This argument is super thin -- they seem to think that Spotify enjoys a huge advantage to being available on their platform (they do), without acknowledging that they also enjoy a huge advantage from the most popular music streaming app being available on their platform (which is also true). Apple still makes most of its money on hardware, and having popular apps is absolutely vital to selling hardware.
Addressing Spotify’s Claims
81–90 of 688 posts
Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yup. Another prominent example is Amazon’s inability to sell books in the Kindle application on iOS, which has the same anticompetitive undertones given that Apple sells ebooks to users of its platform.
Just like other online book shops don't sell their books on the Kindle device store app.
But, at the very least, Amazon doesn’t prevent you from reading ebooks from outside their store on a kindle. They just don’t favilate their discovery. (Unless things changed since I last owned a kindle which was quite a while ago)
Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims
#83> A significant portion of Spotify’s customers come through partnerships with mobile carriers. This generates no App Store contribution, but requires Spotify to pay a similar distribution fee to retailers and carriers. Everyone would benefit from seeing what both Apple and Spotify are paying to the carriers for these bundling deals.
Everyone would benefit from seeing what both pay the labels. Everyone speaks about “they only pay artists X per stream”. However, neither of them pays the artist directly.
Well that's not really their problem is it, I'm sure independent artists that do have their music on Spotify do get paid 'x per stream'. That is the problem with the music industry and their label signing deals.
Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Spotify wouldn’t be the business they are today without the App Store ecosystem, Apple makes Microsoft look like an angel. Using this argument, Microsoft could claim they could have made hundreds of billions if they got a cut out of every Windows app sale. Oh, and that those companies wouldn't exist if it weren't for Windows.
Apple popularized trusted computing. And yes, it's as bad as we feared it would be back in the '90s.
Ehhh I feel like Unix/Linux popularized trusted computing, Apple merely added a price tag on it. But I may be blinded by my techie point of view about "popularized".
Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims
#85> What Spotify is demanding is something very different. After using the App Store for years to dramatically grow their business, Spotify seeks to keep all the benefits of the App Store ecosystem — including the substantial revenue that they draw from the App Store’s customers — without making any contributions to that marketplace. Please Apple, pay all the open source projects that you use, a fair share of the reven…
Wow! Thats a new one. Pay the open source world who Apple have been heavy contributors to themselves. Apple are such hypocrites indeed.
Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because apple needs wechat and not the other way around. WeChat being an essential feature for any Chinese customer.
so the AppStore policy is selective?
Is this a real question (genuinely asking) ? Apple applying its policy differently for some apps, or chosing to re-interpret some of their policies randomly for some apps, is not an uncommon complaint and was a big part of spotify's original complaing.
Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims
#87Can anyone explain why Wechat, the app that can do everything, streaming paid music, read paid ebooks, order food and goods, play games, are allowed to charge directly without IAP? Heck wechat even had its own mini app store.
Because if they try to tell wechat no wechat won't change their app anyway so that would mean no wechat on ios. Which would mean goodbye to ios in china.
Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims
#88> What Spotify is demanding is something very different. After using the App Store for years to dramatically grow their business, Spotify seeks to keep all the benefits of the App Store ecosystem — including the substantial revenue that they draw from the App Store’s customers — without making any contributions to that marketplace. Please Apple, pay all the open source projects that you use, a fair share of the reven…
This. They took half of FreeBSD without giving them a single cent, only to never give horseshit about them afterwards. They're didn't even add support for FreeBSD to Swift despite the fact it would cost them very little effort, just to underline how little they care.
Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims
#89> Underneath the rhetoric, Spotify’s aim is to make more money off others’ work. And it’s not just the App Store that they’re trying to squeeze — it’s also artists, musicians and songwriters. Uh, I seem to recall Apple being forced to reverse some brazenly greedy policies for their music service when a high-profile artist called them out and withheld content in protest. For Apple to characterize itself as a champion…
Taylor Swift is an hypocrite.
She called out Apple when she was at her high, now she bends to Spotify and launches exclusive content on the platform. The platform that doesn't want to pay the artists even when they have all the right.
Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims
#90Apple is also being misleading about the 30%/15% fee variance. They make it seem like Spotify's fees drop to 15% after it has been in the App Store for a year. In reality, it is only 15% if a user is renewing their annual subscription. For initial purchase of annual subscriptions or initial purchase+renewal of all other subscription durations the fee is still 30% indefinitely. And I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of users pay monthly rather than annually.