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Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

newsroom.spotify.com

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Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#11

Post by judge2020 »

lbotos wrote: post #3

Is this "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" play where Google makes Apple look bad in an effort to avoid some of the regulations that might catch Apple? I cant figure out why Google would want this otherwise?

Google made the same decision as Apple when they removed Fortnite in response to Epic Games completely bypassing the store's in-app purchasing flow, thus losing their 30% revenue cut, so the motivation is likely not 'to make Apple look bad'.

This is probably just a good show of faith to regulators while Google still collects their percentage of subscription revenue from Spotify on the backend.

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#14

Post by criddell »

> represents a first-of-its-kind option in payment choice and offers opportunities for both consumers and developers

What is the opportunity here? For consumers is it that you can pick who you pay? That doesn't sound like much of an opportunity to me.

What is the opportunity for developers?

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#16

Post by librish »

criddell wrote: post #14

> represents a first-of-its-kind option in payment choice and offers opportunities for both consumers and developers What is the opportunity here? For consumers is it that you can pick who you pay? That doesn't sound like much of an opportunity to me. What is the opportunity for developers?

Presumably that they'll see the difference in price.

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#17

Post by onelovetwo »

criddell wrote: post #14

> represents a first-of-its-kind option in payment choice and offers opportunities for both consumers and developers What is the opportunity here? For consumers is it that you can pick who you pay? That doesn't sound like much of an opportunity to me. What is the opportunity for developers?

So there is no user choice, technically just a lesser commission. Nothing stopping Google from upping this 5% "fee" to 10% when they feel like it.

This is still a loss for devs, I was hoping we can just rip of Google garbage payment system and use something like Stripe, or whatever new companies that would've emerged to fill our needs.

Obviously they'll give a sweet deal to massive companies but not the small devs.

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#18

Post by judge2020 »

criddell wrote: post #14

> represents a first-of-its-kind option in payment choice and offers opportunities for both consumers and developers What is the opportunity here? For consumers is it that you can pick who you pay? That doesn't sound like much of an opportunity to me. What is the opportunity for developers?

The opportunity for developers (read: the investors and C-level management at companies) being able to save marginally on their cut to Google by allowing the user to select non-Google Play billing. However, I wholly imagine Google agreed to this because they'll still get their cut of subscription revenue on the backend, so Google might only take 25% instead of 30% when the app doesn't use Play Store billing.

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#19

Post by orangepanda »

criddell wrote: post #14

> represents a first-of-its-kind option in payment choice and offers opportunities for both consumers and developers What is the opportunity here? For consumers is it that you can pick who you pay? That doesn't sound like much of an opportunity to me. What is the opportunity for developers?

> What is the opportunity for developers?

An opportunity to make unsubscribing a more engaging activity

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#20

Post by u2077 »

This is great, I guess? Is Google just caving in at a smaller scale before they get forced to do this at a larger scale? I feel like by doing this now, they are trying to dodge something that’s very likely to come down the road. (antitrust regulations)

Then again, partnering with only the big names will create a new wave of complaints.

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