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Apple Fires Back at Spotify for Asking for 'Preferential Treatment'

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Re: Apple Fires Back at Spotify for Asking for 'Preferential Treatment'

#4
post #2

Who is the bad-guy here? (Both probably, but who is the worse bad-guy?) Obviously Apple's letter makes it seem as though they are being perfectly reasonable, but neither of the articles that I read have provided much analysis.

Neither are being bad, but Spotify is clearly trying to force the issue around the App Store generally. Spotify is clearly at fault here (and the way it's been handled in the media suggests some machination, perhaps), but Apple's revenue model with App Store is just as good or bad as it has always been (or maybe better, now that there's the 85/15 split option).

Re: Apple Fires Back at Spotify for Asking for 'Preferential Treatment'

#5
You mean kind of like how Apple asks for preferential treatment from every other entity? You know, for things like:

- Being able to install updates without asking the ISP.

- Fast lanes for their services with ISPs.

- Special or even FREE rent for their physical store fronts (see Grand Central Terminal and many others.)

- Making illegal deals with book publishers so they get preferential pricing. Same for music.

The list goes on and on and on. Apple has always tried to work it so they get preferential treatment from every angle.

Re: Apple Fires Back at Spotify for Asking for 'Preferential Treatment'

#7

I was disappointed to see Elizabeth Warren get in on this. Music consumers aren't the little guy here, it's the songwriters etc.

I believe we should all rather strive for fairness, rather than asking for preferential treatment for the so called "little guys"

If you think about this it's basically the same as saying: We don't want competition, everyone should be a winner. (because you would weaken the big guys to artificially improve the situation for the little guys, even if the big guys didn't play unfair in any way)

This wouldn't ever work as we as a species are competitive by nature.

I also want to note that I would never apply this to all areas of life, I'm talking strictly about competition between businesses. Of course you should help the little guys with a social system if they are unable to survive on their own.

Re: Apple Fires Back at Spotify for Asking for 'Preferential Treatment'

#8

I was disappointed to see Elizabeth Warren get in on this. Music consumers aren't the little guy here, it's the songwriters etc.

She wasn't really commenting on the music industry, it was a larger point about major technology companies using their platforms to lock out competition. And that in turn was part of a larger speech about anti-competitive practices in general, not just in technology.

Re: Apple Fires Back at Spotify for Asking for 'Preferential Treatment'

#9
I believe that in this specific case Spotify makes a very compelling argument.

App publishers that do not directly compete with Apple have a level playing field although the Apple tax certainly hurts.

But Spotify directly competes with Apple, and while Apple does not have to pay this tax as they can (probably) use their own billing services cheaper, Spotify couldn't do the same even if they implemented their own billing service or used a cheaper alternative.

It'll be interesting to see what comes out of this. I for one hope that we someday all get to choose which billing provider we want to use in our apps.

Re: Apple Fires Back at Spotify for Asking for 'Preferential Treatment'

#10
post #6

Regardless of pricing, this is Windows/Internet explorer vs. Netscape all over. Easy to see Apple introduce features tied to Apple Music that Spotify can't because it doesn't have the same control over iOS

Like what features?
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