Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing • Hacker News Board

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#121

Post by falcolas » Wed, Mar 23, 2022, 10:03 PM UTC

nerdjon wrote: post #83

olau wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know that a consumptionist attitude is popular these days, but as a user of something like Spotify I would surely prefer as much as possible of my monetary contribution ending up with Spotify and the musicians instead of in the hands of a company controlling the market place. To the people who think the exorbitant fees are okay: Imagine a world with no cash. Now the payment card companies decide they want 30% of al…

Then let's focus on lowering that percent instead of making the situation worse for consumers. However to be clear, that percent is in the same area that game consoles and I believe Steam (someone correct me?) charge. And we accept that. When the 30% rule for the App Store came down, our smart phones were basically the same as a game console. Most people did not expect these devices to become the central part of all…

So, Spotify also reportedly takes 30% of the revenue before paying the creators.

This isn't an Apple/Google/Spotify thing, it's a service thing.

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#122

Post by falcolas » Wed, Mar 23, 2022, 10:04 PM UTC

Erwin wrote: post #120

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Spotify is the best example here, since I'm not particularly convinced that more cash going to them would end up in the hands of musicians. But certainly, if I subscribe to The Economist I want as much of my money as possible to go to the journalists who actually write the content.

Spotify is public and you can see most of their numbers -- the Cost of Revenue for 2021 was 7 billion EUR on 9.6 in revenue. The cost is said to be mostly the royalties though it would include paying the many millions to some podcasters. The ad-supported users outnumbers premium users (236 million to 180 million) but bring in only 1/6th the revenue. So that's a factor depressing the payout per stream. https://investo…

Or phrased slightly differently, Spotify takes 30% of revenue generated by selling access to artists' songs.

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#123

Post by enos_feedler » Wed, Mar 23, 2022, 10:06 PM UTC

kobalsky wrote: post #109

keep in mind that it's not for everyone, it says: "pilot will allow a small number of participating developers" it's also an agreement, so it's very likely that they are requiring price parity. in that case the only benefit of picking a different payment processor for end users would be for they joy of typing their billing information again. regardless, looks like a step in the right direction

For the reason you mentioned I don’t think its a step in the right direction. Carriers already know how to charge their users. Google and Apple should let the user choose their carrier as a systemwide in—app payment processor. Its a small fix, its a good user experience. Arguably even better than what exists today. And is a step in the right direction (move away from Apple and Google controlled things)

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#124

Post by vertis » Wed, Mar 23, 2022, 10:06 PM UTC

nimbius wrote: post #119

kevincox wrote: post #106

> Together, we’ll work to innovate in how consumers make in-app purchases, deliver engaging experiences across multiple devices, and bring more consumers to the Android platform. I wanna vomit. The fix is just deleting 3 lines of your policies. The world will innovate on its own. No need to limit innovation to a couple companies who are big enough to negotiate.

agreed. both of these companies --google and apple-- have leadership that see this as a hill to die on. Apple looks ready to go to the guillotine for the right to gouge startups, while Google seems more amicable to try obfuscation tactics to keep their hand in the cookie jar. my opinion: a couple million dollars invested in F-Droid might do the world a whole lot of good. if you were say, epic, you might consider an a…

The difference between iOS and Android though is you absolutely can avoid the Google Play app store and install items directly (or through stores like f-droid).

I'm not a fan of either ecosystem really, but Apple is definitely worse on this one metric because there is no ability to NOT pay them.

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#125

Post by endisneigh » Wed, Mar 23, 2022, 10:06 PM UTC

kevincox wrote: post #106

> Together, we’ll work to innovate in how consumers make in-app purchases, deliver engaging experiences across multiple devices, and bring more consumers to the Android platform. I wanna vomit. The fix is just deleting 3 lines of your policies. The world will innovate on its own. No need to limit innovation to a couple companies who are big enough to negotiate.

Why not just use f droid and not be behold your the play store at all? Or just host on your own site?

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#126

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 23, 2022, 10:07 PM UTC

Erwin wrote: post #120

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Spotify is the best example here, since I'm not particularly convinced that more cash going to them would end up in the hands of musicians. But certainly, if I subscribe to The Economist I want as much of my money as possible to go to the journalists who actually write the content.

Spotify is public and you can see most of their numbers -- the Cost of Revenue for 2021 was 7 billion EUR on 9.6 in revenue. The cost is said to be mostly the royalties though it would include paying the many millions to some podcasters. The ad-supported users outnumbers premium users (236 million to 180 million) but bring in only 1/6th the revenue. So that's a factor depressing the payout per stream. https://investo…

[deleted]

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#127

Post by brimble » Wed, Mar 23, 2022, 10:07 PM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #92

olau wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know that a consumptionist attitude is popular these days, but as a user of something like Spotify I would surely prefer as much as possible of my monetary contribution ending up with Spotify and the musicians instead of in the hands of a company controlling the market place. To the people who think the exorbitant fees are okay: Imagine a world with no cash. Now the payment card companies decide they want 30% of al…

Absolutely. I want 100% of the money to go to Spotify and I want a centralized one-click cancel, that looks the same for all subscriptions. That's an unlikely combination. So the viable alternative is a middle ground. A central app store and subscription management takes a cut/adds a tax. I'm ready to pay say 1% or 2% for that service.

I think the norm that everyone seems to slowly be settling on, of 15% for: 1) hosting the program itself, 2) displaying in the store, 3) payments and subscriptions including figuring out local taxes and CC fees and such, 4) various other services (push messages, for example), is pretty damn reasonable. 30% is clearly too high, but somewhere around 20% it actually starts to look like not-a-rip-off.

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#128

Post by smm11 » Wed, Mar 23, 2022, 10:08 PM UTC

I thought at first it was "pay what you want," which I'd prefer with Spotify.

I keep getting near-free SiriusXM deals, and with the integration in my car, why not. Then I start Spotify after two weeks, and it takes five minutes to load.

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#129

Post by candiddevmike » Wed, Mar 23, 2022, 10:08 PM UTC

They'll unlock a ton of innovation by letting developers use documented and testable payment platforms instead of the "I really hope this works in production" android (and apple) payment systems. Having to support all of these payment processors is such a pain the ass.

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#130

Post by dmitriid » Wed, Mar 23, 2022, 10:08 PM UTC

falcolas wrote: post #118

alkonaut wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. I want 100% of the money to go to Spotify and I want a centralized one-click cancel, that looks the same for all subscriptions. That's an unlikely combination. So the viable alternative is a middle ground. A central app store and subscription management takes a cut/adds a tax. I'm ready to pay say 1% or 2% for that service.

I'd rather 100% of the money go to the artists, personally. It is possible in many cases, but not with Spotify (or Google, Apple, etc). Middlemen want their cut, and Spotify cuts as deeply as Apple (google, steam, microsoft, sony, etc) does.

> I'd rather 100% of the money go to the artists, personally. It is possible in many cases, but not with Spotify (or Google, Apple, etc). Middlemen want their cut, and Spotify cuts as deeply

Never ever in all these accusations do people mention The Big Four [1]. It's always Apple to blame. And Spotify. And Deezer. And Pandora. And...

Even though music distributors control all f the market, collect all the royalties, and pay artists peanuts. Does Spotify pay artists directly? No, it can't do that. It pays the license holders which are, in 99% of the cases [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_industry#Consolidation

Edit: it's worse now, it's Big Three. They control 88.5% of the market, but by popularity of music that is listened to on streaming platforms, it's likely closer to 100%.