Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair • Hacker News Board

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#681

Post by mrkstu » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 9:08 PM UTC

ihuman wrote: post #393

mrkstu wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did for e-books, which they got sued for and lost. I believe they also used to have it for subscriptions to things like video services (i.e. if you offered a web price and a 'through the store' price, the store price couldn't be higher), but dropped it.

They dropped it for video, but not audio?

I don't believe they've kept it anywhere. But if Spotify sells through the App Store they'll lose all their profits to Apple's commission, to sell at the same price, or they'll have to charge appreciably more (at non-competitively high prices) for their app store customers (or raise prices everywhere and subsidize their customers acquired through the app store.)

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#682

Post by underwater » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 9:10 PM UTC

toasterlovin wrote: post #585

ac29 wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Comparing Microsoft to Apple in the 2010's is a bad analogy. Microsoft tried to bundle a web browser by default. Apple outright bans competitor apps and takes a cut of almost every transaction that happens on the device.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#683

Post by qhwudbebd » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 9:10 PM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #629

qhwudbebd wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify petitions EU to sanction Apple for abuse of their monopoly on the iOS platform? Which looks a bit like what they've just done...

Again. iOS is not a monopoly. Having a monopoly over their own product is what every company has.

"iOS is not a monopoly."

I think the confusion here is that you incorrectly believe this is a necessary condition for Spotify's complaint to be upheld.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#684

Post by jhasse » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 9:10 PM UTC

supermatt wrote: post #668

jhasse wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 didn't mean that your definition of a monopoly is incorrect, but that you can't just narrow down the market until you find a monopoly. Because if you could, every company has a monopoly (which wou…

This isn't narrowing down markets until we find a monopoly. This is a trillion dollar company abusing access to their captive market. The only option for users is to leave their ecosystem and lose access to all of their purchases. If that isn't covered by current anti-trust law, then the law is outdated and should be changed.

> The only option for users is to leave their ecosystem and lose access to all of their purchases.

The user signed up for that, so IMHO he gets what he deserves. The only I think I would change is to disallow the use of the word "purchase" when the user only buys the right to access some DRM-ed content.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#685

Post by gerardnll » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 9:11 PM UTC

rahoulb wrote: post #472

gerardnll wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For god sake, it's about policy not tech inability! You don't even need to read the website to know that. WatchOS has APIs like iOS, it's not a matter of being 'hard' to program. It's because if you're nobody, the spotlight is not on you every step you take. But Spotify being your competitor is being close watched.

But it was Spotify that asked the random guy to take the app down. If anything I would have thought it would be in Spotify's interests to keep it up - "look it's possible, but Apple isn't allowing us"

Of course, because this guy had no rights. It’s already technically possible without having to keep an app alive that’s infringing your property just to say ‘hey look’

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#686

Post by acdha » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 9:13 PM UTC

Faark wrote: post #633

xvector wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree. The blindness of users here towards the use case of non-techies is surprising.

It's not really blindness... it's a trade-off I'd be willing to make to still own & have full control over the hardware I buy. Unless we can find a better middle way to achieve this. Also, is Android as malware infected as GP describes? He singles out desktops, but Android does allow side-loading apps and people still near exclusively download apps though the play store. Adding a few other stores of big&trusted compa…

Android does have malware distributed through side-loading but my objection was really the part I highlighted about “prevented from shipping an App Store with their OS”. If you don't have an app store at all the malware numbers will go way up because 100% of your users are going to be trained that it's normal to add stores or direct install apps and then you're going to see all of the shady download.com-style operations SEOing their way into people's search results, with fun variations like phone carriers pre-installing stuff which is ad-supported or the process of backroom deals.

> I really don't understand why I must have a Google account to download Microsoft office.

This is a related but separate issue: most of the value comes from trusting Google to verify that the app you found searching for “Microsoft Office” is actually published by Microsoft. Having a Google account saves you from having to manage accounts with every software publisher you use — which is huge for most people — but it's not really a prerequisite for user safety the way having a review step makes it a lot harder to spam popular application names.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#687

Post by headsoup » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 9:17 PM UTC

hokumguru wrote: post #231

gurpreet- wrote: post #126

Personally, as an app developer, I think Spotify is taking the right stance here. I believe that Apple should take some cuts but not as high as 30%. I believe for some categories like microtransaction based apps Apple should take maybe 5%. Plus, I think that if Apple has a competing service, then it should waive the tax altogether. It's only fair. If the only function of the App Store (or Play Store) is to provide ho…

This opens up a wide host of negative side-effects including the extreme ease of malware. I'd say the #1 value proposition for the App Store, and why most iOS users prefer it, is the guarantee of virus-free programs.

Why don't Apple/Google ensure AV/Malware protection is a default app? Why do we depend on Apple/Google protecting us from these big bad apps?

If not Apple/Google controlling it directly, I'd imagine there would be a reasonable market for malware/AV providers on mobiles, if not solutions provided by Apple/Google.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#688

Post by mthoms » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 9:18 PM UTC

gnicholas wrote: post #606

nevir wrote: post #238

Apple 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…

Even crazier, Apple in some cases forces apps that use webviews to block out links to the Kindle Store that would normally appear. My iOS app [1] has speed reading and accessibility features that we overlay on websites, including the Kindle Cloud Reader. Apple wouldn't approve our app until we blocked the Kindle Store button from loading on the Kindle Cloud Reader website. It never occurred to me that Apple would try…

> It never occurred to me that Apple would try to exercise control over how third-party websites are rendered inside webviews, but it turns out they do

Wow. I'm not sure why this isn't all over the tech press. Apple forcing developers to modify third party websites is way, way over the line of what I would call ethical.

I'm generally an Apple fan, but this is nothing more than unrestrained corporate greed.

Disgusting.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#689

Post by tptacek » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 9:19 PM UTC

ppeetteerr wrote: post #327

jcranmer wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Antitrust covers in general anticompetitive practices, and has done so since the original Sherman Antitrust Act. So, for example, colluding with another business to fix prices is covered under antitrust, even if the sum of the businesses concerned do not constitute a monopolistic power in the industry. The other common category is the various rules around the preference of a company's other product lines over competi…

You _might_ have an argument here: "The other common category is the various rules around the preference of a company's other product lines over competitors". We'll see what the courts decide

You can just look at the case history.

https://www.justice.gov/atr/antitrust-case-filings

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#690

Post by yellowapple » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 9:20 PM UTC

nevir wrote: post #676

gnicholas wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically you can use your iPad/iPhone, but you have to use a web browser instead of the Kindle app. A funny thing happens when you do — the website redirects you to the Amazon app, which then redirects you back to the website. Honestly, I don't know how Amazon does purchasing through the Amazon app without giving 30% to Apple, but it seems that they don't let you purchase books this way.

The 30% fee only applies to digital goods, not physical ones. It's part of why there's all the awkward hoops that the main amazon app goes through when you run into digital goods, but everything else is mostly sane

If that's the case, could Spotify work around this by mailing something to the customer every month (like a "Certificate of Subscription")? That way it'd technically be a physical good.