Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
The Spotify guy talks about it as if iOS is the only platform in the world!
At the end of the day iOS has cost billions to develop. Apple's ad fee's alone are in the billion dollars as year. They have taken numerous risks on that platform that others have laughed at (no headphone socket, walled garden etc..) so they have taken considerable risk. All of this needs to be compensated for.

You can't spend billions and billions of dollars building a customer base, an OS with api's etc.. so that anyone can sit on that platform and make money from your hard work. Hell no!

People need to remember that Windows is a paid for product. Android is paid for via its search business etc.. And even then there are multiple OEM's sharing the burden of creating these platforms. Apple is on its own. If something doesn't work (HomePods etc..) they eat the cost. Thats the risk of doing business.

Spotify seem to imply there is no risk to Apple doing business. As if the platform just exists out of thin air for everyone to make money off it. Just like any physical store, people spent money to build it, to advertise it, and get people into the store. No store on earth says go and buy this shirt next door where its cheaper.

At the end of the day, if 30% is too high then developers will move elsewhere and innovate on other platforms. Nothing is stopping them. There is no need to legislate where there is no monopoly. Let the market decide, just as we have always done.
Those supposed billions that you talk about came from you and I spending our money on iPhones. There is a monopoly and the US Government has stated so already. It's a question of what remedies are going to be put in place.
 
Obviously, yes. It’s not like they can easily replicate the iPhone success.
They may not be able to replicate it but let's not forget the Apple introduced the iPhone in an already crowded cellular market. They had Nokia, Samsung, Sony, etc to compete with. Apple knew the right type of phone that was missing from the bunch. That's Spotify's problem if they are too stupid to know how make a winning product.
 
"urgent, narrowly tailored updates"
Ahh, I’ve been speaking about this recently. NARROWLY TAILORED which, translated means “We want to use their platform for free, but please be careful not to extend this generally to ALL platforms because we don’t want Tidal or Apple to use OUR platform. If you could put some wording in there that the company name it’s targeted towards is 5 letters and starts with “A”, that’d be great.”
 
This is what Steve Jobs said about the App Store in 2008:
F8C872F1-A99E-4F39-AA3D-984DA0E4F738.jpeg
It’s obvious that Apple no longer needs 30% of digital purchases/subscriptions to cover the cost of running the App Store. It’s a profit center under Tim Cook. Hardware growth slowed and Tim Cook needed to find revenue growth somewhere. Now Wall Street expects services to keep growing. Also App Store under Phil Schiller is much more about the company believing it deserve a cut of someone else’s business because they created the platform. Except when that someone is big enough and might threaten to leave…then Apple creates a whole new app category for them so they can get around paying the 30%…even if it means a slightly worse experience for consumers (like not being able to buy books in the Kindle app). If Apple deserves 30% then does my ISP or cellular provider too? How much can you do on an iOS device without an internet connection? And how much would you pay for an iPhone if the only apps available were Apple’s first party apps? And if it really is about the cost of running the App Store aren’t there better ways of charging for that? The majority of the most downloaded iOS apps are free to download and if you can live with ads free to use. How much are Facebook and Google contributing to the cost of running the App Store when all their apps are “free”?
 
Spotify - whining instead of innovating... if you’d provide some differentiated value to Apple Music that would justify higher price people would do pay it. You don’t so it’s back to kindergarten whining
 
  • Like
Reactions: nrose101
Well, maybe Apple should go ahead and announce that they're taking a 30% cut from their own subscriptions as well. It wouldn't matter since the money would be go right back to them, but at least it'd shut people like Spotify and Epic up.

Can't be anticompetitive if we're taking a 30% cut too from all Apple Music and iCloud subscriptions amirite!
OK but then they’d have to raise the price of an Apple Music subscription by 30%.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1258186
Apple's "ability to strangle its competitors is unprecedented."
“Especially after you willingly wrap Apple’s fingers around your neck then, using your hands outside their hands, squeeze REAAAALLY hard. No one has allowed you to make them strangle you quite like Apple.”
 
Spotify - whining instead of innovating... if you’d provide some differentiated value to Apple Music that would justify higher price people would do pay it. You don’t so it’s back to kindergarten whining
Someone at the company looked up “winning” in the Spotify dictionary and, unfortunately read the definition for “whining” instead. :)
 
  • Like
  • Haha
Reactions: R2FX and WiseAJ
It's that "massive investment of money and time" that justifies Apple getting a cut.
Except Apple doesn’t take a cut of everything. If they deserve a cut because of the time and money they invest in iPhone/iOS then why doesn’t Uber have to pay them 30% of every transaction? Why does Apple allow reader apps which don’t require IAP?
 
Well, maybe Apple should go ahead and announce that they're taking a 30% cut from their own subscriptions as well. It wouldn't matter since the money would be go right back to them, but at least it'd shut people like Spotify and Epic up.

Can't be anticompetitive if we're taking a 30% cut too from all Apple Music and iCloud subscriptions amirite!
To that point, Apple could spin off its iOS app dev as a subsidiary and then charge the subsidiary the same fees as other devs. I think the whole argument by Epic and others is a waste of time. Apple does not do dominate the smart phone market. these devs just don't want to deal with the rules they agreed to. Funny, they don't go after Sony which only allows the PlayStation store. Is Sony not a monopoly? By the definition of these devs, it must be.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.