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Addressing Spotify’s Claims

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Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#361

Post by revel »

I love how brazen this letter is.

> Apple’s approach has always been to grow the pie.

Apple's approach has always been to grow it's own pie. They have never been even remotely interested in playing nicely with other companies. I don't fault them for it, but let's not kid ourselves here; the app store is largely an extremely profitable exercise in rent seeking.

It's not like this is new for Apple; they've had proprietary cables and adapters for as long as I can remember. Developing software for their hardware has always meant using Xcode, which, surprise, is not free. Literally every other platform has given away tooling and emulators, but that's never been true for Apple. Occasionally this kind of behavior works out well for customers -- they were unafraid to use their market power as a cudgel to kill off Flash (which I think we can all agree needed to happen) -- but all too frequently it's purely anti-competitive. Apple has created some incredible products and services over the years, but let's not kid ourselves about this; this is simply a way of extracting value from Spotify.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#362

Post by filleokus »

devit wrote: post #342
bradleyjg wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think iOS app distribution is a bit too narrowly drawn a market. What if Apple had 5% of the smartphone market, they'd still have 100% of the iOS app distribution market. No, I'd say the right word here isn't monopoly, but rather duopoly. That doesn't mean that antitrust law shouldn't apply, duopoly is definitely not the same thing as a fully competitive market.

Apple has a monopoly on selling phone apps to the percentage of smartphone users that have an iPhone in their pocket. It should thus be regarded as a monopoly regardless of how many people are affected, and forbidden.

If we accept this definition of a monopoly, then the term becomes worthless. Every single device where the user can add third party software but it has to be approved by the manufacturer becomes a monopoly. Stuff like Garmin watches, "smart" fridges and other appliances, "apps" on car's dashboards (like Spotify on Tesla etc).

And why should this only apply to hardware, is it not comparable to Facebook having a monopoly on allowing games on their plattform, or the (now defunct) way of developing apps for the Spotify desktop client?

Surely, this broad definition of "monopoly" is not meaningful, and should definitely not be made illegal.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#363

Post by kd913 »

simonh wrote: post #344
ahmedalsudani wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's either Android or iOS really. I'd love for a decent alternative to exist but if you don't want Google tracking everything you do, Apple is the only option.

The thing is there have been loads of other alternatives over the years. Blackberry, WebOS, Windows Mobile, Tizen. Actual customers said no, these are what they want.

A lot of them faced what I would argue anti-competitive behaviour to prevent their growth.

For example, Google banning their apps on Windows Mobile and Amazon Firestore. Google blocking Windows Phone users from accessing maps/mail via a user-agent check. That and Google actively blocking Microsoft developing a native Youtube app.

Is it any surprise that customers were unsatisfied?

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#364

Post by julianozen »

damontal wrote: post #334
exwiki wrote: post #4

> Spotify wouldn’t be the business they are today without the App Store ecosystem, but now they’re leveraging their scale to avoid contributing to maintaining that ecosystem for the next generation of app entrepreneurs. We think that’s wrong. I think that's a very hypothetical claim. > Let’s be clear about what that means. Apple connects Spotify to our users. We provide the platform by which users download and update…

> Let’s be clear about what that means Is anyone else bugged by the "Let's be clear/To be clear" prefix that gets thrown around a lot these days? It seems unnecessary. If you're being clear then that will be self-evident. It seems like a way to preemptively trick the reader in to taking whatever follows as correct and authoritative.

I wonder if this is why it has become so popular

https://www.politico.com/story/2009/08/obamas-catch-phrase-l...

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#365

Post by lowtolerance »

spiderfarmer wrote: post #137
isostatic wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use spotify and netflix without going through apple, the former on my linux desktop, the latter additionally on my smart tv.

Problem is that Apple is actively trying to prevent that. They have no right to do that and are abusing the power they have in other areas to do it.

Apple is not "actively trying to prevent" people from managing their Spotify, Netflix et al subscriptions outside of their respective iOS apps, what are you talking about?

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#366

Post by dkrich »

rkachowski wrote: post #259
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…

Since when have Apple's PR releases seemed so snarky? I haven't seen so many phrased like this, which underneath the layers of pseudo support for developers and artists, is basically a big "NO U".

I was thinking this too. I’m not a big fan of this “we’re champions of privacy and the little guy” bullshit Apple has been spewing lately. They have some good points and so does Spotify. But the way they address these issues comes across very condescendingly.

Want to talk about exploiting others work to make money, how about we start with their factories which they use to exploit other countries’ cheap labor?

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#368

Post by simonh »

askmike wrote: post #157
close04 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has ~15% market share (fluctuating) so it's not really a monopoly situation. Google will give you access to the exact same Spotify service. Whether what Apple is doing is legal or not I guess the courts will decide. But it's certainly factually incorrect to imply that you're not free to buy from anywhere else.

The Apple Store has 100% market share on all iPhones, iPads and iWatches. I really don't see this being that much different from the famous United States v. Microsoft Corp. case[1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor... . EDIT: comments have made clear that Windows had a monopoly on the personal computer space, whereas Apple doesn't have a monopoly on the smartphone or tablet space.

The other posters are right about the Microsofty monopoly, but what made it particularly egregious was Microsoft's anti-competitive practices using their market dominance to actively damage or destroy competitors. This included:

* Contractually barring licensees from offering competing OSes, or selling boxes without Windows installed.

* Leveraging their OS dominance to get dominance in other markets such as linking OS licensing with licenses for other software.

* Pinching competitor's technology using their advantages as platform owner and rolling it into their own products (Stac).

There was more, but those were the main ones.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#370

Post by cnorthwood »

revel wrote: post #361

I love how brazen this letter is. > Apple’s approach has always been to grow the pie. Apple's approach has always been to grow it's own pie. They have never been even remotely interested in playing nicely with other companies. I don't fault them for it, but let's not kid ourselves here; the app store is largely an extremely profitable exercise in rent seeking. It's not like this is new for Apple; they've had propriet…

Xcode is now free: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/xcode/id497799835?mt=12 (although you still have to have a mac)
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