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Addressing Spotify’s Claims

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Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#241

Post by ianai »

rocqua wrote: post #214
threeseed wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's legal to have a monopoly. It's legal to have a monopoly and get advantages in the market. It's illegal to have a monopoly and then try and extinguish your competition in the current or any adjacent markets.

Mergers get blocked simply because the resulting company would have too much market share. That is a straight up ban on monopoly. My given example of dell and Intel actually happened and was prosecuted. How does that fit your claims?

Monopoly regulations are enforced inconsistently across time according to political whims. There’re going to be plenty of counter examples to go around.

Monopolies and oligopolies are inefficient. Whether legal or not they result in in detrimental outcomes.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#242

Post by close04 »

laumars wrote: post #217
close04 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no such competition inside Apples walled garden There is massive competition to the garden itself.

> There is massive competition to the garden itself. I did already acknowledge that and pointing out why it doesn't work in practice. In a normal high street setting manufacturers and distributors set their prices and the shops then add their mark up on time. If the prices are too high then consumers will shop in another local store. Which means those stores either have to negotiate a lower selling price or reduce th…

> With iOS consumers don't have the option of going to another App Store

Correct, it's certainly unfair competition but what I'm saying is that it's still not a monopoly, not that it's "fair". When you paid for the iPhone you also paid for the services bundle that you bought as a package. Now if Apple controlled 90+% of the market this would fall under antitrust laws (MS+IE situation all over again). But they only control 15%. Users have the option of going for the the same/equivalent service provided by other vastly more popular phones and their app store(s). So every link in the chain has a perfectly good equivalent.

And even Spotify has a choice. They can shaft Apple and become Android only, since Android has 85% of the market. The reason they're not doing it right now I assume is because they would also shaft themselves, the AppStore might bring a very big chunk of their revenue (historically iOS users are bigger spenders).

Practical example of single supplier without an actual monopoly: If you buy a GM car you're left with one option for a subscription telematics service: OnStar. You can't get Lexus Link for example. I don't think it ever occurred to anyone to call this a monopoly.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#243

Post by kutoff »

What I actually heard reading that closing statement...

We’re proud of the work we’ve done to force companies like Spotify into a walled garden, restricting hundreds of millions of paying customers purchasing choices, and we wish them continued success — after all, the whole point of creating the App Store was to sell more iPhones so rent-seeking off the app-developers that made us so successful is just an added bonus.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#244

Post by josephg »

myoffe wrote: post #222
josephg wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But just like my TV and my desktop computer, I've paid for my phone with cash. Its mine. Just like my PC, I don't owe Apple Computers any extra money in exchange for the privilege to install apps like spotify on my device. The benefit of having access to the app store is already factored into the (quite high) price I paid for my phone.

True, but a counter argument could be that Apple has created the ability of your phone to have apps installed on it. And I’m theory you could jailbreak your phone and install any app you’d want.

Sure; but I paid $1000 for my phone in part because of that capability. My phone would be worth less if I couldn't install apps like spotify. And unlike a game console, app purchases aren't used to subsidise the phones. Its pure profit for apple.

And I wouldn't have a problem with that in general, except it feels dirty to claim Apple are saints for graciously allowing apps like spotify to be sold on their platform. They're already being paid for doing so through phone sales. Leveraging the monopoly they hold over the ios app store against Spotify, one of their competitors, is exactly what antitrust legislation is designed to prevent.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#245

Post by xvector »

infinity0 wrote: post #236
xvector wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In reality, Apple are doing far more freeloading off of other projects than Spotify is doing off of them, legal or no. You cannot make any moral assumptions here because the whole point of many of these open-source projects is that people can use them freely , with no obligation - moral, or otherwise - to contribute back. > should be a free marketplace, like how regular GNU/Linux package repositories have worked fo…

> You cannot make any moral assumptions here I'm not making any moral assumptions. I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy of Apple's moral assumptions that they're making in their posting. > It won't devolve into a malware-ridden mess that destroys the privacy and security of users. Windows, GNU/Linux, and in fact Mac OS X itself, are all doing fine. The real security problem is elsewhere, it is disingenuous to use this…

> hypocrisy of Apple's moral assumptions

Apple's 'moral assumption' is that Spotify would like to 'freeload' off of their store. The App Store is provided with the intent that services which are based off of it contribute back to the App Store.

Open-source software is not provided with the 'moral assumption' that users contribute back.

There is no hypocrisy here. Apple is criticizing Spotify for trying to sidestep the moral expectations of the App Store, but Apple itself is not sidestepping moral expectations of the open-source products it uses.

> Windows and GNU/Linux are doing fine.

Are they? In what context? Do you really think Windows does "fine" for the average user, and that they are not at a huge risk of malware, terrible software, and more?

It's also disingenuous to say that security problems are not in large part caused by how open available distribution channels are. We have proof showing that the App Store has provided an objectively more secure environment for the average user than Windows or even the repository model.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#246

Post by thisacctforreal »

felipelemos wrote: post #198
hjk05 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same story with phones. You are free to buy from other suppliers. But you can’t walk into a Walmart and buy milk from whole foods on their shelf’s, even if you feel that would be great for you personally because Walmart is closer but you prefer Whole Foods.

And I am free to use Google Music, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Deezer and even Tidal. Nobody is forcing me to use Spotify. But, if I have an iPhone, the only application store I can use is controlled by Apple. In other words: if I am an artist and I want to offer my music via streaming I have plenty of options. If one of them does have a deal that I find unfair, I can choose others. If I am a developer and I want to…

I think it's somewhat frequent to have app submissions denied, but I haven't heard of Apple banning future submissions in the same way that I hear of Google permabanning developers.

I agree with Android it's slightly different because side loading is at least possible, but I doubt many people are going to find your widget if it's not on the play store.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#248

Post by pjmlp »

emsy wrote: post #235
andromeduck wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is free to sell books in their app, they just need to pay a portion of their revenue for the privilege of doing so much like in the mall.

And Apple is forcing everyone to sell in their mall and no other. That's pretty much the point.

There are other malls available, across the world Apple's mall is quite small.

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#249

Post by buboard »

est wrote: post #24

Can anyone explain why Wechat, the app that can do everything, streaming paid music, read paid ebooks, order food and goods, play games, are allowed to charge directly without IAP? Heck wechat even had its own mini app store.

Interesting. Also , is it impossible for spotify to offer its service through the ios browser?

Re: Addressing Spotify’s Claims

#250

Post by fauigerzigerk »

askmike wrote: post #216
fauigerzigerk wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that 30% is egregious oligopoly pricing, but 1% is definitely insufficient to run a payment service and a software distribution platform that includes any sort of fraud prevention and support.

In 2018 (edit: 2017) they made roughly $11.5 billion[1] with their 30% cut. 1% instead would be $383 million a year. You think that wouldn't be sufficient to run a digital store (including the things mentioned)? Pretty sure you can do it with far less than that. [1]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2018/01/06/apples-ap...

No, I really don't think it would be sufficient to run a payment service that includes billing, international VAT processing, chargebacks, customer support, fighting fraud, plus providing an entire software development, distribution and vetting platform.

Mobile platforms are dysfunctional markets. That's why they can charge 30% and that's why regulators will step in sooner or later.

But take a look around and you will find that there is no digital shop that acts as a merchant of record internationally for anywhere close to 1%. It's impossible and completely unrealistic even before accounting for the entire software development and distribution side.

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