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Spotify on Apple's Response to App Store Dispute: 'Every Monopolist Will Suggest They Have Done Nothing Wrong'
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LOL, no, Apple is a business. Or do you work for the minimum wage no matter what your job is?
You think it’s free to run the App Store, develop the iOS platform, etc?
When morons make fun of Apple and praise 4000 mAh batteries as innovation, APp
But it’s not apples fault or problem. They have an ecosystem that they worked hard for years to create.
Apple is hardly a monopoly. They only control ~20% of cell phone market, probably much less in Europe. How is that monopoly?
Your info (apple pays more than spotify) is based on one person's estimate from a rolling Stones article. Could be easily described as fake news.
I'm certainly nobody that matters, but them allowing Apple Music on other platforms is a masterclass of good business decisions in my opinion. This should have many music streaming services freaking out.
I agree Apple doesn't have a monopoly on hamburgers, but who is talking about hamburgers? The market share of issue isn't hamburgers. It also isn't about smartphone market share.
The important issue is the market share of ios app stores and apple has on 100% share of iOS app stores.
Why should apple be able to have a monopoly on iOS app stores? Should MS be able to have a monopoly on Xbox game stores?
As you said, it doesn’t work like this in reality.
What Spotify pays out to artistes and record labels is independent of what it earns. It still pays out 70% regardless of whether Apple gets its cut or not.
Even if Apple waived its share of the revenue, that money still won’t be going to the artistes either way. If anything, Spotify will be trying every trick in the book to pay them even less, because that’s the only way they can ever be profitable.
Apple is not the enemy here.
Say I open my own grocery store. Why shouldn’t I be allowed to decide what I want to sell (and what not to sell) in my own shop, as well as the prices to charge?
As a small minority player there is no limit for me. Both 0% or 100% are fine by me. They can even charge more than 100% for all that I care.
Right now you can pay $90 and get $100 in your AppStore account. If you bought a subscription for Spotify, with your suggestion Apple would be $99 to $95 to Spotify and charge you $90. Yeah, greed.
Spotify is being silly here. There are different ways to sell subscriptions, and Netflix for example read the AppStore rules carefully, and decided to sell subscriptions through their website. All the money is 100% theirs. Spotify can do exactly the same. Apple pays out 70% (85% after a year) if you sell subscriptions _through the App Store_. Spotify can sell through their website instead.
"Services like this would expect 1-5%". Frankly you don't have a clue. Go to your supermarket, and there is nothing with less than 50% markup. Go to a concert, and see how much you are charged on top of what the band receives.
If you buy a $100 gift card from a retailer, Apple gets some amount less than $100 from the retailer (because the retailer isn't doing work for Apple for free). If you get a 20% discount, the store gets $80 minus card charges. I don't think Apple does these promotions, so Apple will get the same amount as usual. The store will do this to get customers into their store, I can't say whether they will make a tiny amount of profit, no profit, or a small loss from that sale. You may guess that the store isn't selling at a $10 loss, so Apple would get some amount probably less than $90.
Does anyone disagree with my long term view that sooner or later, Apple's total control over the app store will be broken by legal decisions?
Be this 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years..... It will happen.
At some point in time, perhaps due to marketplace size, or just views on what a consumer should be able to do with a product they own, something will change.
Perhaps having a non Apple app store, or something else.
I know strong Apple loyal fans would disagree with this being the right thing do do, but, as I said, I think something like this is inevitable eventually.
Yes, No ?
Be this 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years..... It will happen.
At some point in time, perhaps due to marketplace size, or just views on what a consumer should be able to do with a product they own, something will change.
Perhaps having a non Apple app store, or something else.
I know strong Apple loyal fans would disagree with this being the right thing do do, but, as I said, I think something like this is inevitable eventually.
Yes, No ?
Guess what: Spotify can just sell their subscriptions through their own website. I've never worked at a place that didn't work that way.
That tiny market share can destroy Spotify?
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Non Apple app store? You want iOS to be flooded with viruses, malwares, trojan?
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Non Apple app store? You want iOS to be flooded with viruses, malwares, trojan?
Sure, but that’s not the issue. You opened a mall, in that mall you (at least you say so) allow anybody to sell their goods. Now you open your own grocery store within that mall, and immediately start bullying the other grocery store in your mall - you raise their rent, maybe don’t fix stuff that break as fast as with your own grocery store and you lower the rent to 0 for your own grocery store. You are etffectivly preventing the other grocery store from competing fairly with you. This is very basic anti-trust (mis)behaving and the fact you think this is about individual grocery stores and not basic access to open competing “grocery stores” indicates that you don’t understand anti-tust behavior or are just shilling for Apple, so wich is it?
They can do exactly that. I haven't looked at what Amazon does, but Netflix does exactly that, the previous company I worked for did a mix (so we got a bit less money from in-app subscriptions and a bit more from website subscriptions), and my current company charges individual customers _a lot_ without handing a penny to Apple.
I see those comparisons here a lot I wonder if the people making them really do not know how classic retail works?
There is no reason whatsoever, and I think it would get Apple into legal trouble. Spotify doesn't _want_ to pay, but they pay (actually they have no choice, because the customer hands money to Apple, and Apple hands 70% or 85% of that to Spotify).
Spotify could create an app that violates the AppStore rules, then it would be rejected, modified by Spotify, and accepted. Customers wouldn't notice this, because when a new version is rejected, the old one just stays in place.
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You don't seem to know how business works.
There is one department at Apple creating Apple Music. Their boss gets a bonus if that department makes money, no bonus if it makes no money. When they calculate the profits of Apple Music, you can be sure that 30% or 15% of the subscription are subtracted from the Apple Music profits and added to the AppStore profits. And you can be sure that Apple's book keepers handle this absolutely correctly, and that the guys running the AppStore department get a bit bigger bonus because of the money they take from the Apple Music department.
If Spotify claims Apple is acting in an anti-competitive way, I'm sure they can get the loss/profit calculation of Apple Music, and if Apple runs Apple Music at a loss _after paying the same subscription fees as Spotify_, they might have a point. (Say Apple Music gets $100m in subscriptions, makes $20m in profit _before_ subtracting AppStore fees and $10m loss _after_ subtracting AppStore fees).
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All PS4 games are approved by Sony and Sony gets their cut (~30%) regardless of where they are sold so it just as much a walled garden as the App store.
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Spotify's unsustainable business model is NOT Apples problem. Apple is in no way obligated to bend over bacwards to make Spotify's business more sustainable.
What, you mean like MacBooks, iMac's and Mac Pro's are?
As you know they are not. Why would you think a second, non Apple app store would be?
As I said, I'm sure sooner or later something will have to "give"
I'm not sure what, but something will.
People looking out for rights of consumers, will at some point step in and force a change I'm sure.
I disagree with your analogy.
I would argue that Apple is operating the equivalent of a grocery store here. The goods on the shelves are akin to the apps offered by the various developers. Apple can decide where to place each item and in the process, choose which gets more exposure.
When you buy something in a grocery store, the owner gets to decide how you pay. The owner can even go so far as to promote their own household brands (say herbal tea they brewed at home), because why not? It’s their store, their rules.
That you have access to just one grocery store is besides the point, because you chose to live in that area knowing very well you would be served by just that one store (ie: users knew what they were getting into when they purchased an iPhone and entered the Apple ecosystem).
If you don’t like it, you are free to move somewhere else (ie: switch to android) where you might enjoy more choice.
It’s Spotify here who wants to turn this into a mall. There, spotify would have its own outlet where they are free to sell whatever they want, however they want, and can decide which payment methods to use. The rental would basically be the $99 a year developer fee, but otherwise, the landlord doesn’t get a cut.
Which goes against everything that makes the iOS App Store great in the first place.
Those two companies are trying to make as much money as possible (as almost any other company in the world). Let the courts decide which one is wrong and which one is right. It’s not like they’re going to pass the benefits on to their workers, the artists or their customers.
You may want to google up how many Macs are currently infected with this app called Mackeeper.
I will argue that the iOS App Store is what allows for the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of users (bearing in mind that the majority of these users are not tech savvy to begin with). I am not sure how allowing piracy to run rampant, as well as exposing users to malware (like what is happening on the android side) is “looking out for the rights of consumers”.