Spotify on iOS to Bring Back In-App Purchases, Beta Code Suggests [Updated]

[heeroyuigo]

Currently there are already products (cd, dvd, bag, hoodies,…) on artist pages or an entire section in Spotify, but payment is sent on the web version (shop.spotify.com).

And then its partnerships with concert ticket sellers, with in-app payments (currently external links, ex. eplus in Japan).

Spotify would receive a percentage of ticket sales.

artiste :

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ibb.co

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Section :

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Tickets :

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ibb.co

 

[gatorvet96]

Here's a quick rundown of the top global streaming services by their percentage of market share:

• Spotify: 31%
• Apple Music: 15%
• Amazon Music: 13%
• Tencent Music: 13%
• YouTube Music: 8%

They do pay their artists, btw.

They pay their artists quite a bit less per play than Apple Music does. Though Youtube Music and Pandora are even worse.

Tidal	$0.01284
Apple Music	$0.008
Amazon Music	$0.00402
Spotify	$0.00318
YouTube Music	$0.002
Pandora	$0.00133
Deezer	$0.0011

Source: https://virpp.com/hello/music-streaming-payouts-comparison-a-guide-for-musicians/

 

[gund1234]

Funny how Apple will let you host your free app but let you pay for subscriptions outside the app store

Commenters would have you believe Apple will go bankrupt without their 30% cut

Apple wont go bankrupt if they give away free iPhone 15 Pro max for one year, that doesn't mean that they should do it.
Apple is a business, not a charity.
Tim Cook's goal is to maximize shareholders value, make more money.

 

[gund1234]

What you're doing with playstation is the same as shopping online. When you buy content from Sony Interactive Entertainment it's downloading and being played on your Playstation. This might have something to do with the difference in policy/process. Apple doesn't allow companies like Spotify to collect payment methods in app.

When you download a game on PS are you paying Sony or the game developer ?

 

[missingar]

When you download a game on PS are you paying Sony or the game developer ?

Both. Just like when you buy something from a retail store - you are paying the store and whoever produced the product. Apple allows this. But what is the point of your question?

 

[Bawstun]

Funny how Apple will let you host your free app but let you pay for subscriptions outside the app store

Commenters would have you believe Apple will go bankrupt without their 30% cut

It’s odd that anyone would think Apple deserves 30% of a subscription-based service. Maybe there should be a different percentage worked out for subscriptions.

 

[missingar]

It’s odd that anyone would think Apple deserves 30% of a subscription-based service. Maybe there should be a different percentage worked out for subscriptions.

There is. First Year: Proceeds to creators are calculated at 70% during a subscriber's first year. After One Year: Proceeds to creators are calculated at 85% after a subscriber's first year.

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

good thing Spotify’s CEO Daniel Ek is worth 2.4 billion in stock options and bonuses... He’s definitely the guy to keep the company that’s never earned a profit ‘lean’

He probably could have sold 1% of his stock and kept those 1000 employees employed for their entire lives!!!

Oh yeah... Spotify stock jumped 17% on the news of layoffs... (which makes no sense since it will still make no money!!!!) Since the CEO has 2 billion in stock, he made 340 million dollars by firing those people.

Apple's 30% is not the problem and it certainly isn't a threat to the internet. Their greed is the problem.

Yeah, "Apple" and "Greed" are never used in the same sentence either, are they?

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

They pay their artists quite a bit less per play than Apple Music does. Though Youtube Music and Pandora are even worse.

Tidal	$0.01284
Apple Music	$0.008
Amazon Music	$0.00402
Spotify	$0.00318
YouTube Music	$0.002
Pandora	$0.00133
Deezer	$0.0011

Source: https://virpp.com/hello/music-streaming-payouts-comparison-a-guide-for-musicians/

If Spotify has 2x the users of Apple, then wouldn't any given artist be played 2x as much on Spotify than Apple?

Hence, Spotify may pay less per play, but overall, an artist should get the same revenue from Spotify as Apple since Spotify has more than twice the people listening.

 

[missingar]

If Spotify has 2x the users of Apple, then wouldn't any given artist be played 2x as much on Spotify than Apple?

Hence, Spotify may pay less per play, but overall, an artist should get the same revenue from Spotify as Apple since Spotify has more than twice the people listening.

By that logic, Apple should charge half what Samsung charges for flagship devices in the US because Apple has twice the market share. While supply and demand does affect cost, that's not really how pricing works. Especially not when it comes to the value of intellectual property.

 

[BipedalOS]

All streaming companies are middle men ripping of musicians, bands and songwriters. Record companies were bad enough. But isn’t there now an added hand in the pie. Consumer convenience yes. A middle finger to fairness, yes.

Music gets discovered and played a lot by these middle men. Without it, artists would either be less wealthy or gone.

It’s unfortunate either way, but it’s the sad truth of reality.

 

[Abazigal]

Music gets discovered and played a lot by these middle men. Without it, artists would either be less wealthy or gone.

It’s unfortunate either way, but it’s the sad truth of reality.

It feels like artistes would actually be better off earning nothing from listeners pirating their music from torrent sites than earn nothing from streaming sites that earn hundreds of millions or billions of dollars for their army of employees.

https://imgur.com/a/jwmg9ha

 

[1129846]

It is a bit anticompetitive but that's business. Apple can make a service just as Spotify is free to make a phone if they wanted to. As much as it doesn't make sense because usually Apple enters new markets when it actually makes sense and they can provide a much better service throughout (Airtags and Tile, for example) but Apple Music absolutely sucks in comparison to Spotify.

One thing to keep in mind is apple is able to abuse its position and cheat to use access that the other companies can not.

Apple music does not pay the Apple tax that everyone else does so that is 15-30% break right there.

On air tags Apple does not require you to grant location permission and does not require the App to be on in the back ground. Top it off all Apple devices can update the network making critical mass for the network easier and better.

 

[Abazigal]

One thing to keep in mind is apple is able to abuse its position and cheat to use access that the other companies can not.

Apple music does not pay the Apple tax that everyone else does so that is 15-30% break right there.

On air tags Apple does not require you to grant location permission and does not require the App to be on in the back ground. Top it off all Apple devices can update the network making critical mass for the network easier and better.

This raises the question - is Apple obligated to allow competitors access to the same permissions it gives its own products? For example, the tile tracker was just an objectively worse product that didn't work very well, drained battery like crazy, and up till recently, didn't let you replace the batteries inside. Apple came up with a far superior implementation (I really can't say that Apple copied Tile once you understand how AirTags work); are they supposed to just share the fruits of their millions of dollars of R&D with other companies for free?

I don't call it an abuse of power though. Apple is able to reap the benefits of having their own ecosystem because they were the only company willing to invest in having one in the first place.

The problem with Spotify goes beyond having to pay Apple a 15-30% tax. It's a flawed business model through and through. If you still can't make a profit despite having over 500 million subscribers, blaming Apple can only distract the investors from the real problem for so long. Not all your users are iPhone users (a lot of Spotify's user base come from developing countries where Android has majority market share), I am pretty sure some subscribe via the web where Spotify keeps 100% (minus credit card fees), the real problem is that Spotify's suppliers essentially constitute an oligopoly (the record labels) who retain pricing power because they own the music and back catalogs. That's why Spotify invested so much into their podcasting foray.

I feel that people are too quick to hurl around the term "unfair" when they really just mean "not to my advantage".

 

[i-John]

So, if this is coming back it means Spotify was loosing more by not allowing users to upgrade in the App! I guess now they can afford to support the HomePod and Apple Watch

Or planning ahead to when the EU and US governments force the use of third party in-app payment providers without charging massive fees.

 

[japanime]

I have a higher bit rate songs in the collection than Apple. I don’t want Apple replacing my collection with their music. Basically costs me 24 bucks a year for keeping my huge collection in the cloud.

Ah, yes -- that's a situation where it does make sense to pay for iTunes Match separately.

However, how does that work? Back when I had iTunes Match (before the launch of Apple Music), the service still replaced my high-bitrate files with Apple's own files when downloading them.

 

[svish]

Will be good to have in-app purchase option

 

[applepotato666]

Why is this? I don't doubt your opinion. I just don't know.

Do you mean the automatically generated playlists are not good? So when I say "Play hits from the 1950s" one company produced a better playlist. Or do you mean the sound quality is better?

The first reason is, it never got me after 2 years of use. I wanted to love it because the sound quality really is amazing compared to Spotify, but the recommendations do not work for me. Spotify just gets me. On New Music Fridays with the "Made for you" playlists, Apple Music will recommend music I never have and never will listen to. It leaves me wondering what makes it think I'd ever listen to this - I mostly listen to rock and it will recommend Zara store pop.

Another huge reason is that I speak a language that has 2 alphabets. You can never predict in which alphabet an artist titled their song, or how their name is written on the platform. Spotify has no issue with this and has implemented some simple latin-cyrillic/cyrillic-latin transliteration algorithm. Apple has not, but that's a general iOS problem. My Samsung phone from 2013 had this functionality even in Contacts, because we'll save our contacts with any alphabet because we switch between the alphabets without much thought. Say if I searched "Моника", "Monica" would appear. Android also sorted the contacts properly alphabetically. It would match up the transliterations. iOS shows my cyrillic contacts at the bottom of the list.
Apple is constantly beating their chest for their diversity and UX prowess, but have repeatedly proven they can't think about anyone outside of California. I don't think it's ever crossed anyone's mind that we have to live with this when it's such a simple thing to implement.

Nowadays I have these silly rules like always switching to latin when saving my contacts. May sound trivial to someone who isn't in this situation, but it's extremely annoying day to day that you have to search for something twice all the time because I can't rename artists' songs in my library.

 

[applepotato666]

One thing to keep in mind is apple is able to abuse its position and cheat to use access that the other companies can not.

Apple music does not pay the Apple tax that everyone else does so that is 15-30% break right there.

On air tags Apple does not require you to grant location permission and does not require the App to be on in the back ground. Top it off all Apple devices can update the network making critical mass for the network easier and better.

I'm not saying they don't, but businesses of every kind are abusing their position in some way to achieve other business goals. Businesses building upon what they have so they can take good advantage of it is what capitalism is, and unfortunately Apple is one of the most powerful and greediest embodiments of the system. I'm all for regulating companies that go overboard and trust that the EU has some good motives. I also believe EU is salty because we don't have a technology giant, and the EU is generally so far behind on tech. It's set up in such a way that if you were one you'd run to the US.

 

[AppliedMicro]

the tile tracker was just an objectively worse product that didn't work very well, drained battery like crazy, and up till recently, didn't let you replace the batteries inside. Apple came up with a far superior implementation

Apple Pay is an objectively superior product compared to other smartphone-based payment systems - but nobody can develop a competition without Apple providing developers the necessary access to NFC hardware. And it’s not as if Apple spent billions to develop that NFC hardware themselves. NFC is well standardised.

However, how does that work? Back when I had iTunes Match (before the launch of Apple Music), the service still replaced my high-bitrate files with Apple's own files when downloading them.

Same here - and I just tried today.

I have a higher bit rate songs in the collection than Apple. I don’t want Apple replacing my collection with their music.

When one of your higher-bitrate songs is matched to Apple's version, it will only download Apple’s “own” lower bit-rate version on all other devices.

 

[Abazigal]

Spotify also refuses to pay artistes if they get less than 1000 streams per album.

Randy (Bluesbreaker) (@randulo@mastodon.social)

Spotify take the prize for absurd corporate greed. They raise subscription prices and declare that tracks with less than 1,000 streams a year get NOTHING. This is a significant loss to people like me who have over 200 tracks online, but not all get a large audience. They still deserve to earn.

mastodon.social

They must be getting really desperate if they are going to the extent of scrounging for couch change.

 

[iBluetooth]

Or planning ahead to when the EU and US governments force the use of third party in-app payment providers without charging massive fees.

Will they do the same for the PlayStation store, AirB&B, Hotels.com, etc.?

 

[TechnoMonk]

Apple Pay is an objectively superior product compared to other smartphone-based payment systems - but nobody can develop a competition without Apple providing developers the necessary access to NFC hardware. And it’s not as if Apple spent billions to develop that NFC hardware themselves. NFC is well standardised.

Same here - and I just tried today.

When one of your higher-bitrate songs is matched to Apple's version, it will only download Apple’s “own” lower bit-rate version on all other devices.

Ah, yes -- that's a situation where it does make sense to pay for iTunes Match separately.

However, how does that work? Back when I had iTunes Match (before the launch of Apple Music), the service still replaced my high-bitrate files with Apple's own files when downloading them.

It’s not that hard to beat the iTunes matching fingerprint. Most of my songs came from cd collection, which had poor meta data. I used combination of python scripts and mettag app to fix and customize my song metadata. When I originally uploaded it, the match was less than 3%. I had slightly modified title, album name, artists and other metadata.
I have original back up of all my songs, in case iTunes Match messes up something.

 

[1129846]

This raises the question - is Apple obligated to allow competitors access to the same permissions it gives its own products? For example, the tile tracker was just an objectively worse product that didn't work very well, drained battery like crazy, and up till recently, didn't let you replace the batteries inside. Apple came up with a far superior implementation (I really can't say that Apple copied Tile once you understand how AirTags work); are they supposed to just share the fruits of their millions of dollars of R&D with other companies for free?

I don't call it an abuse of power though. Apple is able to reap the benefits of having their own ecosystem because they were the only company willing to invest in having one in the first place.

The problem with Spotify goes beyond having to pay Apple a 15-30% tax. It's a flawed business model through and through. If you still can't make a profit despite having over 500 million subscribers, blaming Apple can only distract the investors from the real problem for so long. Not all your users are iPhone users (a lot of Spotify's user base come from developing countries where Android has majority market share), I am pretty sure some subscribe via the web where Spotify keeps 100% (minus credit card fees), the real problem is that Spotify's suppliers essentially constitute an oligopoly (the record labels) who retain pricing power because they own the music and back catalogs. That's why Spotify invested so much into their podcasting foray.

I feel that people are too quick to hurl around the term "unfair" when they really just mean "not to my advantage".

I not debating if the Apple airtag and tiles (the devices themselves). It more how they are using all iOS devices to update compared to tile which has to be in the background and needs even more permisions. The airtags just happens to be an easy example of Apple being able to "cheat" to make its network. It does not need to play by the same rules as someone else would. They could open the API up for that type of bluetooth beacon tracking and have request allow it to piggy back off of Apple.

one thing Google does on its own Apps is they tend to play by the same rules as all the other apps do. They do not get the freedom to use private API to android and so on. Freedom to always have locations access and so on.

The Spotify one you are point out. The Apple tax of 15-30% is more across the board. Apple is demanding a fairly large cut with some hard rules to be nothing more than payment processor. Honestly a bad payment processor as it is a fairly restrictive payment processor. In the case of Apple music they do not have to pay the extra cut but you can expand that to Apple news, or any other subscription system. Apple can see one doing well jump in and undercut them by 15-30% and still make the same amount of money.

 

[japanime]

It’s not that hard to beat the iTunes matching fingerprint. Most of my songs came from cd collection, which had poor meta data. I used combination of python scripts and mettag app to fix and customize my song metadata. When I originally uploaded it, the match was less than 3%. I had slightly modified title, album name, artists and other metadata.
I have original back up of all my songs, in case iTunes Match messes up something.

So, it actually is no different than what you can do with an Apple Music subscription. In that case, you really are paying for the same service twice.