161–170 of 269 posts
Could you, say, hike the price of all audiobooks by the Apple tax when buying through iAP? While offering a cheaper price outside?
There are already apps doing this, like Youtube Premium ($16 IAP, $12 on their website) and Dropbox ($12 IAP, $10 on their website).
Does anyone else take issue with Spotify branching out into other arenas (e.g., Podcasts, TV, Audiobooks, etc.)? I'm honestly kinda tired of all of these services trying to gobble up any slightly related industry. I subscribe to Spotify to listen to music, not podcasts. My podcasts arrive using a different app with the backing of the RSS standard, not Spotify's internal standard. I don't want to get a subscription co…
I guess the idea is that all types of audio content have some commonality and somebody who's considering listening to music could also listen to a podcast instead. I don't think this overlap happens for me very often, but maybe it's more often than I think and often enough for them to be worth it.
I'll still boycott their podcasts because they're attempting to make proprietary what is currently free.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You mean Apple would have to be competitive regarding their own services for once? Actually have it make financial sense and provide a seamless experience for companies so they're encouraged to use it rather than forced? No... that can't be a good thing for consumers.
Are we talking about the same thing here? I am talking about payment services. Most companies will do everything they can to screw over the consumer. Especially once they have you in a subscription. As a consumer I would rather these companies be forced to not do shady practices and have to conform to a uniform way of purchases and subscriptions. I have been in too many meetings about "User Retention", if given the c…
So companies "will do everything they can to screw over the customer". Apparently excluding Apple for some reason who can never do wrong or suddenly start demanding apps charge subscriptions instead of a flat fee in the first place, but let's continue.
Companies that have their own infrastructure to support their own payment systems will switch to it, but have to create a justification for consumers to switch as Apple isn't going to do that work for them. So maybe they cut the fee, maybe they throw in a bonus whatever. Some consumers switch, finding this new method acceptable.
Then there will be other consumers, like you, who value Apple's system too highly to switch. If the above hypothetical company does not support both Apple and their own systems, this group of consumers will opt not to continue subscribing.
Now tell me, how is this so bad? How are you unable to avoid scummy business practices?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How else are they going to challenge the status quo? I'm confused by people acting shocked and appalled every time any other company brings up issues with the status quo. Spotify wants to get into Audiobooks, Apple won't let them, Spotify wants to make a social ruckus so people are aware of who to blame and to demand change. Before you consider the idea they should just quietly try to push regulation, consider withou…
Apple would definitely let them to get into audiobooks, Spotify just doesn’t want to give them the cut. As a platform owner Spotify takes a cut from the artists, aren’t they playing the same game as Apple? If they somehow get regulators to allow 3rd party payments on App Store, that would be a terrible thing for the users. I don’t want to start giving out my credit card number to every random company I want to purcha…
Just as you're able to see through the fact that it's not just about UX - let's stop pretending the issue of 3rd party payments is about consumer 'safety'.
As someone who uses Spotify every day, I hate it. I hate their expanding markets while constantly making the app more bloated, slow, and less intuitive. Really, you're going to fill my recommended page with podcasts you've paid a ton of money for exclusivity instead of showing me recommended music that's relevant to me, like they used to? Audiobooks aren't going to make my music experience any better either. Can't wa…
> for them to take away lyrics _again_ Disclaimer: I work at Spotify, but I can't speak directly for the teams handling this. So. Lyrics, and any text that accompanies audio in general (for example, if you try to show audiobook text while it's playing, or audio transcript of a podcast, or...) is a legal minefield. So, if some text that accompanies audio disappears... it's likely for legal/licensing reasons, not becau…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You mean Apple would have to be competitive regarding their own services for once? Actually have it make financial sense and provide a seamless experience for companies so they're encouraged to use it rather than forced? No... that can't be a good thing for consumers.
Honestly, after getting screwed over by so many companies making one jump through so many hoops to cancel a subscription, I rather have Apple's way. Perhaps when law or credit card processors force companies to provide an easy way to cancel a service, as easy as it was to sign up for it, then I can worry about competition in IAP space.
Also both Visa and Mastercard have their own rules that apply to subscription services, for example Visa requires services that allow signing up for a subscription to be easily cancelled online. So if you run into great issues there, call up Visa!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Software interfaces in general have regressed severely since the mid-2000s. Media players are a perfect example. There was 10x more functionality in Winamp or Windows Media Player than we get in Spotify or Apple Music today. What is going on? Why are things getting dumber? Are we just optimizing too hard for the lowest common denominator and the average user wants things to be dead simple? I don't want to believe sof…
>There was 10x more functionality in Winamp or Windows Media Player than we get in Spotify or Apple Music today. Except for the extremely useful functionality of putting a large percentage of the world's music at your fingertips ready for instant listening. Spotify also makes curated playlists ("This Is _[Artist Name]__" playlists), artist pages that show their most popular tracks and discographies, offers profession…
This is a major, major regression, that we have machines thousands of times faster but the software is an order of magnitude slower and more resource-hungry than back then on the much faster machines.
As a consumer, I’ve actually come to prefer in app purchases. I love when a subscription is available on IAP because for something like a newspaper, I know that I can cancel it with a couple of taps instead of having to fill out some long retention form or call someone.
For buying one off products. Don’t wan to be using in-app purchase.
I seem to suddenly be able to buy audiobooks in audible now though? Or at least use my credits. When did that happen?
No other company do I hate and love so much. I love their discovery algorithms and find new music through them so often. I look forward to my new Discover Weekly every Monday. But in every other way they drive me crazy. The UI is terrible and basic but I've learned to live with it. What I absolutely can't stand is inserting podcasts and audio books into the app with no option to opt-out. I get that they want to put t…
No other company do I hate and love so much. I love their discovery algorithms and find new music through them so often. I look forward to my new Discover Weekly every Monday. But in every other way they drive me crazy. The UI is terrible and basic but I've learned to live with it. What I absolutely can't stand is inserting podcasts and audio books into the app with no option to opt-out. I get that they want to put t…
I used to love the Discovery Weekly list as well. But since a couple of years, my account recommendations went into some strange niche solution and they recommend the same rubbish over and over again. I even get annoyed at certain genres that I used to mildly enjoy before. If you try to look for a solution, apparently the only way is to cancel the subscription, delete the account, resubscribe and start over ... I wis…
Why does everything go from good to the lowest mediocrity companies can get away with?