Spotify Files Complaint Against Apple With European Regulators Over 'Unfair' App Store Practices

[BuffaloTF]

Microsoft own their OS, they make the rules, if they want to ban mac stuff they should be allowed to. Try asking them how just bundling internet explorer went for them.

This is a really, really poor analogy.

They did this during a time when people had to literally BUY internet browsers. Yeah, Netscape and Internet-in-a-Box and the like all required you to physically go to a store and purchase them -- as one of their names alludes to, in a box.

IE came in, already there, for free. They killed Netscape entirely with that -- and Netscape would then hand their web browser development to the open-source community, specifically some random company called Mozilla who would later turn it all into something I'm sure nobody has ever heard of called Firefox which, they say, we all allegedly benefited from -- and in short order, all browsers became free.

These are 2 services that both have costs associated with them to use them. They're offered at par. They also don't exist on a platform with the size or scale to kill the other as Microsoft near-instantly did to Netscape with their, at the time, superior IE 4.0.

 

[truthertech]

I still don't understand why I cannot use Siri to play Spotify. Or on the HomePod.
While I love iOS, I hate that Apple is intentionally damaging their user base experience for those who chose to use a competitor product instead of their own.
Remember Apple, developers are the one who made you to what you are today. If they all pull out, you have nothing left.

Yes, the developers who have gotten over a $100 Billion dollars from the App store, and 99.99% couldn't exist without the App store that brings them a billion world wide customers, and builds, markets and maintains a platform at a cost of billions of dollars a year, are going to flee.
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95%? Sounds like an exaggeration. These services don't have THAT much of a difference in terms of what's licensed for streaming. It's always going to be less than what you can buy as a digital download, and digital downloads are always going to be less than what you can find on physical media.

Apple is available in more countries and has a much larger music catalog, not in terms of the most popular songs, but in the overall catalog they have millions more.

 

[brandscill]

Everyone calling Apple generous for hosting apps for free and providing infrastructure for payment processing are kidding themselves. Without the apps nobody would be buying the iPhone. Sure, apple should take a cut for any payment processing they do - and if developers want to use Apple and the cut is 30% then fine. What Apple shouldn't do is block any alternative payment processing from the apps themselves.

 

[linuxcooldude]

For free? What are you thinking, buddy? A basic Apple Developer Program (which allows you to publish apps) costs $99/year.

I don't think thats what the poster meant. He didn't mention putting a free app in the store without cost. But rather putting an app that makes money on a monthly subscription won't be without cost.

 

[truthertech]

Kinda wish Apple would allow the App Store to be an App "Mall." Use the one app, but allow it to link to other app stores/repositories. When adding/using a 3rd party store, maybe add a warning along the lines of "Apple can not be held responsible for the content of this store. Use at your own risk." These other stores could have apps that Apple would normally not accept, like gambling and porn. I admit, it's funny that so many of these apps (and TV shows) can show violent gun fights, gory autopsy scenes, etc., but heaven forbid you show a breast or a penis.

You've got all the porn you want on the web that you can access with any device; don't know why you think Apple should host porn apps.

 

[flakk-jakket]

Apple will probably lose this because they have a competing service.

Just my thought

 

[mrow]

Everyone calling Apple generous for hosting apps for free and providing infrastructure for payment processing are kidding themselves. Without the apps nobody would be buying the iPhone. Sure, apple should take a cut for any payment processing they do - and if developers want to use Apple and the cut is 30% then fine. What Apple shouldn't do is block any alternative payment processing from the apps themselves.

Whether Apple should, or shouldn’t, do that is a matter of opinion. Whether they can do it is separate matter. Because Apple does not have a dominant position in the smart phone market they can do that because consumers and developers have an alternative. Spotify is saying “we want access to Apple’s platform and customers but we want to dictate the terms.”

 

[inkswamp]

But I guess it's okay for Spotify to be referee and player in the music business where their payouts to artists have been questioned in the same way they're questioning Apple's business practices. Hmmm... sensing a little double-standard here in their argument. Which way would they like things to be?

Sure... How is that going to work? Apple don't allow side loading of iOS apps, unless you have the source code.

Does the term "walled garden" mean anything to you??!!!

:-\

The iOS platform has robust (albeit largely untapped) support for webapps, and Spotify has shown that they are capable of delivering their service through the web as well as via applications. They can "side load" their service by delivering it as a webapp. They are not trapped in any walled garden despite that perception.

One of my favorite weather apps is a webapp. https://darksky.net/forecast/40.7127,-74.0059/us12/en

Tell me how Spotify couldn't do it this way.

They want to take all the advantages of Apple's platform without paying for it.

 

[inhalexhale1]

The App Store is barely 5% of Apple revenues, and Apple was around and successful well before the App Store existed. And there are also tens of thousands of people working at Apple are at least partially responsible for making the App Store a reality.

So no, developers are not the ones who made Apple what they are today.

That’s a pretty weak argument. No developers = no apps, and the allure of all iOS devices becomes what? Safari, pages, and game center? The entire experience of the iPhone hardware are the apps we use to get the most out of it.

 

[Rogifan]

If it’s right for Apple to make money off of Spotify subscriptions then why doesn’t Apple take a cut of a Uber and Lyft transactions? Neither of those companies would exist without smartphone platforms.

 

[bladerunner2000]

Seems pretty fair. Apple forces all app developers to do payments/upgrades of apps through the App Store, which puts 30% of that into Apples pocket. This percent alone is pretty standard. The problem is that Apple doesn’t allow the app to link to an external payment service which forced Spotify to remove that feature outright less they up the price (and be unable to match Apple Music) or require a non-iOS device to manage payment. This seems pretty against EU regulations and judging by current pending cases Apple will budge.

Conclusion: Apple is trash.

 

[JetTester]

Well, this is a real issue when you are competing against the company that owns the app store. However, they charge all developers 30%, so what makes Spotify special? How to solve? Maybe force Apple to pay the 30% fee, and bookkeep it as a separate entity, or some such thing. Or divest their software sales into a separate company. It's complicated, for sure.

 

[grimwanderer]

Apple Music sucks IMHO, spotify is way better. The simple fact you're cheering for getting ripped off... You paid for the phone, but you're fine with Apple stifling competition that would give you cheaper services.

Should your ISP get 30% off Apples revenue? If Apple doesn't like it, they can launch their own network right?

MS got fined for pushing Internet Explorer over others and in their case you could install the competition, in Apple's case you can't even do that.

Here again (as others have pointed out and even the press release acknowledges) Apple doesn't REQUIRE Spotify or other developers to have Apple collect payments for them. But if Apple is in charge of billing / payments / collections, then they deserve part of the revenues. Spotify could just choose to not to go through Apple for these services (as they do, I assume, on other platforms).

Example: As an old-fashioned nerd, I used to use Comixology to purchase comic books / graphic novels and the like. When that app was purchased (by Google or Amazon if I remember right), they removed sales via the app and you had to go to their website for sales (which would then download to the app)... thus avoiding the 30% Apple Store fee. Spotify could do the same. Inconvenient? Sure. But they are piggy backing on someone else's platform and don't want to pay. To quote Ursula from The Little Mermaid: Life is full of tough choices, innit?

As for their complaints about not having access to HomePod / Apple Watch / etc.... if their product is (as they presumably believe) superior to AppleMusic, the market will decide by limiting success of those products. The market will punish Apple by not buying its products.

(As a tangent, HomePod is allegedly not selling to expectations. Admittedly people said this about the Apple Watch as well... but it, by all accounts I've seen, is the best selling smart watch on the market.)

 

[coolfactor]

Apple created the platform, so I do agree they deserve something from Spotify leveraging that platform.

There should not be any "restrictions" placed on Spotify, based on where people subscribe.

I do agree 30% is too high, even if it's only the first year.

 

[grimwanderer]

Yes but their problem isn't that they can simply charge membership outside the app, the problem is that by having to do that, they are saying Apple is therefore punishing them by not allowing Spotify to play through the watch and Homepod, and otherwise minimizing their existence in the Apple ecosystem.

I'm not necessarily agreeing with Spotify here though. Understanding that streaming Spotify through a Homepod requires some sort of agreement with Apple, I would think (perhaps naively) that Spotify and Apple could craft a homepod-streaming agreement that has nothing to do with signing up through the app, without having to sue in order to get there.

I think the majority of the reason why Apple created HomePod was to push AppleMusic subscriptions. To force them to allow competitors onto something they specifically created for their own internal systems would not (in my mind) make sense.

 

[lazard]

If it’s right for Apple to make money off of Spotify subscriptions then why doesn’t Apple take a cut of a Uber and Lyft transactions? Neither of those companies would exist without smartphone platforms.

Because they can't charge their apple tax for external services

 

[henrikhelmers]

The App Store is barely 5% of Apple revenues, and Apple was around and successful well before the App Store existed. [...] So no, developers are not the ones who made Apple what they are today.

That is a narrow view. Without the App Store, the value of the iPhone would be much lower.

For me personally, the lack of RAW photo capture would have been a dealbreaker.

 

[mrow]

If it’s right for Apple to make money off of Spotify subscriptions then why doesn’t Apple take a cut of a Uber and Lyft transactions? Neither of those companies would exist without smartphone platforms.

Because the service you are purchasing exists outside of the app. The service you are buying is car service. It’s the same reason you can use Amazon or whatever retailers app to buy a pair of socks. The product you’re buying exists outside of the app. In Spotify’s case the service you are buying exists inside the app on Apple’s platform.

 

[decafjava]

Seems pretty fair. Apple forces all app developers to do payments/upgrades of apps through the App Store, which puts 30% of that into Apples pocket. This percent alone is pretty standard. The problem is that Apple doesn’t allow the app to link to an external payment service which forced Spotify to remove that feature outright less they up the price (and be unable to match Apple Music) or require a non-iOS device to manage payment. This seems pretty against EU regulations and judging by current pending cases Apple will budge.

Conclusion: Apple is trash.

Typical response, Apple is the only bad guy, never mind how Spotify is double-faced by screwing artists and complaining of getting screwed by Apple.

 

[bladerunner2000]

Typical response, Apple is the only bad guy, never mind how Spotify is double-faced by screwing artists and complaining of getting screwed by Apple.

Separate and unrelated issue. Why are you bringing it up?

 

[lazard]

Here again (as others have pointed out and even the press release acknowledges) Apple doesn't REQUIRE Spotify or other developers to have Apple collect payments for them. But if Apple is in charge of billing / payments / collections, then they deserve part of the revenues. Spotify could just choose to not to go through Apple for these services (as they do, I assume, on other platforms).

Example: As an old-fashioned nerd, I used to use Comixology to purchase comic books / graphic novels and the like. When that app was purchased (by Google or Amazon if I remember right), they removed sales via the app and you had to go to their website for sales (which would then download to the app)... thus avoiding the 30% Apple Store fee. Spotify could do the same. Inconvenient? Sure. But they are piggy backing on someone else's platform and don't want to pay. To quote Ursula from The Little Mermaid: Life is full of tough choices, innit?

As for their complaints about not having access to HomePod / Apple Watch / etc.... if their product is (as they presumably believe) superior to AppleMusic, the market will decide by limiting success of those products. The market will punish Apple by not buying its products.

(As a tangent, HomePod is allegedly not selling to expectations. Admittedly people said this about the Apple Watch as well... but it, by all accounts I've seen, is the best selling smart watch on the market.)

if Spotify chooses not to collect payments via the App Store, Ek notes that Apple "applies a series of technical and experience-limiting restrictions" on the company. Over time, this has also included "locking Spotify and other competitors out of Apple services such as Siri, HomePod, and Apple Watch."

 

[Stella]

Yes, they could go the web app route, but if they want a native app - it's a walled garden, period.

Web apps have their limitations vs Native apps and may not provide good enough user experience. Spotify may or may not have already explored this option.

The iOS platform has robust (albeit largely untapped) support for webapps, and Spotify has shown that they are capable of delivering their service through the web as well as via applications. They can "side load" their service by delivering it as a webapp. They are not trapped in any walled garden despite that perception.

 

[fonzy91]

I want to be at your party, take advantage of all the people there and your infrastructure, but I don't like your ticket fee, I want to get in for free.
LOL

 

[GuruZac]

1. Spotify can do their own marketing and drive business to their site and sign customers themselves. If they did this they would owe Apple nothing and Apple would host the app for free like billions of other free apps. The problem is Spotify wants their cake and to eat it too. They want to benefit from Apple using their money to drive usage while paying nothing. Apple hosts payments, handles disputes and manages the subscription for a standard subscription rate.
2. Once again if Spotify has the market power to draw customers their customers would pay through the them. Is they want the simplicity of Apple’s Payment management system they will pay for it. It’s like forcing Amazon to sell, process the payment, and deliver your product via their online store, but expect them to do it for free.
3. Apple customers buy Apple device because Apple protects them from rogue companies doing whatever. Since, they allow direct competitors current and future to have Apps they have the right to prevent competitors highjacking their platform to promote competing products. When was the last time you saw a Walmart Commercial playing on a TV on display in Target. You won’t because it would stupid for a business to do so.

Very cogent and I completely agree.

 

[rjohnstone]

Apple’s developer fee is to get you access to their platforms and they state as much when your sign up. The $99 fee being a fee to host your apps is an interpretation you made up on your own.

That $99 annual fee includes being able to host your apps in the App Store.
Not my "interpretation", it's a fact of the developer agreement.
https://developer.apple.com/programs/whats-included/
You cannot host your app in the App Store without this membership.

So yes... Spotify is already paying to be hosted in the App Store.