But their bundle with Hulu was OK? They seem to whinge a lot now considering when Apple Music launched they were giving it the "This validates our business" talk...
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Spotify Says Apple One Bundle Will Cause 'Irreparable Harm to Developer Community'
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Just like it wasn't illegal for Microsoft to be a monopoly with internet explorer even though it was there own product and os?
Last time I looked, Spotify have a massive market share for streaming music compared to Apple. And you can run Spotify on Apple devices... The majority of shared playlists I see being generated by news sites, tv shows etc are all on Spotify.
So like you say, is their issue that their business model wasn't sustainable in the first place?
Apple are way-off from being perfect, but this one is just confusing...
They made a phone, but it was a piece of crap and everybody hated it. So they pulled a Google: lost interest when they realized how difficult the project was, and promptly gave up.
$170 million writedown on the books, not that they really felt it lol
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I’ve noticed an inordinate number of posts with this “Apple curation=Apple knows best=Apple’s trying to control my life!!” jibber jabber ever since the end of Apple’s event yesterday
So who’s distributing this talking point? Or maybe y’all are just parroting each other?
It’s rather interesting (at least to me). Spotify? Epic? Both? Neither? Hmmm...
Well, we are sort-off back at when Microsoft drove Netscape out of business. Windows isn’t as dominant anymore but with all platform vendors (Microsoft, Apple, Google) offering free browsers, no third-party browser can survive as a paid application. Very few people have a problem with that as web rendering simply has become a core part of an OS and everybody needs it. But while we don’t have direct commercial competition in the web browser market, there is technical competition between Safari and Chrome (and to a lesser degree also Firefox), which is a good thing compared to the Internet Explorer days.
Music and video streaming are somewhat different, as there are not essential to the OS (as web rendering is) and not everybody is actually using it. Music streaming is more universal in that all vendors offer almost the same music catalogue. In video streaming, there is more competition as content has rather limited overlap between different services.
The point being that there is a reason why those two are still largely paid services. Apple could offer 10 TB free iCloud storage and in particular if Microsoft and Google did so as well, Dropbox would be in trouble. And maybe one day that will happen (if storage costs decline enough). If something is essential enough for a platform (and we can start to argue that iCloud might be) and cheap enough to provide that it is not worth bothering about for the platform vendor to market it to extract additional money from a subset of customers that want it, then it doesn’t really help anybody trying to outlaw that. But if the platform vendor thinks they can make some extra bucks, then there is potentially space for competition.
So, yes if offering paid services [that aren’t really integral to the OS, which one could argued about with iCloud storage] by platform vendors were made illegal, some services might be offered for free but others would not. That in itself wouldn’t prevent third-parties from becoming very dominant. Without Apple Music, Spotify might become very dominant itself and in regard to search and social media, Google and Facebook are quite dominant.
One doesn’t need to use moral arguments, it is the presence of actual competition (where possible) that is beneficial and that should thus be the goal.
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They keep on improving it, quite frequently. I think Spotify’s reasoning is that since Apple Music comes preinstalled on everything Apple, often offering free trials and now bundles, people who are not very tech-savvy will just naturally opt for Apple Music, not even trying Spotify. This reminds me of Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer saga ages ago, when other browser makers, mostly Netscape, forced Microsoft to come up with a splash-screen, asking people after a fresh Windows installation to actively chose their preferred browser. This was fair, IMO, educating people they had other alternatives. So I can relate...
What happened to competition is good and whatever is best for the consumer/we got to protect the consumer? What’s so unfair about this?
There’s been too much cry outs for my liking about “it’s unfair for the costumer” or “it’s unfair for business”. Also, hard to have it both ways.
I already pay $25 worth of Apple Music, and a couple of iCloud storages for family members. Someone explain me how is it unfair and bad for me to be paying less, $21, and be receiving a whole lot more in the process (Arcade, tv+, etc for ALL). It is not unfair to Spotify who has been getting $0 from me to still be getting $0 afterwards.
Why should Spotify or anyone for that matter get in the way of benefits being offered directly to the consumer.
Epic got in the way between gamers/devs/consumers, Im ok to pay the 30% fee in exchange of everything else if the other option is to go back to pre AppStore age where any distribution launch would require hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now Spotify wants to make the waters turbulent too.
I think they should just quit the platform and stay with the others if Apple is so mean and bad and unfair and crappy OS and all that.
PS: I understand there’s the concept of burning it out to unsustainable levels, however I find it hard Apple bringing business to that state.
There’s been too much cry outs for my liking about “it’s unfair for the costumer” or “it’s unfair for business”. Also, hard to have it both ways.
I already pay $25 worth of Apple Music, and a couple of iCloud storages for family members. Someone explain me how is it unfair and bad for me to be paying less, $21, and be receiving a whole lot more in the process (Arcade, tv+, etc for ALL). It is not unfair to Spotify who has been getting $0 from me to still be getting $0 afterwards.
Why should Spotify or anyone for that matter get in the way of benefits being offered directly to the consumer.
Epic got in the way between gamers/devs/consumers, Im ok to pay the 30% fee in exchange of everything else if the other option is to go back to pre AppStore age where any distribution launch would require hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now Spotify wants to make the waters turbulent too.
I think they should just quit the platform and stay with the others if Apple is so mean and bad and unfair and crappy OS and all that.
PS: I understand there’s the concept of burning it out to unsustainable levels, however I find it hard Apple bringing business to that state.
Not innovating? What do you call bundling podcasts with their music app. Can’t innovate my ass!
/s
Seeing as Spotify Premium at a discount of $3 a month was bundled with My Wife's iPhone Subscription for the first year, I don't see how they can complain about bundling.
I'll add that we did not get any discount on Apple Music at the time even if it was bundled as an app on the phone itself. Why on earth would we bother sign up for Apple Music with a deal like that. Spotify in that instance had far more advantage.
Also, the service provider allowed massive amounts allocated of Data for Spotify and Wayz. Nope, no data allocation for Apple Music!
Spotify are a Multiplatform App and should market accordingly. In her case they did and from outside the Apple Eco-system. Their complaint has been received and should be thrown in the nearest trash can IMHO.
Once again, let's clear up this misconception. Microsoft was sued for using its OS dominance to force OEMs to include IE and exclude competing browsers. It was the exclusivity agreements they required of OEMs that pushed the case over the edge. Removing IE was shown in court, to the embarrassment of Microsoft's lawyers, to be a trivial remedy and was the most memorable moment of the case.
And how exactly will this benefit Spotify and all of its Apple subscribers?
Good point. This is the closest analogy where I think Apple's position is weakest.
I think the distinction is that Microsoft compelled other companies to make IE the default, and required them to not use Netscape (or hobble their services when using Netscape) as a condition for preferential treatment in their Windows OS. If they agreed, Microsoft provided special placement on the desktop and technical details of their software (APIs and such). In other words, abusing their monopoly in Windows to drive out competitors in the browser market, and give their browser an unfair advantage.
Apple's services bundles, to the extent that they depend on other companies' creations (music, movies, games, TV shows, etc) already have agreements worked out that are the same for all takers within that segment. And Apple does not appear to be using their monopoly to compel other companies to agree drive out competitors as a condition to develop/create for Apple platforms.
The bundles do give Apple an advantage (fair or not) but whether it does this with unlawful practices is the question. I'm not persuaded that it is unlawful, but IANAL and I have not seen all relevant evidence.
Yeah I know it's a little different but pretty much the same concept. Hell think about this. You can only run webkit on iOS and not another rendering engine. How is that really any different than the monopoly MS had?
Apple literally does this now in iOS. Firefox and anything chrome engine wise can't be on the store but they have to use webkit.
Honestly...
its a little bit of a monopoly when a company that competes against you just in music streaming, then you offer free video streaming, cloud storage, game subscription for few bucks more. Its like exactly on Amazon, no one can compete with Amazon in retail because Amazon too offers a video service, online storage, e-books...etc
There is no law against it but now if you want to compete against Amazon on retail you have to build a video service, a music service, an e-book service...etc etc.
its a little bit of a monopoly when a company that competes against you just in music streaming, then you offer free video streaming, cloud storage, game subscription for few bucks more. Its like exactly on Amazon, no one can compete with Amazon in retail because Amazon too offers a video service, online storage, e-books...etc
There is no law against it but now if you want to compete against Amazon on retail you have to build a video service, a music service, an e-book service...etc etc.
Yeah because with Android, you can side load apps from out of the store and the developer can charge what they want or you know, just allow them to even mention you can go to their website to sign for subscription
Fair enough. I didn't include that, but I ultimately wasn't talking about the legality of this; that's one example. Apple's practices here are still anti-competitive.
I'm just surprised by so many defending Apple on this while denigrating Spotify for not stepping up to Apple in the free market. Apple has a massive competitive advantage. And I get corporate fandom, but these aren't exactly high school sports teams. These are companies that extract massive wealth from consumers while paying a fraction of the taxes that consumers pay.
It's hard to find exact comparisons, but when others defend Apple's anti-competitive practices because Google, Amazon, and even Spotify engage similarly, it seems disingenuous.
It's not ok when the US interferes in other countries' attempts at democratic elections just because Russia does--though so many Americans will defend US intransigence because other countries behave in predatory ways. So go forward Apple patriots. Defend every one of your corporate heroes actions. Who'll be there when people change their tune as products and services become even less affordable and Tim Cook keeps working with fascists? Or maybe it won't matter; it doesn't seem to here.
Only the platform vendor can bundle its own music streaming service with 'system-level' cloud storage. That gives Apple Music a competitive advantage against Spotify. What is implicit in Spotify's complaint is that platform vendors have built-in competitive advantages (which, worst case, can marginalize the competition) and that there should be regulation (or gentleman's agreement self-restraint by Apple) to ensure that those advantages are neutralized lest they affect the market.
The bundling is just one, maybe small step by Apple capitalising on its advantage. That Apple Music doesn't have to deal with a 15% App Store fee which Spotify has to if it wants seamless in-app subscribing is another. Whether those competitive imbalances should lead to regulatory intervention is a discussion on its own but it doesn't change the fact that those imbalances exist.
