Spotify Pens Joint Letter Calling Apple 'Harmful' and 'Anti-Competitive,' Claims App Store Ruins Business

[neuropsychguy]

At what point will that be a problem for people here? Never? No?

You're here and it's a problem for you so... I'm not saying I don't see what you wrote as a problem but Spotify needs to fix a lot of things before it can rightly criticize Apple over fees. One of those is Apple Music compensates artists/copyright holders about 2.5X what Spotify does. If I made my own music and it streamed on Apple Music, I'd get about $10 per 1000 streams versus about $4.37 for 1000 streams on Spotify. Why is Spotify so stingy? Isn't that anti-competitive? This is one reason I use Apple Music instead of Spotify. Artists will get more from my listening than they would on Spotify. How much would Spotify raise commissions if they didn't have to pay any fees to Apple? How about they state that first: "If Apple gets rid of our fees, we'll pay artists more than Apple does."

 

[WiseAJ]

I swear they send this same letter every month or so. Get over it Spotify. Even if apple didn’t have those restrictions you still wouldn’t be making any money.

 

[compwiz1202]

They will argue that going to the web to subscribe is too many steps (therefore difficult) and they should be allowed to do it from the AppStore (lol).

And so much easier to cancel. Settings My Name Subscriptions The App Cancel Yes. Plus it might be easy for one subs, but multiples would be multi sites with them all in you payment business

 

[BaldiMac]

You only quoted half of my argument there, though. The Amazon app is an interesting case study because I can go there and use it to buy a physical book, pay for it through Amazon's system right there and then within the app and Apple doesn't get a cut. If I want to buy a digital copy of the same book for my Kindle I can't because Apple insists that this would require using their payment systems and a cut?

Because that is how Apple chose to monetize their platform. Those are their contract terms. There's nothing wrong with a store that charges for one thing and not something else.

In current reality, Apple distributes the Kindle app to millions of customers for the low, low price of$99/year. And that includes other Amazon apps as well.

Why? I'm not downloading the book through Apple's servers. Apple doesn't have any costs associated with Amazon selling me a book and they've certainly not done any marketing for it.

Malls operate in a similar way. They charge people that use their platform a percentage of their revenue. They have nothing at all to do with the clothes their tenants sell, but they get a cut.

Amazon is another example. They charge companies who use their platform for sales even when they aren't involved in fulfillment.

There is nothing inherently wrong with this business plan. It's normal

That's not to say that the App Store is a bad service, I'm sure many developers see value in it, but let it stand on its own merit then. If it's such a good service, why does it need to be protected from competition at all cost?

Because it's part of the security and user experience of iOS.

 

[twiebnoyagad]

I've actually stopped using Spotify. On the Daily Mixes the app creates, you were able to skip songs without a limit and select which song you wanted to listen to out of the list. (Free subscription)
Now they've removed that feature altogether, even though you were still getting ads.
They also keep playing my 'liked songs' in the same order every time, even though it's on "shuffle", not to mention pushing 'suggested songs'.

 

[deebinem]

I've actually stopped using Spotify. On the Daily Mixes the app creates, you were able to skip songs without a limit and select which song you wanted to listen to out of the list. (Free subscription)
Now they've removed that feature altogether, even though you were still getting ads.
They also keep playing my 'liked songs' in the same order every time, even though it's on "shuffle", not to mention pushing 'suggested songs'.

Trying to frustrate you into paying! My buddy always sends me links to songs in Spotify and I have to tell him all the time that I don't have Spotify, it doesn't work for me. Bless his heart...

 

[jarman92]

Read: "Our business model is terrible, we've never made any money, and our investors are complaining. So we want you, Dear Margrethe, to wield the power of the state to force Apple to give us more money."

 

[NY Guitarist]

The irony of corporations complaining about other corporations for doing what they do but better.

 

[cocky jeremy]

Can these whiny morons just go away?

 

[East India Company]

People here criticise Spotify because they talk bad about their favourite company. But it is quite obvious that big corporations like apple and others are destroying any competition and that this is very detrimental to the consumer.
One of the latest two examples is apple buying the weather app Dark Rain only to produce a very subpar equivalent as well as apple buying the classic music specialist app (don’t remember how it is called) only to remove it and not replace it (yet). And let’s see how good or bad it becomes...
Apple and other big tech are truly uncompetitive and use their massive weight to remove any and all emergent obstacles on their path. We could also talk about how vertical integration can be used to remove competition. My opinion is that apple should be broken up to separate all its services divisions from hardware and software: fitness+, appleTv+ even the Music Store should never have been allowed to stay within apple corp. We can go on about how they have uncompetitive advantages but you get the idea.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

Complaining about victimization is pretty rich coming from the largest streaming service in the world, and one which is continually under fire for not paying the musicians who actually made the content it’s skimming money off of. Screw Spotify.

 

[NufSaid]

Boo Hoo. Make your own phone and then you can set the rules.

 

[anson42]

First, I said "access", not "carry". Second, my music library is 90GB. How shall I "carry" that around?

Strictly regarding carrying around a large library, today's iPhones make that easy. I carry around a larger than 90GB music library on my 256GB iPhone. I travel a lot so I like to have my music library with me when I'm on the plane (and train) and also not use up data for streaming when I'm roaming on a foreign network.

But your point about accessibility is very true. I subscribe to AM for the accessibility on all my Apple devices and my family certainly listens to music that I don't, so the broad set of offerings is very desirable.

 

[Gengar]

If they weren't so worried about giving a platform to people like Joe Rogan, who spread misinformation, and paid artists fairly per stream... Not to mention they haven't done all they could to properly integrate their service into some of Apple's products like the HomePod. And then there's the whole lower quality streaming while both Apple Music and TIDAL offer lossless.

 

[webkit]

Spotify leads the market in music streaming. Your argument is dead on arrival.

Complaining about victimization is pretty rich coming from the largest streaming service in the world

When Netscape was the largest browser company, they (along with the U.S. government) still complained about and went after Microsoft for anticompetitive activities.

Just become there may be large companies in particular markets (like Netscape was, and Spotify is) doesn’t mean other companies (like Microsoft and Apple) can't/aren't/don't engage in anticompetitive behavior and don't deserve to be called out on it.

 

[Mbtins]

Translation. We can’t compete so save us from an org that has a better product and used their brainpower and resources to make an ecosystem

 

[JSteele]

I don't really get it, I like having apple gate keep the apps going into the store. It's not 100% safe, but feels safer then allowing a wild wild west. Spotify isn't exactly the white knights for helping out consumers or artists either, so this can't be more then bottom line related.

Spotify benefited by the apple music marketplace bringing them tons of users, its only fair you pay for the privilege. If they don't like it, why not come out with their own phone, OS and app store.

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

Paying by number of global streams out of general revenue isn't exactly fair though is it?
Let's say I join Spotify and only listen to two artists. Independent A and Independent B. I pay $10/month (for example)

But because other people listen to Drake, part of my $10 is going to Drake. Why should it? I didn't listen to Drake. I listed to A and B. My money should be going to them.

In the old days when people bought music, they actually supported the artists they like. These days, you're money is put in a pool and you have no say of where your money goes - it's skewed towards rewarding the popular artists.

It's simple. Do you pay taxes? Most everyone does. Do you use all the services your taxes go to? Of course not.
When people pay for cable TV (200+ channels) and only watch 10, some of their monthly fee goes to ALL 200+ channel providers. Get how the system works?

If you love your 2 independent artists, buy their albums. They'll thank you.

 

[philstubbington]

But doesn’t Spotify make most of its money from Apple users who download their app via the Apple App Store?

Sounds like sour grapes. As you say, the App Store is a route to market for Spotify and if Apple are beating them, that’s market forces surely?

I’m quite happy in the Apple walled garden for most stuff - I’ve only got Disney+ and Netflix subscriptions which I got outside of that garden because I could! I have no need for Spotify and Apple One works fine for me.

 

[philstubbington]

I don't really get it, I like having apple gate keep the apps going into the store. It's not 100% safe, but feels safer then allowing a wild wild west. Spotify isn't exactly the white knights for helping out consumers or artists either, so this can't be more then bottom line related.

Spotify benefited by the apple music marketplace bringing them tons of users, its only fair you pay for the privilege. If they don't like it, why not come out with their own phone, OS and app store.

Exactly. I seem to recall Apple pays more to artists (% wise) than any other platform.

 

[visualseed]

I am curious as to what exactly they want the EU to do, since the letter is vague on specifics in that regard.

It increasingly sounds like these companies want all the advantages of the App Store (it allows them instant access to Apple's user base), without having to contribute a single cent to help upkeep the App Store. I would compare this as being akin to jumping over the turnstile at the train station. Want to take the metro, but don't want to pay the fare.

And finally, I will argue that the App Store policies are what result in the greatest benefit for the greatest number of users. If you poll users, I am willing to bet that the majority do not exactly hate closed ecosystems, and have little interest in the sort of change these companies are trying to usher in.

Make no mistake. Remember the names of each and every one of these companies and their CEOs. They are not doing this for the benefit or empowerment of users. They simply want more power, and they will happily burn the App Store model to the ground to get it.

Even if you took the appstore out of the equation, Apple has the right to charge a percentage of revenue for use of their IP. Right now there are dozens of European companies with cases in US courts suing US companies (Apple included) to preserve, enforce, or increase their licensing fees and royalties (patents, copyright, IP, et al). I don't think people understand how things would quickly go south if governments started picking and choosing who could get paid for their IP simply based on outdated concepts of protectionism.

 

[DogHouseDub]

As a musician, I would argue Spotify did the same thing to the music industry.

 

[catportal]

Now might be a good time to point out that while Apple opened up HomePods to allow for third party streaming services back with software 14.5 in 2021 Spotify, alongside many of the other heavyweights, have yet to add support. Why would consumers who use the Apple ecosystem use your service if you don’t support all of the devices?

(And to be clear, I think Apple’s App Store policies are unnecessarily heavy-handed, I just think it’s important to call out hypocrisy when it happens).

Why would companies spend valuable engineering resources on a product that 7 people are using?

 

[BaldiMac]

When Netscape was the largest browser company, they (along with the U.S. government) still complained about and went after Microsoft for anticompetitive activities.

Just become there may be large companies in particular markets (like Netscape was, and Spotify is) doesn’t mean other companies (like Microsoft and Apple) can't/aren't/don't engage in anticompetitive behavior and don't deserve to be called out on it.

Netscape dropped share from 90% to 25% between 1995 and 1998. They didn't have the largest usage share in 2001 when the antitrust case happened. Microsoft did.

 

[bollman]

You're here and it's a problem for you so... I'm not saying I don't see what you wrote as a problem but Spotify needs to fix a lot of things before it can rightly criticize Apple over fees. One of those is Apple Music compensates artists/copyright holders about 2.5X what Spotify does. If I made my own music and it streamed on Apple Music, I'd get about $10 per 1000 streams versus about $4.37 for 1000 streams on Spotify. Why is Spotify so stingy? Isn't that anti-competitive? This is one reason I use Apple Music instead of Spotify. Artists will get more from my listening than they would on Spotify. How much would Spotify raise commissions if they didn't have to pay any fees to Apple? How about they state that first: "If Apple gets rid of our fees, we'll pay artists more than Apple does."

Afaik, Spotify does not negotiate deals with artist directly. I too have some music on Spotify, but that is through a distributor.