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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

#421

Post by freehunter »

pedroaraujo wrote: post #93
georgespencer wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>That should be covered by the one time fee that developers pay to Apple in order to publish apps into the App Store

As a developer I can push a hundred updates per day if I want to, and they all have to be reviewed by a human. How large of a "one time fee" should be expected to cover the cost of that review?

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#422

Post by kolbe »

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…

Courts do not interpret that as strictly as you think. If they did, every S&P 500 company would be in violation.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#423

Post by MagicPropmaker »

Apple's actions are not good and will eventually discourage companies from developing anything more than marketing apps for the App Store. You don't want a big piece of your revenue stream dependent on Apple app sales and Tim Cook's whim. Maybe this is why there are so many Cr-Apps and fewer and fewer "killer apps" anymore.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#424

Post by pje »

The solution here is for the US to start enforcing anti-trust laws again.

I can't imagine a clearer example of uncompetitive business practices and platform monopolization than the App Store.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#426

Post by supermatt »

jhasse wrote: post #392
supermatt wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has an absolute monopoly on its own platform. They are certainly complying with the laws in this regard, but the reality is that anti-competition laws need to change to deal with companies of this scale and reach.

> Apple has an absolute monopoly on its own platform. It doesn't work that way. Otherwise I could also say that any company has a monopoly on "products with the company's name on it". > the reality is that anti-competition laws need to change to deal with companies of this scale and reach. Hm ... I really think that Facebook and Google are the bigger problems today. And a lot is happening there already (not so much i…

I am talking about the actual definition of a monopoly, not that defined by antitrust laws, hence my second sentence about how the law (consumer law, anti-trust, or both) needs to change to prevent these walled gardens.

I agree Facebook and google are also problems. Amazon too, likely others. They all have their walled gardens - and whats worse is when they "go to war" with each other, affecting the users tied to their services (financially or otherwise).

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#427

Post by mschuster91 »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #129
12298765 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. This is the core issue. Apple using their dominant market position in the hardware/operating system markets to push anticompetitive practices for their product in a different market (Apple Music). I don't see how thi…

Apple is not dominant in the hardware market in the same way IE was. Nowhere near.

For those who have significant sums invested in the App Store, they are effectively dominant as there is no way to switch app licenses to a different app store.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#428

Post by 5trokerac3 »

kolbe wrote: post #422
5trokerac3 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Courts do not interpret that as strictly as you think. If they did, every S&P 500 company would be in violation.

Hyperbole and not true. There are very few S&P 500 that force their competitors to sell through their own marketplaces.

Exxon doesn't force Shell sell their gas in Exxon stations.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#429

Post by jonhohle »

volandovengo wrote: post #370
headmelted wrote: post #339

Utterly disagree. The problem isn't the amount of the Apple tax, and it buries the lead to make it about that. The contention here is that applying rules like this arbitrarily in a way that at least appears to favour your own products over your rivals is an abuse of your position. If the commission rules in Spotify's favour (which I would think is likely, given the dim view they've taken of such matters previously),…

For a long time I've been confused about the rules of monopolies. Microsoft got into a lot of trouble when they bundled IE into Windows so much so that the US threatened heavily to break up the company. Fast forward a decade later and apple, google and amazon bundle a crazy amount of unrelated services into their platforms without the regulators raising an eyebrow...

They bundled _while_ having a monopoly. They could have bundled or they could have had a monopoly, but doing both is where it crosses the anti-trust line since your customers are effectively captive.

What does Apple have a monopoly on? What does Amazon have a monopoly on? Google arguably has a monopoly on search which could put them in an unfavorable position should an antitrust case be brought against them (maybe why they added DDG to a default search engine choice in chrome, see judge, there are other search options!).

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#430

Post by JangoSteve »

jetti wrote: post #419
volandovengo wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a long time I've been confused about the rules of monopolies. Microsoft got into a lot of trouble when they bundled IE into Windows so much so that the US threatened heavily to break up the company. Fast forward a decade later and apple, google and amazon bundle a crazy amount of unrelated services into their platforms without the regulators raising an eyebrow...

The difference is that Netscape Navigator was a paid application. Microsoft was bundling their product, which was free, with their OS. They OS was dominating the market, which meant that majority of people didn't have to buy from Netscape. They were forcing out the competition. When Apple, Google and Amazon are releasing unrelated services into their platforms it isn't to starve out competitors but just expand their…

> They aren't, as far as I know, drastically undercutting the prices of their services to levels that aren't sustainable for other companies to compete.

The linked Spotify page says exactly the opposite.

> Because Apple Music doesn’t have to pay the 30% IAP charge, they are able to hugely undercut us and charge €9.99. To our fans, this just looked like we were ripping you off

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