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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

#521

Post by shuckles »

jonplackett wrote: post #518
shuckles wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s no way you are paying for 5 years of software development and your hardware for $1300. Suppose half the cost of iPhone was to build the physical object (likely low, given Apple’s 35% overall gross margins), you’re effectively saying that iOS is worth $10/mo, which is a gross underestimate. It is at least as complex a piece of software as Creative Cloud which costs $30/mo. As another benchmark, premium Android…

OK even if I accept your argument, I still don’t believe that gives apple the right to stifle their competition by forcing them to jump through arbitrary hoops. Like I’ve said - they are already giving Spotify access to Siri. They just make it deliberately painful. And as a software developer I really don’t think it would be remotely difficult to route calls for music to an alternative music app. They are already doi…

I said nothing about the capabilities a platform provides. The point you are responding to is how to talk about a “fair price” for iOS, and who should pay for it. I don’t know why you bring up requirements about what interoperability platform providers should or must provide in this context.

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

#522

Post by lovelyviking »

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…

Forget about 30%! What about 100$ each year for the right to properly run your own application on your own iphone/ipad if you want it to work offline longer than a week? Or am I missing something?

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

#523

Post by dmitriid »

simion314 wrote: post #200
dmitriid wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean "allow other browser engines. There are exactly three browser engines of any note: Safari's, Chrome's and Firefox's. iOS allows other browsers and doesn't allow other engines. And considering things like this: https://webapicontroversy.com/ I'm not entirely sure I want Chrome anywhere near my phone.

>I'm not entirely sure I want Chrome anywhere near my phone There are more browsers that use Chromium engine and nobody forces you to install Google version. I understand the potential issue of a Chrome dominance but Apple could listen for actual developers want and implement those features then you will no longer be forced to use an inferior browser.

> but Apple could listen for actual developers want and implement those features

Did you even visit the link? Developers may want the moon. And yet both Mozilla and Apple consider those (and not only those) harmful for a bunch of reasons, the primary of which is privacy.

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

#524

Post by minhazm »

josephcsible wrote: post #316
breakfastduck wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A device having the capacity in raw computing power to be a general purpose computing device does not make it one. Nor does you wanting it to beone. I'm growing really frustrated with the attempts to force Apple via law to turn my 0 maintenance iPhone into another computer I've got to bloody manage.

Nobody's trying to force you to manage your iPhone. All we want changed is to have the choice to manage ours if we want to.

I don't understand this logic. You go into buying an iPhone knowing all of the restrictions they place on it. Why would you buy it and then complain about the restrictions? Just don't buy it in the first place. You can buy one of the dozens of other cell phones on the market with an OS that's more open.

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

#525

Post by LaMarseillaise »

zibzab wrote: post #6
zibzab wrote: post #2

Unpopular opinion: This was a no brainer. Apple wanted 30% (or was it less for subscriptions?) on any business that used apps, no matter if they used apple infrastructure or not. Just think about it: one company is in practice entitled to 30% of what any other business makes (in any industry)!! Also, I think apple brought this to themselves by picking a fight with Spotify (on Watch support).

Should add, the ruling is not really about the validity of the 30% fee. What EU seems to argue is this: 1. Apple is in phone business, Spotify music. So far so good... 2. Then apple wants to get into the music business too. Now they have an unfair advantage since Spotify must pay 30% to apple while apple music "pays" 0%. So apple use their dominance in one area (phones) to get an advantage in a totally different area…

> Now they have an unfair advantage since Spotify must pay 30% to apple while apple music "pays" 0%.

I think this does not account for the opportunity cost. If Apple Music competes with Spotify, then Apple Music implicitly pays the 30% fee of the next best alternative. If Spotify operates at a loss with the fee, and Apple Music is otherwise an identical business, then Apple should prefer Spotify - it makes more money this way. The fee is basically irrelevant.

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

#526

Post by fnord77 »

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…

> Do you imagine AWS billing you a % of your revenue instead of a given price for a given service ?

hey, thanks for the great business model idea!

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

#527

Post by AnonHP »

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…

> Uhhhh, not a percentage ? Do you imagine AWS billing you a % of your revenue instead of a given price for a given service ?

...

> It's ridiculous that it doesn't matter if my app has a 5$ sub or a 50$ sub, I owe them 30% anyway. What they provided is the same in both cases, they should be able to price it out to me. Their current pricing structure is not setup like a fee for services and infrastructure usage, it's setup like a tax.

I'm curious if you've ever made the same argument for credit cards, debit cards and the like. All of them charge a percentage to the seller too (and many a times it's a fixed fee plus a percentage).

I do believe that 30% is quite high for Apple's poorer management of the App Store with respect to scams and other aspects (see the lawsuit against Apple by the developer of FlickType, Kosta Eleftheriou). And it's not just the 30% or 15% alone that the developer bears, but also the annual $99 developer program membership fee.

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

#528

Post by lukeschlather »

charwalker wrote: post #507
austinkhale wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a strange take considering Facebook is distributed for free in the App Store with the current model. Apps paying the 30% tax _already_ subsidize Facebook’s distribution.

Does FB have in app purchases on iOS? If so, is 30% going to Apple as the processor?

Facebook is completely ad-supported. I guess the hole in Apple's revenue model is that they don't charge 30% of ad sales (of course I think this demonstrates how absurd the whole idea of charging a % of subscription revenue is.)

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

#529

Post by amelius »

minhazm wrote: post #513
yummies wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most ridiculous example of this is Tesla's offering of in-app Autopilot upgrades. At $10k, imagine what Apple's cut is, for absolutely no value added.

Apple does not take a cut of this. It's charged to your existing payment method on file. It's closer to a physical good, since it's an enhancement for an actual physical good.

Perhaps we should be selling dummy physical goods with our software then. E.g. software $1, coffee mug $100.

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

#530

Post by danity »

paulpan wrote: post #504
zibzab wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should add, the ruling is not really about the validity of the 30% fee. What EU seems to argue is this: 1. Apple is in phone business, Spotify music. So far so good... 2. Then apple wants to get into the music business too. Now they have an unfair advantage since Spotify must pay 30% to apple while apple music "pays" 0%. So apple use their dominance in one area (phones) to get an advantage in a totally different area…

Right, the percentage of Apple's cut isn't the key part of this EU case. Certainly doesn't help that it's the current 30% but it being 15% won't change the fundamental issues being argued - whether Apple is abusing its market power and shutting competitors out of or subjecting them to unfair practices in its iOS ecosystem. E.g. unfairly favoring its own Music app. I think it's a fairly straightforward case similar to…

The main difference with Microsoft is that Apple does not have a monopoly in phones like Microsoft had with PCs. Apple phones make up only 13% of the phone market.
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