Knowing how crap Spotify app is (an Electron monstrocity on the desktop) that's for the best.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19377601 and marked it off-topic.
Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair
581–590 of 865 posts
Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair
#582Earlier quoted context omitted.
Imho, the modern monopoly phrasing should be "a substantial market share" (where substantial is defined both in absolute terms AND as a userbase large enough to be self-sufficient and fund best-of-breed category development). Iff that is true, you should be prohibited from preinstalling, offering, or endorsing any marketplace... without a customer being able to substitute another at their discretion. Thereby requirin…
That wouldn't fly. A small company could release a best of breed product, and everyone could say it meets the definition of a monopoly. Unless you mean that the company would have to have a certain minimum marketshare AND ALSO would have to have best of breed product. (But even that would be problematic. We could likely get courts to go for something like 60%+, or even 50%+ with effort. But the courts are just gonna…
I'm not saying these businesses should be illegal, simply that there are additional responsibilities on them once they scale. Post-monopoly, maybe "significant market participant" would be better terminology.
There are two considerations that contribute to the ultimate consumer ills:
(1) Do I, as a user, have robust choice of alternatives with equivalent functionality? (Absolute market share * , coupled with self-sustainability)
In the case of the Android / iOS duopoly, I do not.
(2) Is the owner of the product using its dominance in such a way that users of the product must contribute post-initial-sale revenue to that owner?
In the case of Android & iOS, I must.
Monopolies will arise naturally in technology. And they're healthy: FAANMG deliver amazing technologies.
But a single choice should not allow a company to passively leverage your demand ever after (e.g. by attracting suppliers, from whom they can then take a cut). This extends beyond marketplaces and app stores, but they're the current offenders.
Amazon's shopping marketplace is the trickiest example. Is Amazon a "significant market participant" in online sales? Yes. Does the Amazon seller marketplace allow Amazon to extract additional revenue from suppliers by gatekeeping access to Amazon users' demand? Yes.
In Amazon and Walmart's cases, they should probably have retail cleaved from their logistics chains.
* I'd put this number low enough that the total number of large competitors should be sufficient to promote true choice. By gut, 2 is probably too small, 3 seems dicey, so let's say 25%.
Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair
#583Apple did the same thing to Kindle for iPhone back when it launched. We submitted the original version to Apple with a fully functioning store built into it—and were then stuck in submission limbo. Two weeks later, Apple announces their intent to build in-app purchasing. The kicker: Apple wanted a 30% cut of every book sold on the store …and at the same time, had negotiated with book publishers that the publishers MU…
It wasn't just Kindle. There were dozens of really high quality book reading apps that either sold old or hard to find books, comics, or even mangas. All of them evaporated over night once Apple forced the 30% cut. I'm still very bitter about that move.
Apple even went as far as making some Steve Jobsian rule that you had to sell your book for the same price on the web as you did in-app. So you couldn't make up for the 30% cut. That was a pure bad-faith move and Apple only recently rescinded that requirement.
Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair
#584Oh, that title.. thought for a moment they were going to start paying more to the musicians.. but I guess it's not yet time to play fair there.
Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair
#585Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 wh…
Apple clearly has a monopoly on the sales and distribution of iPhone apps, and as evidenced by Spotify, they are wielding that monopoly anti-competitively. "Just use a different smartphone" isn't a real defense in my opinion, any more than "just use a unix workstation" would be to Microsoft's desktop computer monopoly in the 1990s.
Comparing Apple to 90s Microsoft is a bad analogy. Apple has like sub-20% market share of smart phones. Google/Android is the 90s Microsoft in the smartphone market, not Apple.
Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair
#586I've submitted a complaint about this requirement to use specific purchase systems against Play Store and App Store two years ago but they didn't see it as a problem because, apparently, you can switch from GPlay to Apple products or vice-versa.
A sound logic.
Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair
#587Imagine if the entire web were subject to the arbitrary will of an individual corporation.
Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair
#588Apple did the same thing to Kindle for iPhone back when it launched. We submitted the original version to Apple with a fully functioning store built into it—and were then stuck in submission limbo. Two weeks later, Apple announces their intent to build in-app purchasing. The kicker: Apple wanted a 30% cut of every book sold on the store …and at the same time, had negotiated with book publishers that the publishers MU…
My dad has had iPads since the first one, and it is still jarring for him to not be able to just click a "store" button in the Kindle app. (I believe it used to have a webview for the store built-in; I do not use the Kindle app) He was very confused when it disappeared. I imagine most users feel this way. I had to coach my mom to sign up for Pandora on the website so she saved a couple bucks a month, and it was baffl…
I miss this feature from Pandora. It used to let you buy an album on iTunes or Amazon, but they eventually removed that feature.
Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair
#589Whenever Apple's 30% take on the App Store comes up, people on this website get all up in arms about it. Let me provide some perspective, which I think is sorely lacking:
I sell physical goods on Amazon. They charge me 15% for this privilege. The only reason they don't charge more is because physical goods have lower margins than digital goods (my margins after it's all said and done are somewhere between 10-15%). And, you know what? I'm happy to pay Amazon their 15% because they're bringing me customers that I wouldn't have otherwise.
Perhaps thinking about it like this is instructive: does Amazon have an obligation to let me sell on their platform simply because lots of consumers choose to buy stuff from Amazon? Does Amazon have an obligation to change their fee structure so that I can more easily compete with Amazon Basics branded products?
Should Apple charge a smaller percentage to subscription services that can't afford to give up 30%? Probably. It would net Apple a percentage of something, rather than the 30% of $0 that they're getting now. And it would be a better experience for Apple's customers. But it is in no way unreasonable for Apple to expect to get paid for originating sales of software and subscriptions. And it is certainly not unreasonable for them to get paid significantly more than credit card processing fees.
Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair
#590Earlier quoted context omitted.
> - It blocked Spotify from using a podcasting API after it acquired 2x major podcasting companies Interesting one since it is Spotify that is trying to close the currently open podcasting universe. Let's not pretend that Spotify is either the white knight or the underdog here. This is two big companies negotiating over pricing.
Well Apple is one of the biggest companies in the world, Spotify may not be a white knight but they're definitely an underdog.
I'd be more likely to consider Spotify an underdog if they weren't a VC-fueled, still-not-profitable startup.