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EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint

cnbc.com

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Re: EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint

#471

Post by nolok »

tolmasky wrote: post #459
nolok wrote: post #391

Lots of comments around the line of "ok maybe 30% is too much, but we can all agree they offer a valuable service, so what percentage should they take ?" Uhhhh, not a percentage ? Do you imagine AWS billing you a % of your revenue instead of a given price for a given service ? Give a price to be listed in store, to be reviewed, to be downloaded by a user, ... And let company pay what they owe you. Let them pay throug…

They should take whatever percentage they want, even 100%, as long as they allow alternative ways to get apps onto the iPhone and to charge for in-app purchases. The problem isn’t that their price is too high, it’s that it’s the only game in town. Allow alternatives and then the price they choose can compete with the rest of them. We can see exactly how valuable of a service it really is.

Oh I absolutely agree. Like another commenter said below, another similar thing are payment processors fees, but it works because 1. you're free to use another one, or checks, or cash, or bitcoin, or anything else, and 2. the EU has strongly regulated their fees and imposed massive limits on what they can charge in %.

Re: EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint

#473

Post by Evan__ »

nolok wrote: post #465
tomasreimers wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument applies equally well to payment processors (Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, etc.) and, as a society, we seem to be okay with them just taking ~2% of Revenue despite their underlying costs (largely) being a flat fee. I'm not saying it's okay, simply that there's precedent fairly ingrained in our economy.

But that's not a 1:1 comparison because you are not forced to use them, you're free to go to another one, or not take them and use checks or cash or bitcoin or whatever you want. If Apple was not making it mandatory to go through them, it would be another story from my point of view. Note that payment processor fees are massively regulated in the EU as well, with very low limits. So by that precedent the EU coming an…

You’re “not forced to use them” in exactly the same way you’re not forced to use Apple.

Re: EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint

#474

Post by ziml77 »

nolok wrote: post #391

Lots of comments around the line of "ok maybe 30% is too much, but we can all agree they offer a valuable service, so what percentage should they take ?" Uhhhh, not a percentage ? Do you imagine AWS billing you a % of your revenue instead of a given price for a given service ? Give a price to be listed in store, to be reviewed, to be downloaded by a user, ... And let company pay what they owe you. Let them pay throug…

For some reason a flat fee hadn't even crossed my mind, but that makes a lot of sense. The cost of an application doesn't change the distribution costs at all.

Re: EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint

#475

Post by Someone »

tomasreimers wrote: post #445
nolok wrote: post #391

Lots of comments around the line of "ok maybe 30% is too much, but we can all agree they offer a valuable service, so what percentage should they take ?" Uhhhh, not a percentage ? Do you imagine AWS billing you a % of your revenue instead of a given price for a given service ? Give a price to be listed in store, to be reviewed, to be downloaded by a user, ... And let company pay what they owe you. Let them pay throug…

Your argument applies equally well to payment processors (Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, etc.) and, as a society, we seem to be okay with them just taking ~2% of Revenue despite their underlying costs (largely) being a flat fee. I'm not saying it's okay, simply that there's precedent fairly ingrained in our economy.

In the USA. The EU forced them to take a smaller cut (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interchange_fee#European_Union)

Re: EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint

#476

Post by nolok »

AlexandrB wrote: post #457
nolok wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because Apple's actual costs are pretty much fixed (storage, bandwidth, ...) so clearly on a low price / many customer scenario it seems fairer. That's why a per usage pricing would be fairer. And yes, the app having one thousand $10 purchases would pay way more than the app having a single $10000 purchase, but that's the point.

But for Spotify or other apps that sell content Apple is not providing storage, bandwidth, or anything else. They do provide payment processing, but it's common for that to be a small percentage of purchase price already (e.g. ~1-2% for credit cards).

> But for Spotify or other apps that sell content Apple is not providing storage, bandwidth, or anything else.

Indeed, I missed that layer when answering you. That's makes it even worse and unfair.

> They do provide payment processing, but it's common for that to be a small percentage of purchase price already (e.g. ~1-2% for credit cards).

And working with Visa doesn't stop you from offering Mastercard or Paypal or others. Apple mandates you use them.

Re: EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint

#477

Post by chrisandchris »

nolok wrote: post #465
tomasreimers wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument applies equally well to payment processors (Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, etc.) and, as a society, we seem to be okay with them just taking ~2% of Revenue despite their underlying costs (largely) being a flat fee. I'm not saying it's okay, simply that there's precedent fairly ingrained in our economy.

But that's not a 1:1 comparison because you are not forced to use them, you're free to go to another one, or not take them and use checks or cash or bitcoin or whatever you want. If Apple was not making it mandatory to go through them, it would be another story from my point of view. Note that payment processor fees are massively regulated in the EU as well, with very low limits. So by that precedent the EU coming an…

You‘re not forced to use them?

So you have to pay your Spotify subscription by cash or checks. How many people will still subscribe to Spotify? I haven‘t ever seen a check in my live besides in TV.

In some sense you are „forced“ to use them. And in some sense it is ok, as long as one party does not has to much power.

Re: EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint

#478

Post by rattlesnakedave »

robbie-c wrote: post #111
piokoch wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think argument about 30% is not that good. There is a number of services that Apple provides like software distribution, updates distribution, reviews (even though they don't benefit software creator directly, they build trust in the platform and attract more users), invoicing, regardless on the location (this one is really big - getting a single invoice from Apple instead of dealing with potentially thousands of d…

Apple don't let us do any of that ourselves, so it's impossible to say that 30% is an appropriate fee for doing it. If they allowed competitor App Stores or direct downloads, and didn't ban us from even mentioning other ways to purchase a subscription (and other such anticompetitive practices), I would find this more convincing.

>Apple don't let us do any of that ourselves

Every stupid app would have its own store if they did. As an iOS user, that would be detrimental to my user experience.

We're seeing a similar phenomenon in the streaming space now, and it's horribly obnoxious. Hardware lock-in is the only thing keeping app distribution on iOS sane.

Before the "but android" rebuttal, consider the more comparable (IMO) situation of wallet apps on android.

Re: EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint

#479

Post by devmunchies »

nolok wrote: post #391

Lots of comments around the line of "ok maybe 30% is too much, but we can all agree they offer a valuable service, so what percentage should they take ?" Uhhhh, not a percentage ? Do you imagine AWS billing you a % of your revenue instead of a given price for a given service ? Give a price to be listed in store, to be reviewed, to be downloaded by a user, ... And let company pay what they owe you. Let them pay throug…

i'm fine them charging whatever percentage they want, as long as they open up app downloads so i can download an app from safari.

Re: EU says Apple’s App Store breaks competition rules after Spotify complaint

#480

Post by nolok »

Evan__ wrote: post #473
nolok wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's not a 1:1 comparison because you are not forced to use them, you're free to go to another one, or not take them and use checks or cash or bitcoin or whatever you want. If Apple was not making it mandatory to go through them, it would be another story from my point of view. Note that payment processor fees are massively regulated in the EU as well, with very low limits. So by that precedent the EU coming an…

You’re “not forced to use them” in exactly the same way you’re not forced to use Apple.

That will be a crucial point of the ruling to come yes, as the full version is "You're not forced to use them to sell on the market", and it depends on what you define as "the market".

If you consider selling apps to ios devices to be its own market, then yes you are forced to use Apple. If you don't consider that to be its own market but only a part of the actual "phones and tablets apps" market then no you are not forced to use Apple.

I believe because of the size of their userbase that apps for ios devices are a market on their own, therefore "you are forced to use Apple" applies. Here the EU seems to agree.

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