Spotify on Apple's Response to App Store Dispute: 'Every Monopolist Will Suggest They Have Done Nothing Wrong'

[Gogeta-Blue]

Maybe if you pray really hard your wish will come true.

For me, I know better than to bet against Apple. They aren’t perfect, but there’s no way anything you mentioned is ever going to happen. Apple will be here for a long time....

fair enough, I'm not wishing them bad, I'm not a fortune teller but if they continue with this
you be surprise, just wait until another new company emerges and people get tired of apple prices
a new iPhone every year with minimal updates, same for iPads etc
abandoned their real pro users
let's see how much that long time will be
they might still be around but they won't be a trillion dollar company anymore

 

[Mendota]

What a bunch of straw man crap.

Everybody is going to subscriptions. So what? As long as the software is available on iOS, we win. Yes developers wish things were different. In any transaction each side wants more. But the fact remains that there are thousands of businesses that wouldn’t exist without the App Store. And without the App Store we’d be living in a Microsoft of the early 2000s world, still, with little in the way of software choice.

There is a lot of choice in Windows, so what you say there makes no sense. And developers are the fuel that runs the business. Software is what made the iPhone what it is. Otherwise we could just use flip phones. And funny you should say "So what" about subscriptions because many many people on these very forums have complained about subs such as Adobe's and use that as their reason for preferring Affinity. A lot of people seem to hate subscriptions and many don't like IAPs.

 

[prasand]

Could be pretty interesting when the world pivots to whatever is next..

I think you spend to much time on an Apple passionate website to see the reality. It's skewed your perspective to being anti-Apple, but in reality ...

the world pivoted away from Apple a long time ago.

In the corporate world, government, universities, and medical facilities are ruled by Microsoft, Google, Amazon, IBM, and Oracle. Servers are hosted by their datacenters, even Apple's servers are hosted by Microsoft Azure and Amazon. Governments, universities, corporate computers (hospitals included) mostly run Windows, even their phone systems and mobile phones are not dominated by Apple. So this is from an institutional level, what about individual? Most smart phone users are Android users, and Windows is dominating personal computers by a significant margin.

Apple does not have the enterprise integration, support, nor the influence on level anywhere near the big five. Nor does it even come close in foot soldiers. The only power they really have is over their own system. Yes, they have some social influence ... but that influence does not erase the fact that 80%+ of the world is Android. Apple has money, which as demonstrated in the prior paragraph does not inherently equate to power. The narrative is skewed, simply because this is a Apple-focused site. Perhaps if you stop visiting an Apple site where people are passionate about Apple, you'd be more aware of just how many anti-Apple people there are in the world.

 

[Mendota]

I think you spend to much time on an Apple passionate website to see the reality. It's skewed your perspective to being anti-Apple, but in reality ...

the world pivoted away from Apple a long time ago.

In the corporate world, government, and universities, it's ruled by Microsoft, Google, Amazon, IBM, and Oracle. Servers are hosted by their datacenters, even Apple's servers are hosted by Microsoft Azure and Amazon. Governments, universities, and corporate computers mostly run Windows, even their phone systems and mobile phones are not dominated by Apple. So this is from an institutional level, what about individual? Most smart phone users are Android users, and Windows is dominating personal computers by a significant margin.

Apple does not have the enterprise integration, support, nor the influence on level anywhere near the big five. Nor does it even come close in foot soldiers. The only power they really have is over their own system. Yes, they have some social influence ... but that influence does not erase the fact that 80%+ of the world is Android. Apple has money, which as demonstrated in the prior paragraph does not inherently equate to power. The narrative is skewed, simply because this is a Apple-focused site. Perhaps if you stop visiting an Apple site where people are passionate about Apple, you'd be more aware of just how many anti-Apple people there are in the world.

Well I am not anti Apple and the point is: They could be so much more. They have the money, but they lack the leadership. Tim Cook seems only able to do what has been done before and raise prices. They say they want the iPad Pro to be a pro device. Well to be a pro device you need premium and pro developers... And you are not going to get that with a 30% extortion fee, and telling developers they cannot charge for updates.

 

[macfacts]

Yeah, back in the boxed SW, B&M days, developers were probably lucky to get 30% after the publisher, distributors, retailers all took their cut. The App stores seemed like a gold mine, hence the initial gold rush to the App store. Now Spotify is calling them criminals for their cut.

Back in the day with boxed software, the dev/publisher had a choice of which store to sell in, choice of distributor to use, choice of CC payment processor, etc. With iOS apps, apple uses digital locks to force all devs to go thru apple.

People keep talking about percentages. That isnt important. It is the lack of choice for devs to choose which store to use. There needs to be the ability for devs to sell in alternative iOS app stores. Don't even bring up walled garden or malware. I don't see any malware on PS4 and there are many PS4 game stores.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Back in the day with boxed software, the dev/publisher had a choice of which store to sell in, choice of distributor to use, choice of CC payment processor, etc. With iOS apps, apple uses digital locks to force all devs to go thru apple.

People keep talking about percentages. That isnt important. It is the lack of choice for devs to choose which store to use. There needs to be the ability for devs to sell in alternative iOS app stores. Don't even bring up walled garden or malware. I don't see any malware on PS4 and there are many PS4 game stores.

And soon they might kill the Mac this way too!

 

[prasand]

Well I am not anti Apple and the point is: They could be so much more. They have the money, but they lack the leadership. Tim Cook seems only able to do what has been done before and raise prices. They say they want the iPad Pro to be a pro device. Well to be a pro device you need premium and pro developers... And you are not going to get that with a 30% extortion fee, and telling developers they cannot charge for updates.

I completely agree with you.

Tim isn't a visionary when it comes to products, he's only good at growing what exists (hence he's a supply chain guy). Steve was a futurist. Elon is similar in that sense. There are many ways that Apple could improve, but I think they squander their standing instead of actually capitalizing on it and being truly powerful / influential. Apple could be a true contender in the enterprise if they truly tried, but I don't think they really care about new business. Apple used to have actual physical servers that they sold, but now even their MacOS server software people forget it even exists. I mean, they are making moves towards being integrated in the medical world, but it's kind of moot when the majority of their machines are Windows and Android. Apple could make a serious push, but they don't.

*sighs*
[doublepost=1552797395][/doublepost]It's kind of like Scrooge McDuck, all that money just to swim in it, no real point to it. So instead they spend most of it, buying back their own company (stock buybacks). It's like spending money on yourself as you stare in the mirror, tossing dollars like you're your own stripper. "so sexy", Tim Cook says as he smears $100 bills over his well oiled body.

 

[fairuz]

One company doesn’t pay artists and the other keeps a hundred billion offshore...both are not saints to me.

Spotify does pay artists... what they're worth. And Apple charges Spotify what their App Store access is worth. Hundred billion $ offshore: idk the details, but yeah, there's likely a loophole being exploited, and I wouldn't be so pissed about this if Apple (and other big tech corps) didn't tell everyone they're only here to make the world a better place.
[doublepost=1552797835][/doublepost]

Back in the day with boxed software, the dev/publisher had a choice of which store to sell in, choice of distributor to use, choice of CC payment processor, etc. With iOS apps, apple uses digital locks to force all devs to go thru apple.

People keep talking about percentages. That isnt important. It is the lack of choice for devs to choose which store to use. There needs to be the ability for devs to sell in alternative iOS app stores. Don't even bring up walled garden or malware. I don't see any malware on PS4 and there are many PS4 game stores.

There's no PS4 malware because all the games require approval from whatever centralized authority. But yeah, there's still more choice for devs on that platform. But that's Sony's decision, and this is Apple's decision.

Btw, you can sideload apps onto the iPhone. It's just a crappy alternative.

 

[i-John]

This narrative about calling Apple a “monopoly” is just so wrong. The App Store is a platform with millions of apps, and there’s plenty of competition. If Apple made every app, they’d have a point.

They are a monopoly in the sense that you can't have your app on an Apple device unless you pay up. You can say that "it's their phone" or "it's their store" so it's their rules. Microsoft could have said the same thing with Windows and we see what happened there.
If you're a small platform, you can usually get away with the excuse of playing by whatever rules they want to put in place, but if your hardware/software is so engrained and used in society, you lose some of that right.
If you "force" a direct competitor into paying up or "leaving", it is in effect pushing out competition which can be seen as anti-competitive as you control the platform that both services sell their service.

 

[prasand]

They are a monopoly in the sense that you can't have your app on an Apple device unless you pay up. You can say that "it's their phone" or "it's their store" so it's their rules. Microsoft could have said the same thing with Windows and we see what happened there.
If you're a small platform, you can usually get away with the excuse of playing by whatever rules they want to put in place, but if your hardware/software is so engrained and used in society, you lose some of that right.
If you "force" a direct competitor into paying up or "leaving", it is in effect pushing out competition which can be seen as anti-competitive as you control the platform that both services sell their service.

How small do you have to be to be considered small? Is 13.7% versus Android's 86.1% (according to Gartner), small enough? Or maybe 13.22% versus Microsoft's 74.44% (according to StatCounter)?

 

[gavroche]

I'm curious why Apple has responded to spotify's complaint so fast. Faster than Apple's response to privacy bugs in iOS.

Apple's fast response shows me apple knows spotify's complaint is valid.

No Public fast response is not the same thing as no fast response. Just because you can't see any anything does not mean action isn't taking place behind the scenes. It's usually very beneficial to not call attention to bugs... especially those involving privacy or hacks.. you just invite bad elements to come test it... until a fix is ready.
and you really are suggesting there is correlation between fast response to a suit and guilt...?

 

[Michvuee]

People is saying Apple is right but then you realize the people who say that aren’t developers. That’s a yikes from me. Don’t forget Apple is also responding fast to this issue so they can suppress it and not give it enough traction by the mainstream media.

 

[cmaier]

People is saying Apple is right but then you realize the people who say that aren’t developers. That’s a yikes from me.

Apple is right.
I’m a developer. In fact, I have been since day one of the developer program.

 

[prasand]

People is saying Apple is right but then you realize the people who say that aren’t developers. That’s a yikes from me.

I'm an Apple developer since 2015, Web developer since 1999, and I believe Apple is right in some regards, wrong in others. I do not believe they are wrong for charging me 30%, but I do believe that after an app / company is established, and the app no longer needs Apple to increase their traffic, then Apple is entitled to a smaller share of the pie (15% is fine). I'd even argue, that unless Apple features my app, or gives it some kind of priority, then they are only entitled to the smaller piece (15%) of the pie. Still, I'm completely fine with paying 30% for the entire life of my apps, but I'm grateful for the dip to 15%. To me, 70% of iOS is more valuable than even if Google gave me 90% on Android, this is statistically true.

 

[Abazigal]

As does Spotify. Doesn't that poke a bunch of holes in Spotify's whiny argument?

The real issue is that Spotify's business model isn't sustainable to being with, 30% cut or no. They also have a free tier that is costing them money. Unlike companies like Microsoft or Adobe where it's a one-time fixed cost to update your software, regardless of how many subscribers you have.

 

[buckwheet]

The Microsoft store is free. Microsoft doesn't charge developers anything to put their software onto their store. Why can't Apple the so called trillion dollar company do the same? After all the third party developers are what make the platform. The company wouldn't be where it is today without third party support.

Uh... no, it's not free. Unless you mean it's free to put something up there, then sure. But the App Store is free as well (beyond the cost of the Developer membership). From what I've just read, both Windows and Google charge 30% for their stores. Could be outdated info, since it was just a quick Google search, but it wouldn't be surprising if the base model is the same...

 

[prasand]

The real issue is that Spotify's business model isn't sustainable to being with, 30% cut or no. They also have a free tier that is costing them money. Unlike companies like Microsoft or Adobe where it's a one-time fixed cost to update your software, regardless of how many subscribers you have.

Maybe it wasn't such a good idea for Spotify to become a publicly traded company, but it seems they wanted the influx of capital from investors. Just to end up publicly reporting the reality that their net profit / worth was negative last quarter. -$88,650,000 to be precise. There's no way it's sustainable, but every little bit helps I guess.

 

[B4U]

"every monopolist will suggest they have done nothing wrong"

hm...

Sounds like someone can give them a taste of their own medicine by saying "every rule breaker will suggest they have done nothing wrong"?

 

[Abazigal]

Maybe it wasn't such a good idea for Spotify to become a publicly traded company, but it seems they wanted the influx of capital from investors. Just to end up publicly reporting the reality that their net profit / worth was negative last quarter. -$88,650,000 to be precise. There's no way it's sustainable, but every little bit helps I guess.

Spotify clearly needed the capital back then, but the underlying problem still remains - Spotify still doesn't have a clear path to sustainability.

I see only a couple of ways forward for Spotify if they hope to eventually make a profit and continue to stay around in the near future. Add more (paying) subscribers (and not the $1 for 3 months kind), and negotiate new content deals with the record companies which will allow them to pay out less. For example, if Spotify ever reaches a critical mass where it becomes "too big to fail", Spotify could use that as leverage to force record companies into accepting less money, or risk losing their entire share of the pie if Spotify ever collapses.

The downside of course is that artistes could end up receiving even less money than the pittance they are already getting. Remind me again how Spotify is supposedly the "good guy" here?

The other option seems to be to get into podcasting. My guess is that more time spent listening to podcasts means less time listening to music, which should mean less money paid out. Nevertheless, I have no desire to see podcasts being locked behind a paywall.

Third is to see itself merging with a video-streaming company such as Netflix (Spotify simply doesn't have the funds to launch their own video streaming service), or be acquired by another tech company who doesn't yet have their own music streaming service (Microsoft? Samsung?).

It's times like this that I wonder if Spotify is a sick dog that needs to be put down. They have effectively poisoned the well by driving the costs of music so low that $10 a month for buffet-style, all-you-can-listen music is now considered the norm, to the point that nobody is willing to pay for music anymore. And to top it all off, Spotify itself still isn't profitable, so it's just one giant race to the bottom where everyone loses.

I suspect moving forward, the only companies who can continue to offer such services are giants like Apple, Amazon and Google who don't need said service to be profitable, and can afford to subsidise it indefinitely using revenue from elsewhere.

I think I am starting to understand better Spotify's motivations behind wanting to sue Apple. It's desperation, and I can safely and confidently say that it's not going to change a single thing for Spotify.

 

[hayden-scott]

“Every free-rider will suggest they have done nothing wrong and will argue that they have the best interests of competitors and consumers at heart.”

 

[turbineseaplane]

I think I am starting to understand better Spotify's motivations behind wanting to sue Apple.

They aren't "wanting to sue Apple"

https://www.macrumors.com/2019/03/13/spotify-files-complaint-vs-apple-in-europe/

I can safely and confidently say that it's not going to change a single thing for Spotify.

See above link - we'll see..

 

[WatchFromAfar]

Spotify sees the writing on the wall. Apple is disrupting Spotify’s defacto monopoly on speakers by offering Apple Music built in.

Until recently, when someone purchased a connected speaker, Spotify was the only real choice even for iPhone users because Apple Music wasn’t offered. Apple Music is now spreading to these speakers so that people have a real choice and Spotify is scared.

What are you talking about? "offering Apple Music built in" the ONLY thing with Apple music built in is the Homepod (boy that's a success) Spotify is the only choice? OKay so no Google music, no Amazon prime, soundcloud, Tidal, Deezer etc you're talking non-sense.

 

[fairuz]

Lol, I just looked at Spotify's https://www.timetoplayfair.com website MacRumors linked. Includes a 2:17 animated video personifying Apple as crooks and says under the "fast facts" section that Apple is breaking the law.

 

[Mendota]

Uh... no, it's not free. Unless you mean it's free to put something up there, then sure. But the App Store is free as well (beyond the cost of the Developer membership). From what I've just read, both Windows and Google charge 30% for their stores. Could be outdated info, since it was just a quick Google search, but it wouldn't be surprising if the base model is the same...

This is straight from Microsoft to developers:

A better revenue share for developers
Starting later this year, consumer applications (not including games) sold in Microsoft Store will deliver to developers 95% of the revenue earned from the purchase of your application or any in-app products in your application, when a customer uses a deep link to get to and purchase your application. When Microsoft delivers you a customer through any other method, such as in a collection on Microsoft Store or any other owned Microsoft properties, and purchases your application, you will receive 85% of the revenue earned from the purchase of your application or any in-app products in your application

The new fee structure is applicable to purchases made on Windows 10 PC, Windows Mixed Reality, Windows 10 Mobile and Surface Hub devices and excludes purchases on Xbox consoles.

 

[Wiesenlooser]

This deserves to be quoted and repeated throughout this thread:



Apple isn't barring Spotify from its platform. Heck, Apple's not even charging them anything to be there. Spotify is on the App Store, accessible to iOS users and using Apple's servers entirely for free.

However, Apple has every right to take a cut of revenue Spotify generates using Apple's own iOS resources. If they're not happy with that, they're welcome to generate that revenue outside of the App Store. Nobody is stopping them.

Literally any monopolist can argue the same way.
[doublepost=1552805745][/doublepost]

I'm sure Spotify would have a huge chunk of revenue from iOS sign ups if it weren't for the 30%, but it's also highly possible that their company won't go bankrupt if they pulled their iOS app completely and lived off of Windows/Android alone. I'd guess that most of their signups have been done through web regardless.

Windows is basically dead on mobile platforms. if 2 companies control the market, we have an antitrust situation.