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Addressing Spotify’s Claims

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Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#531

Post by _mghw »

ajharrison wrote: post #390
dpwm wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Apple just want to "grow the pie." Although growing on the pie seems a more apt metaphor. Defending 15% fees on second-year subscription is pretty difficult. There's no marketing, very little fraud risk. It's really rent-seeking behaviour – which of course is the commercial point of the walled garden approach. This is Apple exploiting a very lucrative market position, one that they did invest quite a lot of mon…

> This is Apple exploiting a very lucrative market position, one that they did invest quite a lot of money in – and took quite a gamble – to create. What's wrong with that?

Consumers get perma-shafted.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#532

Post by askmike »

fauigerzigerk wrote: post #250
askmike wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2018 (edit: 2017) they made roughly $11.5 billion[1] with their 30% cut. 1% instead would be $383 million a year. You think that wouldn't be sufficient to run a digital store (including the things mentioned)? Pretty sure you can do it with far less than that. [1]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2018/01/06/apples-ap...

No, I really don't think it would be sufficient to run a payment service that includes billing, international VAT processing, chargebacks, customer support, fighting fraud, plus providing an entire software development, distribution and vetting platform. Mobile platforms are dysfunctional markets. That's why they can charge 30% and that's why regulators will step in sooner or later. But take a look around and you wil…

Software development is completely unrelated: of course Apple needs to provide software so developers can build apps so consumers have a reason to buy an iPhone in the first place. That has little to do with a marketplace.

They can charge 30% because the marketplace (Apple's App Store & Google's playstore) are monopolies and they have complete control over the complete supply chain. If you want your app to be available on the iPhone you have to go through the App Store. There is simply no other way (for a native app), as such you either give in 30% or you don't create an iPhone app.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#533

Post by dpwm »

_mghw wrote: post #531
ajharrison wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is Apple exploiting a very lucrative market position, one that they did invest quite a lot of money in – and took quite a gamble – to create. What's wrong with that?

Consumers get perma-shafted.

Counterargument: consumers are free to switch their entire phone to enjoy the rent-seeking behavior of another party on another platform.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#534

Post by vinceguidry »

simonh wrote: post #389
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…

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…

> Yes they want their cut from Spotify. I don’t understand the Apple exceptionalism about this though.

No Spotify's letter put it very clearly, they want to take their 30% cut from Spotify while putting their own music service on the market undercutting their prices. This is blatantly anticompetitive and is rightly being slammed by Congress.

Apple's response to this has been shrug. I don't think Apple shouldn't be allowed to offer their own music service but they shouldn't use anti-competitive practices in order to stifle competition.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#535

Post by askmike »

schrodinger wrote: post #237
askmike wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2018 (edit: 2017) they made roughly $11.5 billion[1] with their 30% cut. 1% instead would be $383 million a year. You think that wouldn't be sufficient to run a digital store (including the things mentioned)? Pretty sure you can do it with far less than that. [1]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2018/01/06/apples-ap...

2 or 3% goes directly to the credit card processor, no?

On that scale I doubt you pay the same as your average Shopify webshop.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#536

Post by Rudism »

Has Apple ever tried to defend their rule that apps can't link to or even inform users of the existence of off-site registration or payment methods? That has always seemed like the most absurd thing to me and the most blatant example of Apple's true intentions with their app store.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#537

Post by coryfklein »

hellisothers wrote: post #464
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…

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

Your personal accusation of disingenuousness distracts from what would otherwise have been a good point. Let's see what a barebones setup costs for developing with a solid IDE on each platform:

macOS:

$800 Mac Mini (Apple's most affordable offering that runs macOS)

$90 Acer SB220Q Monitor

$FREE Xcode

Total: $890

Windows:

$200 Dell Inspiron 11 3000 (Most affordable Dell PC I could find being sold new)

$1200 One time payment for Visual Studio (but you don't get updates)

Total: $1400

So if have to both buy a computer and need a full featured IDE then Visual Studio's license wipes out any savings you get from avoiding the "Apple tax". It gets even worse if you want perpetual updates to Visual Studio which cost $800/year but come free with XCode.

This is counter to what I had expected beforehand myself, I expected the "Apple tax" to make the bar of entry much higher than PC development.

If, on the other hand, you can get by with a less advanced IDE or are developing in a non-proprietary language like Java, Python, or Scala the cost goes way down:

Cheapskate Option:

$200 Windows/Linux laptop

$FREE Eclipse/JetBrains CE IDE/Visual Studio Code

Total: $200

This is certainly more affordable than the $800 macOS alternative. Although one could debate whether the above mentioned IDEs are on equal footing with XCode/Visual Studio.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#538

Post by ppeetteerr »

FireBeyond wrote: post #512
ppeetteerr wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)?

The argument is around platforms, not PCs. If you're referring to the only other meaningful consumer OS, then you don't appreciate the vastness of the platform market.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#540

Post by graeme »

vinceguidry wrote: post #534
simonh wrote: 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…

> Yes they want their cut from Spotify. I don’t understand the Apple exceptionalism about this though. No Spotify's letter put it very clearly, they want to take their 30% cut from Spotify while putting their own music service on the market undercutting their prices. This is blatantly anticompetitive and is rightly being slammed by Congress. Apple's response to this has been shrug . I don't think Apple shouldn't be a…

Did apple music price below spotify/ not familiar with the pricing history.
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