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Addressing Spotify’s Claims

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Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#461
post #108
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)

Does Apple even have a majority market share though?

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#462

As with so many matters that involve money, arguments fly around left and right that claim to be on principle, but really aren't. When you see ESPN and Comcast argue over showing the World Series, don't buy the argument that one of them is "trying to prevent loyal customers from being able to see their favorite game", or when your local hospital group withdraws from your employer health plan that "the other side is t…

I agree with everything you said they are both businesses trying to squeeze profits. My only issue which supports Spotify is that Apple has a competing music service. Strikes me this is improper. Though if no one is going to stop them it's in their financial interest to do it, 'principles' be damned. The rest of the argument is theater to drum up sympathy from consumers as you allude.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#463
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Spotify would and does exist on all the other platforms, like Android, Windows or the open web. Apple created a lot of value with its first iPhone, but the world evolved since then. And yes, in your definition, Apple too is a middleman, because a big reason for why many people buy overpriced smartphones is to use apps. That you can't move those purchases easily to another platform, that's the lock-in effect of Apple'…

Artists get paid over double what they get paid on Spotify.

https://mixmag.net/read/new-data-reveals-which-streaming-pla...

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#464
post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a thread of truth in what you’re saying, but it unravels on close inspection. Proprietary cables are hardly new, and to be fair those cables and connectors are usually way better than the standard stuff. Firewire and thunderbolt were actually released as open standards and saw decent adoption. Lightning is far superior to Micro-USB. Just listen to the wailing and gnashing of teeth by Macbook owners having to…

XCode is free and has been for ages. To this day you can develop whatever you like for the Mac and not pay Apple a penny. You don’t even have to use XCode to do it. It’s even free for iPhone development for your own device now, though you have to pay a fee to publish stuff. I’m not sure what you comment about emulators is about to be honest, The iOS emulator for the Mac is free. True it is all free except the whole h…

This is a disingenuous argument, you have to buy a PC to develop Windows. And you have to pay $100-300 for windows, AND you have to play $600-$2500 _per year_ for Visual Studio

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

XCode is free and has been for ages. To this day you can develop whatever you like for the Mac and not pay Apple a penny. You don’t even have to use XCode to do it. It’s even free for iPhone development for your own device now, though you have to pay a fee to publish stuff. I’m not sure what you comment about emulators is about to be honest, The iOS emulator for the Mac is free. True it is all free except the whole h…

And there is the Apple dev annual subscription. By the way, I have (in the past) managed to run macOS on Vmware successfully, but one needs a pretty strong PC to make this work without having the fans lifting the PC off the groud.

> And there is the Apple dev annual subscription.

Only if you're publishing.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#466
post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

https://www.apple.com/supplier-responsibility/pdf/Apple_SR_2...

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you comment on my point and not add an "What about x" ? My point is about the user, do I benefit is a supermarket makes it own products cheaper, Yes , but if it makes my preferred product more expensive to force me to buy the product they want, this does not benefit me, again, tell me about what the benefit is for the user/consumer not what about x, the market shares, the laws in US, free market ....

The consumer gets an equivalent service for cheaper, that is like literally the definition of consumer benefit in economics. If you truly believe that X is better than iX than you can pay the extra money for X, but if iX is just as good and is cheaper than X the consumer benefits because they can spend less to get the same service.

This is wrong, because you get it cheaper because the better product price was inflated.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That wide flat thing that looked kinda similar to Samsung's tablet connector? I'm not sure if it was in the last 10y tho...

You’re thinking of the Dock Connector, which was last used on the iPhone 4s back in 2011.

And first used in 2003.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

XCode is free and has been for ages. To this day you can develop whatever you like for the Mac and not pay Apple a penny. You don’t even have to use XCode to do it. It’s even free for iPhone development for your own device now, though you have to pay a fee to publish stuff. I’m not sure what you comment about emulators is about to be honest, The iOS emulator for the Mac is free. True it is all free except the whole h…

This is a disingenuous argument, you have to buy a PC to develop Windows. And you have to pay $100-300 for windows, AND you have to play $600-$2500 _per year_ for Visual Studio

You can develop for Windows without Visual Studio, and Visual Studio has a free tier that includes some commercial usage. If you own pretty much any desktop computer or laptop, it can run Windows (including Macs). I think you can even get Windows licenses for testing purposes for free, if you prefer to work on macOS or Linux and just test on Windows (EDIT: on reviewing this part, the terms on those test images aren't as clear as one would like, even though they clearly are provided for developers, so count cost for 1 license if you want to be sure).

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#470
post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://mixmag.net/read/new-data-reveals-which-streaming-pla...

I've heard the argument about this is that Spotify has a free tier, and free listens pay out less.

This makes me wonder if $ per play is the right metric, versus $ per artist per platform. If you get paid less per play on Spotify, but get many more plays there would that still be a better deal?
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