Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Addressing Spotify’s Claims

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 688 posts

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#101

Post by twoslide »

cialowicz wrote: post #17
segphault wrote: post #7

> 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…

> Spotify’s aim is to make more money off others’ work Moreover, that's the pot calling the kettle black. That's the app store in a nutshell -- Apple supplies the marketplace, but is also making a substantial chunk of money off of others’ work.

[flagged]

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#102

Post by dtech »

eridius wrote: post #49
bad_user wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pay for Spotify due to their app. It runs on all the platforms I want it to run, including on Linux or on my Playstation, you can easily switch devices, picking up where you left off, you can remotely control devices, etc. The suggestions engine isn't spectacular, but works. I also like to see what my friends listen to. They also have the best integrations with other apps. The music selection could use some improve…

You’re saying you get value out of Spotify’s services. That’s good. Middlemen exist because they’re providing some value. Doesn’t make them not middlemen though. Ultimately, if I use Spotify to discover an artist, I’m going to continue paying Spotify to listen to that artist and the artist themselves will be lucky to even make pennies off of that. I could move off Spotify and keep listening to that artist pretty easi…

That definition of a middleman is pretty useless. According to you Apple is a middle-man because they just provide access to apps and web pages which you really want to use. Google search is a middle man because you just use them to access websites you really care about. Walmart is a middle man because they only connect the producers of consumer goods to consumers.

Everything ultimately leans on suppliers so if that's your definition everything is a middle man unless you farm crops or dig up ore or something.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#103

Post by snorlaxle »

chrischen wrote: post #12
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple won't find itself standing alone. Other major distributors like Google and Valve are both happy to take 30% off the top of app sales too, and if the chance comes to speak up in support, they will. But the difference is both of them can be circumvented by competitors, for instance Epic Games, who is challenging both. (Epic is launching an Android store soon.) Apple can't be, and that's likely to be the crux of a…

I currently subscribe to Spotify, use the iOS Spotify App, and do not make payments through in-app payments nor do I pay the 30% Apple tax. So it is circumventable, and Spotify is just "optimizing" their revenues here. So at least compared to Steam, Apple's platform is actually more open since you aren't required to pay through Apple's platform. Though I'm not sure on the current requirements for in-app purchases, so…

I buy Steam games from Humble Bundle all the time. The developers can actually generate steam keys and sell their game directly. https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/features/keys

As far as I know you can't do that on iOS. There's also nothing stopping the devs from selling IAP themselves on their own website. So no, Steam is much much more open than Apple's App store. Not to mention the fact that Steam is completely optional and the App store is not.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#104

Post by isostatic »

cialowicz wrote: post #17
segphault wrote: post #7

> 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…

> Spotify’s aim is to make more money off others’ work Moreover, that's the pot calling the kettle black. That's the app store in a nutshell -- Apple supplies the marketplace, but is also making a substantial chunk of money off of others’ work.

Exactly what my local store does. They pay the wholesaler 10 and sell to me for 15.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#105

Post by bunnycorn »

ac29 wrote: post #81

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.

Why?

Apple has Apple Music, has more music than Spotify and even if there is a track on Spotify and not in Apple Music, you can upload your own MP3s and stream them. I have a gigantic collection of Soundtracks and indie music there.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#106

Post by robin_reala »

qalmakka wrote: post #88
infinity0 wrote: post #15

> 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.

The clue is in the name FreeBSD: a portmanteau of both ‘free’ and the BSD licence which explicitly allows them to take it and reuse the code.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#107

Post by bunnycorn »

zaidf wrote: post #3

Underneath the rhetoric, Spotify’s aim is to make more money off others’ work. Wow. It is astonishing to read this from a company being widely accused of an unfair 30% tax. Correction: the revenue share is 15%, it was originally 30%

> Wow. It is astonishing to read this from a company being widely accused of an unfair 30% tax.

Widely accused by people who do nothing at all.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#108

Post by rocqua »

mythz wrote: post #28
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #2

This is a surprisingly open response to what is likely to be a legal matter, particularly given Apple's usual silence on... most everything. I definitely take issue with it's avoidance of the core issues though: That the services they provide aren't optional on the iPhone. They make it sound like connecting Spotify to users, and allowing them to use their in-app purchase mechanism is a service they offer that they sh…

Apple does not have a monopoly on Smart Phones or App Stores. They're able to as much as anyone to control how their platform is used - there's no law against maintaining a closed and curated platform and your product or platform is not considered a Market in by itself. There's also no law against having a monopoly, only for abusing your monopoly in one market to gain an unfair advantage in a different one.

> There's also no law against having a monopoly,

Yes there is. It's called anti-trust law and a large part is about pure market share.

It's also illegal to use your monopoly in a market to get advantages in that market. Most notably, you can't use your monopoly to keep your monopoly. (I.e. intel making a deal with dell where dell cannot use AMD processors)

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#109

Post by mythz »

rocqua wrote: post #108
mythz wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple does not have a monopoly on Smart Phones or App Stores. They're able to as much as anyone to control how their platform is used - there's no law against maintaining a closed and curated platform and your product or platform is not considered a Market in by itself. There's also no law against having a monopoly, only for abusing your monopoly in one market to gain an unfair advantage in a different one.

> There's also no law against having a monopoly, Yes there is. It's called anti-trust law and a large part is about pure market share. It's also illegal to use your monopoly in a market to get advantages in that market. Most notably, you can't use your monopoly to keep your monopoly. (I.e. intel making a deal with dell where dell cannot use AMD processors)

> Yes there is. It's called anti-trust law and a large part is about pure market share.

That's not a law against having one, only abusing one.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#110

Post by ms013 »

infinity0 wrote: post #15

> 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…

They owe nothing for anything they legitimately use: that’s the consequence of open source licensing as a developer. If a developer expects a project to get a fair share of revenue from projects that use it, they are free to adopt a licensing model that dictates that. That is a perfectly reasonable licensing model.

I get it: I had an open source project that HP built a product around many years ago, but modulo a couple of patches from them, we saw nothing. Didn’t bother me: we knew when we open sourced it, anything that was done with it was out of our hands.

The best I’d expect from a company using open source is that they be good open source citizens and contribute back. Apple has. clang, WebKit, etc....

Post reply on HN