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

[PlayUltimate]

Anyone who feels the 30% is "fine" - "justified" - etc..

Is there a % cut Apple could get to where you'd have a problem with it?

Would 50% be ok?
What about 70%

Taking a look at general consignment stores, which is what the App Store somewhat resembles, the typical % that the store takes is 25 - 60%. (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/uloop/this-is-how-to-make-money_b_5423617.html)

For general retail, the average is 50% (https://www.shopify.com/blog/pricing-strategies)

Based on this, 30% seems quite reasonable.

 

[Glockworkorange]

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.

Great point---I didn't think about that connection, but there it is.

 

[LIVEFRMNYC]

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.

Probably the best post in this thread so far.

 

[Classie]

Everything that Apple said is true.
But 30%? Are you kidding me, even 15%?
I would think services like this would expect 1-5%. Apple is greedy, pure and simple.

Why should it be 1-5%? Who decides the value and the costs? Why not 8% or 13%. Is it a number that is close to 0 and therefor feels “fair”.

 

[WatchFromAfar]

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”.

"iOS App Store is what allows for the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of users"

Stop calling non-ios users idiots

"allowing piracy to run rampant, as well as exposing users to malware (like what is happening on the android side)"

Is that happening? you show me?

You know what another term for allowing anything is? FREEDOM. Seems you hate freedom and prefer some-one to take care of you.

 

[PlayUltimate]

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?

Poor analogy. Apple is more akin to a Consignment Store in which the owner of the store actually approves the items that are sold in his/her store. The store is basically the same for everyone. The percentage that is charged is laid out in the Terms and is consistent throughout the store. Where you see Apple bullying others, I do not know. Apple's 30% take (not profit) is relatively standard for this type of endeavor. Regarding competition: how many paid calendar apps are there that successfully compete with the free Apple Calendar? how many paid notes apps (Bear, Notability, Evernote) successfully compete with the free Apple Notes? How many paid To-Do apps (Things, Omnifocus) successfully compete with the free Apple Reminders? How many email apps, podcast apps, music apps, word processing, et al. all compete with native Apple apps? They all are subject to the same rules and some of them become successful.

Not sure where the idea of anti-trust is coming in unless it is only anti-trust for the Spotify app.

 

[Bytor65]

"iOS App Store is what allows for the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of users"

Stop calling non-ios users idiets

"allowing piracy to run rampant, as well as exposing users to malware (like what is happening on the android side)"

Is that happening? you show me?

Do I really need to Google that for you?

A big part of the reason the App store makes devs more moneys despite a smaller market share is that Android App piracy is rampant. There were even several pirate app stores to make Android piracy easier.

Certainly if you get your Android apps from pirate sources you are going to dramatically increase your chances of getting malware, but even the official Google Play store is routinely hosting malware in apps and rates multiple times higher than Apples app store because Google doesn't police it's store as close as Apple does.

 

[PlayUltimate]

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 ?

Disagree. Not even sure what would be gained. The 20M registered developers would suggest that the Apple iOS marketplace is both desirable and competitive. There are numerous apps that compete directly with Apple native apps and are arguably more successful. Take a look at Bear, Things, Omnifocus, Fantastical as just examples of apps that are successful in the App Store. To argue that Apple's curation process is unfair, biased, or arbitrary would appear disingenuous considering the number of apps that are currently on the store. Are there instances where there might be an issue? Of course. But all indications suggest that most developers are accepting of the rules that apply equally to everyone.

 

[Foggy82]

I believe Spotify will have hard times to prove Apple’s monopoly.

77% of the market is totally outside of iOS, Apple has 0 control (and I believe that’s where the majority of Spotify users are).
Of the 23% controlled by Apple, the App store is in competition with the Webpage of Spotify. No idea what the numbers are, but let’s say 50/50?

Not sure if Spotify ever released numbers:
- Free accounts,
- Paying accounts on iOS, and how they are paying,
- Paying accounts on Android, and how they are paying.
That would be interesting to see.

 

[Abazigal]

Stop calling non-ios users idiets

I never did. I am saying that it's a reality that most consumers wouldn't be very tech savvy, and the iOS App Store goes a long way towards removing a lot of the risk and complexity involved in finding and purchasing apps to use. Because there's only one App Store that's constantly being curated by Apple, it's a trusted source of software for users. All apps there have to abide by Apple's rules, which tend to be more strict when it comes to stuff like permissions, precisely because they can't offer their apps anywhere else. This again is good for consumers.

I don't have to worry about issues like Epic skirting the Google Play Store and introducing their own Installer for Fortnite, and potentially bringing who knows what other problems onto my device as well, or apps being cavalier with my data because there's no accountability on their end.

Apple will (for most part) keep them honest.

Is that happening? you show me?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/8twtvr/monument_valley_2_made_60_of_revenue_from_ios_and/

https://www.trustedreviews.com/news/monument-valley-made-5-8m-despite-high-piracy-rates-2921192

Only 5% of users actually paid for the app on Android. 80% of the revenue from Monument Valley came from iOS. You do the math.

In addition, here's a list of results I get when I google for "Ars Technica android malware".

https://arstechnica.com/information...used-phones-motion-sensors-to-conceal-itself/
https://arstechnica.com/information...e-with-never-before-seen-spying-capabilities/
https://arstechnica.com/information...-22-backdoored-apps-with-2-million-downloads/
https://arstechnica.com/information...mobile-malware-efforts-because-of-yolo-opsec/
https://arstechnica.com/information...to-infect-android-users-with-windows-malware/
https://arstechnica.com/information...lware-targets-android-users-of-two-companies/

All within the first page of search results.

You know what another term for alowing anything is? FREEDOM. Seems yo hate freedom and prefer some-one to take care of you.

I see freedom, like I see many things, as a means to an end. Not an end in itself.

I support democracy because that's what allows for the best standard of living in my book (never mind that pretty much every other form of government sucks in their own ways). That doesn't mean I have to extend my political view to every aspect of my life, right down to my choice of smartphone.

So with regards to my smartphone, while more options might sound better on paper, the problem then comes when the user isn't getting more of what he wants, but is instead being saddled with more issues to contend with.

So simplicity would be the key selling point for me, not freedom.

And the App Store allows just that for the consumer. Simplicity.

 

[WatchFromAfar]

Do I really need to Google that for you?

A big part of the reason the App store makes devs more moneys despite a smaller market share is that Android App piracy is rampant. There were even several pirate app stores to make Android piracy easier.

Certainly if you get your Android apps from pirate sources you are going to dramatically increase your chances of getting malware, but even the official Google Play store is routinely hosting malware in apps and rates multiple times higher than Apples app store because Google doesn't police it's store as close as Apple does.

Non-sense; Android is based on Linux, a unix OS, macOS and iOS are based on freeBSD, a unix OS. Why is one better again?

 

[Heineken]

Non-sense; Android is based on Linux, a unix OS, macOS and iOS are based on freeBSD, a unix OS. Why is one better again?

Linux is Unix like OS. There is a difference.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix-like

 

[Bytor65]

Non-sense; Android is based on Linux, a unix OS, macOS and iOS are based on freeBSD, a unix OS. Why is one better again?

Nice attempt to move the goalposts. This isn't about the OS technology, it's about the App Store policies.

Apples is more controlled with less piracy and malware, and that benefits both consumers and developers.

 

[Abazigal]

Non-sense; Android is based on Linux, a unix OS, macOS and iOS are based on freeBSD, a unix OS. Why is one better again?

Because one company actually bothers to spend resources tending to their garden, while the other company just kinda allows it to rot.

 

[Heineken]

Because one company actually bothers to spend resources tending to their garden, while the other company just kinda allows it to rot.

And calls it a choice.

 

[lazard]

Reading the responses on here...truly the cult of Apple. They can do no wrong.

 

[Heineken]

Reading the responses on here...truly the cult of Apple. They can do no wrong.

Because they didn't. Spotify wants to do business in someone else's store and pay nothing for it. If you can't grasp that you have bigger problems.

 

[Bytor65]

Reading the responses on here...truly the cult of Apple. They can do no wrong.

Like with spotify, how about some evidence instead of whining.

 

[jlc1978]

Way to miss the point. The point is that you have to go through Apple to put an app on iOS. You don't for OSX & Window.

Requiring iPhone Apps be marketed via the App store doe not make Apple a monopoly. There are plenty of alternative distribution models and Apple does not have the ability to dictate prices across the entire market.

 

[Shanghaichica]

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.

They were forced into it but there was quite a well profiled spat or maybe a PR campgain between Taylor Swift and Apple and in the end Apple agreed to pay the artists more.

Because one company actually bothers to spend resources tending to their garden, while the other company just kinda allows it to rot.

I wouldn’t say it’s rotting just no curation. So many varieties are growing in the garden some flowers she some weeds.

 

[jlc1978]

Apple doesn't let anyone build Macs and sell them on the market. That's text-book Monopoly right there.

I think you misunderstand what monopoly means. Plenty of manufacturers do not let you make their products but that does not make them a monopoly since they have no market power. Apple cannot dictate prices in the PC market, as evidenced by Macs being priced at the high end while plenty of other options are sold for less.

 

[xXSHAWNXx420]

Its Apple that has the monopoly NOT spotify lol. Its like you didnt even read the article, because what you are saying is factually inaccurate based on this article. "If you wanted a connected speaker you had to buy spotify" wtf are you talking about, spotify doesnt make hardware let alone speakers. Apple is the monopoly hence being charged around the world with being a monopoly. Spotify is getting bent over with the nonsense apple is pulling.

 

[alex2792]

Funny how this complaint wasn’t filed in the US...

I'm pretty sure that Apple has already bribed, or "lobbied", all the politicians to create a "favorable business environment".

 

[redgreenski]

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?

Thank you!

 

[xXSHAWNXx420]

jlc1978, wtf are you talking about, the app store through the ios is a monopoly, there is NO other option to get an app on an apple product, thats the issue here, there are plenty of other distribution models? on ios there is ONLY 1, the app store. What you said is untrue and just stupid. Factually you are 100% wrong with your statement. There is only 1 way to get an app on an apple product, with apple forcing it that way and charging crazy prices is what literally makes it a monopoly. There is NO other option for people, hence this entire post about apple having a monopoly lol.