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Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

timetoplayfair.com

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Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#91

Post by georgespencer »

supermatt wrote: post #71

Just as Microsoft were stopped from shipping a browser with their OS, vendors should be prevented from shipping an App Store with their OS. You cant move to another platform without losing access to all your "purchases" - there is no free market. They have monopolies within ecosystems they created. They should be FORCED to have an open platform, with users able to access multiple 3rd party storefronts on multiple pla…

Apple invests billions into R&D, design, manufacture, and UX design for its devices. Your logic would then see them dealing with picking up the pieces for bricked devices, hacked passwords, lost data, viruses, etc.

Using an Apple devices is accepting a benevolent dictatorship, and it's a trade off tonnes of users are happy to make.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#92

Post by 5trokerac3 »

georgespencer wrote: post #79
5trokerac3 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference comes in when Apple introduced Apple Music, a direct competitor to Spotify. So now, they're not only offering an essentially identical service, they're extracting a toll from their competition through their other holdings. To put this in 19th century anti-trust terms, the manufacturing company owns the railways and charges the competition a toll to transport their goods. It's a clear cut case for Spoti…

Hmmm. It's absolutely not that as far as I can tell. Apple is not extracting a toll from their competition through their other holdings. Nothing has changed for Spotify: if you want to sign up users through Apple's infrastructure, which has a cost associated with it, you have to pay the same price as everyone else. To repeat my question asked of someone else in this thread: Apple charges e.g. Mophie a fee to feature…

The question isn't whether Apple is violating antitrust regulations, it's whether the regulations will be enforced. Spotify has a slam dunk case in the regulation heavy EU, and a very winnable case in the US (and anyone who Apple competes with in this way). They build competing products and are putting an artificial restriction to the market that they control.

What Apple is doing is a direct violation of the Sherman Act of 1890, specifically Section 1, in regards to artificially raising prices by restricting trade or supply:

> Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is declared to be illegal.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#93

Post by pedroaraujo »

georgespencer wrote: post #73
pedroaraujo wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 30% cut is something that Spotify needs to pay to Apple for every user that subscribes to Spotify through Apple devices. This cost doesn't doesn't exist for PC users, for example. They probably could live with it but I can understand why it feels like an artificial cost that Apple came up with. It would be an understandable cost if they were selling the Spotify App through the App Store and using the actual store i…

> A 30% cut is something that Spotify needs to pay to Apple for every user that subscribe to Spotify through Apple devices Not so as I understand it. Only if you put the option to subscribe into your app in the app store. That cost doesn't exist for Mac or PC, but Apple doesn't heavily curate and have costs associated with the wild west of downloading apps from the web. > it doesn't weight anything to Apple There are…

> There are significant costs associated with the app store, no? Part of the reason users gravitate towards the iPhone is because you can download high quality apps without malware, viruses, etc.

That should be covered by the one time fee that developers pay to Apple in order to publish apps into the App Store. I am not sure if a simple binary needs a 30% cut of the entire Spotify profit to keep up with the costs of hosting an app there.

> Why? They've made the hardware. Why should they have to let Spotify run on it in the exact way Spotify wants? (You can Airplay Spotify to Homepod.)

Because Apple is using a completely different market, which they have a strong presence on, to increase the value of Apple Music and consequently devaluing any other competing music streaming services.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#94

Post by pedroaraujo »

empath75 wrote: post #78
pedroaraujo wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 30% cut is something that Spotify needs to pay to Apple for every user that subscribes to Spotify through Apple devices. This cost doesn't doesn't exist for PC users, for example. They probably could live with it but I can understand why it feels like an artificial cost that Apple came up with. It would be an understandable cost if they were selling the Spotify App through the App Store and using the actual store i…

I was about to argue that in a free market, 30% would never be a reasonable price, but then I looked and that's what Steam charges and they have multiple viable competitors on the same platform, so now I don't know.

But hosting full games is a different story than hosting apps. Not to mention that Steam offers more features, such as cloud saves and an entire social network.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#95

Post by chj »

empath75 wrote: post #78
pedroaraujo wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A 30% cut is something that Spotify needs to pay to Apple for every user that subscribes to Spotify through Apple devices. This cost doesn't doesn't exist for PC users, for example. They probably could live with it but I can understand why it feels like an artificial cost that Apple came up with. It would be an understandable cost if they were selling the Spotify App through the App Store and using the actual store i…

I was about to argue that in a free market, 30% would never be a reasonable price, but then I looked and that's what Steam charges and they have multiple viable competitors on the same platform, so now I don't know.

From what they posted, 30% is not the main reason of their complaint. I guess it's more about that they now have to face Apple Music, which has such a huge advantage over them, no fee, better OS support, .etc.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#96

Post by georgespencer »

Hamuko wrote: post #90
georgespencer wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally see that. But you can still sideload an app onto an iPhone or Mac and hack around. People were getting Windows onto their x86 Macs before Bootcamp, for example. The point of Homepod is that it does nothing else, by design: it's a device for playing Apple Music on. I don't see a distinction between forcing Apple to open up iOS for installation on any hardware.

>But you can still sideload an app onto an iPhone Can you?

Yup. Look at the way Facebook and others circumvented the app store using certification recently.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#97

Post by maaaats »

numair wrote: post #77
maaaats wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the dirty tricks you're mentioning? And I'm not shocked about your comment, as I don't really believe it. I don't think HN should be a place to spread gossip and possibly lies like this.

There’s been several lawsuits’ worth of material uncovering highly preferential treatment afforded to Spotify by Facebook, which both parties pretended didn’t exist. I’m sure a Google search can help you out with this one. As for your second comment, well... You’re aware that the parent post is a website that was specifically created to ax-grind, right?

But the parent post is a website with verifiable claims. You making up hearsay is not. And it's not even relevant.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#98

Post by snaily »

numair wrote: post #68
snaily wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This does not ring true to my experience. I was at the Spotify office the day the news of Steve's untimely death broke. It was a solemn day, and the the one senior executive I spoke to expressed true sorrow, as if a longtime friend had passed. Jobs was incredibly respected by the Spotify crew, as far as I'm concerned.

You’re talking about the rank and file, my friend. I’m talking about people who had billions of dollars on the line.

On 5 October 2011, Spotify was a freshly minted single-billion unicorn. Factually, no-one had plural billions of dollars on the line at that time, not even the senior exec I quoted.

Spotify was also comparatively small at the time, with limited hierarchy. The entire office - execs and rank-and-file alike - was respectful, with a fair number visibly upset and mourning.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#99

Post by georgespencer »

5trokerac3 wrote: post #92
georgespencer wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm. It's absolutely not that as far as I can tell. Apple is not extracting a toll from their competition through their other holdings. Nothing has changed for Spotify: if you want to sign up users through Apple's infrastructure, which has a cost associated with it, you have to pay the same price as everyone else. To repeat my question asked of someone else in this thread: Apple charges e.g. Mophie a fee to feature…

The question isn't whether Apple is violating antitrust regulations, it's whether the regulations will be enforced. Spotify has a slam dunk case in the regulation heavy EU, and a very winnable case in the US (and anyone who Apple competes with in this way). They build competing products and are putting an artificial restriction to the market that they control. What Apple is doing is a direct violation of the Sherman…

Thanks. How does this work for Amazon? Do they have to pay a % cut for every Kindle sold? Apple pulled its products from Amazon for a while rather than selling them there because they had to take a margin hit they didn't like.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#100

Post by Hamuko »

localhoat wrote: post #34

That’s actually the reason why I don’t by a HomePod

The HomePod is a horrible device unless you want Siri in a can. The source selection is just so locked down for whatever reason, so unless you're all in with the Apple ecosystem, you're going to be missing out something.
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