment methods.

Sure there is. It makes it easier for them to account for and collect the fees that they charge.

 

[Hails09]

spotify is playing who shouts the loudest, the 30% problem is non-existent, it has solved the problem but continues to complain...maybe because it's scared?


View attachment 2288339

The problem is the 30% because Apple now has its own streaming music app.
So if Spotify put it back as in in app purchase they would have to make it 2.00 dearer than Apple Music due to the Apple tax.
Once again Spotify had no problem with the tax until Apple launched their competing app at 10.99 & that’s the problem.

 

[webkit]

There is/was a case for breaking up MS over the dominance of Windows and Office. One could say no single entity should have been able to control both a 90+% OS and a 90+% Office suite. That said, I am not sure it would have been a good idea without an industry standard file format for all office style suites. It wouldn't do anyone any good to have had Word, Word Perfect, Pages, etc. with similar percentages and all different file formats. I guess another approach would have been to "force" all suites to support the file formats of the other major players but I can see that as problematic too.

Yes, there was a court ruling in 2000 to breakup Microsoft into two companies but it was later overturned.

I still don't have much of an issue with IE, if someone had made a compellingly better product the public would have bought into it. A probably poor food analogy, if one hot dog is free or a hot dog that has 1 dot of ketchup on it is $2, which one will you order?

I always viewed pre-installed apps as very basic and just good enough for home use, like MS Works used to be. Including these free never seemed like much of a problem. Thankfully, while Office is still dominant, there are better options if you want to blaze a new trail.

The issue some have is that IE didn't overtake Navigator because it was necessarily a better product, especially in the early years. It had a lot more to do with the fact that IE was being given away for free (predatory pricing), came pre-installed on a dominant OS platform, computer OEMs were discouraged from offering/including Navigator, etc.

 

[webkit]

Easy. Companies make garbage products, then blame other companies for their failure.

"Our OS failed because Apple is too big."

No it failed because it sucked. If you want to beat Apple, it's simple. Make something better than Apple.

And some companies make "garbage products" but use dominance and anticompetitive behavior to knock down better products and/or hinder better products or innovations from coming to market.

 

[webkit]

And none of that changes the question that I asked you.

And I did answer your question. Your post was, "Except there is already strong competition in the streaming music market. Why do we need regulation to improve competition when strong competition already exists?"

You didn’t ask why we needed MORE regulation, you asked why we need regulation and my response explained why I felt regulation was needed i.e., there is "strong competition" because regulations exist.

 

[Hails09]

Tell me you have zero understanding of business without telling me you have zero understanding of business.

Say I own a retail store...you decide you want access to the customers that come into my store. So I say, ok, you can put your item on the shelves in my store, and I'll charge you a 30% fee on each item sold. I pay for the lease of the space, I pay the utilities for the space, I pay the employees to run the store, and I advertise to attract customers.

You say no, it should be free and you want to be able to simply walk into my store, set up a table, and sell to my customers without paying me.

Or, to your other example, you want to be able to come into my store, set up a table, and tell my customers where they can go to buy your product instead.

Look...the web exists. Spotify has a web site. Everybody in the world who owns a smart phone knows how to surf the web. Netflix makes this work. Hulu makes this work. A lot of companies have free apps on the iPhone and run subscription services through the web. It takes a customer less than 5 seconds to open the web browser on the phone and navigate to any companies home page.

To argue that Apple's practices are anticompetitive to the market leader is simply absurd.

Again that’s not what has happened here Spotify was more than happy to pay the 30% Apple tax. Then Apple launched Apple Music for 10.99 they deliberately would have under cut Spotify’s price meaning that they would have had to sell their product dearer.
And I suspect that’s what they have shown to the European Union & other evidence.
That’s it’s looking very likely that Apple will be forced to allow companies to put a payment link in their app.

 

[BaldiMac]

And I did answer your question. Your post was, "Except there is already strong competition in the streaming music market. Why do we need regulation to improve competition when strong competition already exists?"

You didn’t ask why we needed MORE regulation, you asked why we need regulation and my response explained why I felt regulation was needed i.e., there is "strong competition" because regulations exist.

I'm following along. I asked a question. You answered. Then I clarified that I was referring to Spotify's request for more regulation. Than you started talking about someone else's argument for reducing regulation.

 

[Hails09]

Tell me you have zero understanding of business without telling me you have zero understanding of business.

Say I own a retail store...you decide you want access to the customers that come into my store. So I say, ok, you can put your item on the shelves in my store, and I'll charge you a 30% fee on each item sold. I pay for the lease of the space, I pay the utilities for the space, I pay the employees to run the store, and I advertise to attract customers.

You say no, it should be free and you want to be able to simply walk into my store, set up a table, and sell to my customers without paying me.

Or, to your other example, you want to be able to come into my store, set up a table, and tell my customers where they can go to buy your product instead.

Look...the web exists. Spotify has a web site. Everybody in the world who owns a smart phone knows how to surf the web. Netflix makes this work. Hulu makes this work. A lot of companies have free apps on the iPhone and run subscription services through the web. It takes a customer less than 5 seconds to open the web browser on the phone and navigate to any companies home page.

To argue that Apple's practices are anticompetitive to the market leader is simply absurd.

Again that’s not what has happened here Spotify was more than happy to pay the 30% Apple tax. Then Apple launched Apple Music for 10.99 they deliberately would have under cut Spotify’s price meaning that they would have had to sell their product dearer.
And I suspect that’s what they have shown to the European Union & other evidence.
If as you say it’s not anti competitive then why is it very likely that companies will soon be able to put a link in their apps to alternative payment option.

 

[cocky jeremy]

What’s that to do with Spotify?

They produce garbage and blame Apple for not picking up more users.

 

[cocky jeremy]

And some companies make "garbage products" but use dominance and anticompetitive behavior to knock down better products and/or hinder better products or innovations from coming to market.

BS. People will always choose what they believe is the better product. Excuses, excuses, excuses.

 

[BaldiMac]

Again that’s not what has happened here Spotify was more than happy to pay the 30% Apple tax. Then Apple launched Apple Music for 10.99 they deliberately would have under cut Spotify’s price meaning that they would have had to sell their product dearer.
And I suspect that’s what they have shown to the European Union & other evidence.
That’s it’s looking very likely that Apple will be forced to allow companies to put a payment link in their app.

You keep saying that Spotify has to increase their price because of Apple's fee. What's preventing Spotify from offering their service for the same price even with IAP? Nothing that I can see.

And for the record, you keep saying 30%, but that 30% is only for the first year and then drops to 15%.

 

[Hails09]

1) It's not a tax. It's standard retail operations.
2) Spotify, just like Netflix and Hulu, can charge any subscription fee they want, on the iPhone, through the web browser. It's like having a store right next door to an Apple store and arguing that it's anticompetitive that Apple won't allow you to sell your product, for free, in their store.
3) Again, and again, and again (and again), to argue that the market leader (Spotify) is being harmed here is simply ridiculous. Spotify has grown their market dominance to an even greater degree SINCE the launch of Apple Music.

Spotify is simply taking advantage of your gullibility here.

Well there must be something in it if both US & European courts are looking at the in app purchase situation.
Why are you so mad about at a company taking on the richest company in the world?
And them wanting to offer an alternative payment option
How’s does that actually affect anyone.

 

[NEPOBABY]

Note:

Epic CEO and this Spotify CEO are not yelling at Tencent.

And Tencent is an actually monopoly with their tentacles everywhere, including in Reddit and Epic Games.

 

[Hails09]

You keep saying that Spotify has to increase their price because of Apple's fee. What's preventing Spotify from offering their service for the same price even with IAP? Nothing that I can see.

And for the record, you keep saying 30%, but that 30% is only for the first year and then drops to 15%.

It’s called squeezing your competition & that’s the issue because Apple Music might not have as much subscribers but they are backed by the richest company in the world. It was 30% at the time this started but I concede it’s 15% after but that’s not long came in.
This is all about 2 companies that want to make money.