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Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

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Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#161

Post by stormbrew »

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…

It's probably not really possible to even estimate how much of actual cashflow is attributable to user income vs. artist payout from GAAP-based financial statements. And their cashflow statements are not particularly useful either. I'm sure a lot of nice things are "said to be," but if spotify were particularly proud of how much money they let through to artists I think they'd be touting it in more concrete ways.

Anyways, this is a bit like looking at Walmart's COGS and declaring that they've never screwed over a supplier by forcing them to cut prices to the bone.

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#162

Post by nvahalik »

forty wrote: post #93
nvahalik wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Assuming google works like Apple (correct me if I am wrong) While subscription cancellations work similarly, Apple holds your hand (from a dev perspective) than Google does. Apple's overall approach seems to just make sense. For instance: if you stop offering a particular plan because you don't want to offer it anymore (e.g. no more yearly plans, only monthly and quarterly). With Apple, you get a notification that…

Last time I checked (admittedly a long time on Apple, as a developer, I couldn't refund and cancel a subscription for my customers. They have to go through Apple to do that. Not a great experience.

It’s usually fairly simple though. You (as a dev) don’t have to front the cost for support folks to handle it.

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#163

Post by charcircuit »

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…

Fdroid is too strict in being against proprietary software to be invested in. Your entire app has to be open source and you can't use any proprietary libraries (including proprietary dependencies needed to build your app). Fdroid has to build your app which can delay releasing updates. Fdroid thinks it's bad to track its users so you will not even know how many people have downloaded your app.

Fdroid would not be a good investment for Epic. Why would you invested in a store that you can't even put your own games in?

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#164

Post by morepork »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #134
tick_tock_tick wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> than sure the percent needs to be lowered and I am not arguing that Yes to 0% and any percentage of revenue should be made illegal. Google and Apple can charge whatever fixed values they want or even charge based on a wide variety of vectors but a % of revenue should be explicitly illegal that kind of blatant rent seeking is a quintessential example of something the government needs to stamp out.

Apple and Google are providing a service, so why exactly should they not get a cut of revenue? To be clear, 30% is too much, but aside from payment handling and taking on fraud risk as a result of that (3-4% is generally the industry standard for card not present transactions), they provide a subscription management/payment API for IAPs, as well as app packaging and distribution, reviews, etc. That certainly is worth…

Apple and Google (and others) also allow loading credit using physical cards that you purchase at retail stores. I believe the stores get around a 5-10% margin on these, i.e. you buy a $100 gift card, and the store only pays Apple/Google $90-95.

There is a definite cost to all these so 0% is unreasonable. Epic is trying to be the "good" games distribution store and they reportedly take a 12% cut. Something around there, maybe down to 10% would be a reasonable place for Apple/Google to be.

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#166

Post by michaelmrose »

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…

You can only lower the percent with at least the credible threat of competition. Would you pay $13 for a $10 service for the privilege of doing it through the play store?

Likewise would you be equally OK if the dollar figures involved were much larger for example your cable subscription?

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#167

Post by _jal »

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.

I'd be happy not having to read the words 'innovate' for an entire paragraph. SV PR copywriters use 'innovate' like some people use 'fuck' - it substitutes for just about any other word if you work at it.

'Engagement' is similar, but more of a case of people forgetting that customers to not care about your KPIs.

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#168

Post by cglong »

enos_feedler wrote: post #123
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)

Windows Phone actually supported this! Your carrier would be listed alongside your credit cards when purchasing something.

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#169

Post by [deleted] »

dmitriid wrote: post #130
falcolas wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

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