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Addressing Spotify’s Claims

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Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#511

Post by detaro »

lwansbrough wrote: post #510
ppeetteerr wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep hearing this but it doesn't make it true: Apple does not have dominance in the smartphone market. It barely reaches 20% of the smartphone market in the EU.

Not sure why you’d use the EU as the market indicator. They dominate North America, which is where the biggest market is. In the EU, they are the second largest behind Samsung but it’s close and they change spots from time to time.

Because Spotify has filed a complaint with the EU about Apple's behavior, which is why we're talking about all this right now.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#512

Post by FireBeyond »

ppeetteerr wrote: post #507
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…

> Literally every other platform has given away tooling and emulators That's so wrong. Try building a game for any console and see how far that assumption will take you.

Since when is a gaming console a personal computer (in any meaningful sense)?

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#513

Post by Benjammer »

ppeetteerr wrote: post #506
weavejester wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" There's no public right to have a music app be charged a certain amount that's called "fair". Spotify could charge nothing to consumers, and be charged nothing by Apple. It's their choice. It's Apple's choice." Competition laws place limitations on what a business can do. They're not free to sell or price entirely as they please. In this case Spotify are arguing that Apple is using its dominance of the smartphone m…

I keep hearing this but it doesn't make it true: Apple does not have dominance in the smartphone market. It barely reaches 20% of the smartphone market in the EU.

Spotify is obviously going to try and define the relevant market as something that frames Apple as dominant, but I'm struggling to figure out how they're going to do that. You have to define the market as some set of products that are "interchangeable" to consumers. Apple is under 20% of "smartphones," globally, and somewhere around 25% of the EU.

I don't think you can say that the App Store is itself a relevant market. Especially when you consider that Spotify's exact same services are offered across many other platforms. When you can interchange Android Spotify and iOS Spotify and receive the exact same product and services from Spotify, then how can you frame Apple as a dominant undertaking?

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#514

Post by Phillips126 »

dev_north_east wrote: post #465
HenryBemis wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We had to pay $299 for the enterprise license to distribute iOS applications internally to just our staff[1]. This circumvented the App Store entirely and we used MDM tools (AirWatch) to distribute. Was this avoidable? I'm genuinely curious as I am not specifically an iOS/Mac dev.

[1] https://developer.apple.com/programs/enterprise/

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#515

Post by FireBeyond »

madeofpalk wrote: post #373
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…

> they've had proprietary cables and adapters for as long as I can remember. Apart from Lightning, which was created when no better alternative existed, I cannot remember a proprietary Apple connector in at least the past 10 years.

The 30 pin connector has certainly been available on devices in the past 10 years.

The Magsafe connector has, too.

As has MagSafe 2...

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#516

Post by ghego1 »

To think that in the response letter from Apple one could find anything but reasonable statements would be very naive. That letter has been drafted/reviewed by high skilled lawyers and, as much as one does or does not agree with the points they make, it still makes some clearly outlined arguments. So what I find most interesting is what it's not there. They do not mention once the fact that their own streaming app can compete on better terms since they do not have to give away 30-15% of the subscriptions.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#517

Post by caprese »

> As Spotify points out, that revenue share is 30 percent for the first year of an annual subscription — but they left out that it drops to 15 percent in the years after.

okay wake me up when it is more like 5 or 6%

This whole back and forth is so petty

> Underneath the rhetoric, Spotify’s aim is to make more money off others’ work.

My sides!

> Just this week, Spotify sued music creators after a decision by the US Copyright Royalty Board required Spotify to increase its royalty payments. This isn’t just wrong, it represents a real, meaningful and damaging step backwards for the music industry.

AHAHAHA

In most cold wars, it turns out later that both sides have valid claims, they are just unrelated to each other and lobbing those claims as rebuttals never address the underlying issue.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#518

Post by FireBeyond »

simonh wrote: post #368
askmike wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 O…

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

Such as leveraging their preferred status to get dominance for Apple Music (by being able to charge less since they aren't subject to a 30% Apple Store 'fee')?

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#519

Post by patrickmcnamara »

manojlds wrote: post #276
00deadbeef wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Spotify's early days were entirely dependent on the mobile marketplace Spotify's earliest days were before smartphones. I had Spotify on my computers before they'd even released an iPhone app.

This is response to Spotify's site which has the timeline - https://timetoplayfair.com/timeline/ Spotify launched on Desktop after the App Store launched.

> Spotify launched on Desktop after the App Store launched.

Your link seems to say the opposite.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#520

Post by clanrebornx »

HenryBemis wrote: post #435
rhodysurf wrote: post #426

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.

I don't like the hyperbole here. let's not kid ourselves, it's not a drone.
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