Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair • Hacker News Board

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#301

Post by tlogan » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 2:49 PM UTC

All companies do this. Back in days, even Evernote started doing that (with disguise "API bandwidth limits"). Nowadays, Evernote is irrelevant, so nobody complains.

The only difference here it that Apple's customers have $$, so everybody wants to be on their platform and everybody make noise.

And these politicians are talking on both side of their mouth: first they say how "3rd-party apps are stealing data" so platform must to have more checks when adding an app on their store. And when platform tries to enforce the rules they complain how platform needs to be "more open".

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#302

Post by sbt » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 2:49 PM UTC

About time.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#303

Post by supermatt » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 2:50 PM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #169

supermatt wrote: post #71

Just as Microsoft were stopped from shipping a browser with their OS, vendors should be prevented from shipping an App Store with their OS. You cant move to another platform without losing access to all your "purchases" - there is no free market. They have monopolies within ecosystems they created. They should be FORCED to have an open platform, with users able to access multiple 3rd party storefronts on multiple pla…

>Just as Microsoft were stopped from shipping a browser with their OS, vendors should be prevented from shipping an App Store with their OS. There's nothing wrong with providing an app store as long as that store offers fair and non-discriminatory terms to all vendors. Charging app developers for the costs of running a store and maintaining an ecosystem is perfectly reasonable; using those charges to stifle competiti…

> Customers have a right to choose a tightly-controlled platform, just as they have a right to shop at a grocery store that refuses to sell poisonous food

And giving them the choice is the whole point

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#304

Post by jcranmer » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 2:50 PM UTC

ppeetteerr wrote: post #240

jcranmer wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Antitrust would not apply here as Apple's share of the smartphone market is less than monopolistic. Having had to take antitrust training at my company in the past few weeks, I can say that you are very mistaken if you think antitrust only kicks in when the company is a monopoly.

Can you elaborate on why I am mistaken?

Antitrust covers in general anticompetitive practices, and has done so since the original Sherman Antitrust Act. So, for example, colluding with another business to fix prices is covered under antitrust, even if the sum of the businesses concerned do not constitute a monopolistic power in the industry. The other common category is the various rules around the preference of a company's other product lines over competitors--the line between "legal" and "illegal" is a little more blurry here.

You can fall afoul of these conditions if you have "sufficient market power", which is a substantially broader claim than "monopoly power." I don't think there's any lawyer that would try to claim that Apple doesn't have "market power"--note that the smartphone market, from an OS perspective, is basically a duopoly.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#305

Post by dwighttk » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 2:52 PM UTC

addicted wrote: post #258

dwighttk wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify is available (on apple watch) now, for whatever that's worth... Took me about 2 minutes from reading the complaint to playing Spotify (already had an account) on my watch. That includes downloading from the store and then to the watch (which has in the past, with other apps, taken a while)

They state in their timeline that after many years Apple did allow Spotify.

The Apple Watch has almost been available 4 years... In the first year and a half all apps were extremely limited. I'm not sure if that leaves "many" years for them to not allow Spotify.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#306

Post by maaaats » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 2:52 PM UTC

Dirlewanger wrote: post #220

su8898 wrote: post #166

Slightly off-topic: I find it intriguing that Spotify keeps on calling their users as 'fans' instead of users or customers!

Slimy and disingenuous corporate PR speak is everywhere. They probably have something equally repulsive for their employees.

Why the hate? Many communities have nicknames for the users. HNers, redditors, slashdotters, imgurians.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#307

Post by bunderbunder » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 2:52 PM UTC

jdietrich wrote: post #266

bunderbunder wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an interesting philosophical question there. Can a vendor who has 15% marketshare really be called a monopoly? Sure, they have complete control over who publishes on their own platform, but that sort of thing happens all the time without anyone batting an eyelash at it: The major console vendors do this, as did all cell phone vendors in the pre-smartphone era. My digital camera does this. That leaves me think…

> There's an interesting philosophical question there. Can a vendor who has 15% marketshare really be called a monopoly? Philosophically interesting perhaps, but legally irrelevant. EU competition law is primarily concerned with dominant market positions and the abuse of that dominance. As the junior partner in a duopoly, Apple are inarguably powerful enough to substantially manipulate the market. https://en.wikipedi…

That's great to hear, and makes me feel a lot more confident that something will actually happen.

My mistake, I was thinking of this in terms of US law, which is much less effective on these sorts of issues.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#308

Post by dmitriid » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 2:53 PM UTC

spunker540 wrote: post #72

hbosch wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which streaming service plays the most fair?

Going by the latest lawsuit against songwriters (suit filed by google, Spotify, amazon and pandora), it’s probably Apple. https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2019/03/11/spotify-amazon-g...

Yeah. Only it's not against songwriters per se.

Quote: "Early last month, the US Copyright Board (CRB) officially ruled in favor of a 44% increase on streaming music royalties for songwriters and publishers."

Care to guess how much of those services' content comes from publishers (read: labels), and how much those services already pay to them (hint: as much as 70% of their revenue)?

Also, strangely enough, the article quotes everyone except Spotify, Amazon etc. But is happily quoting .... (substitute expletives) various music vultures^W associations who directly benefit from this arrangement (and not the songwriters).

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#309

Post by colmvp » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 2:53 PM UTC

bpyne wrote: post #102

I've been with Apple Music and Pandora for years. A few months ago my teammates at work convinced me to try Spotify: I love Spotify! Both the content and the UX work for me. While this post represents Spotify's view without having Apple's to contrast it with, it seem eerily similar to the "Browser War" days leading up to Microsoft's admonishment. Apple seems to be the equivalent of a drunkard walking a fine line.

I would totally buy this fear if iOS was anywhere close to the marketshare that Windows was back in the 90s.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#310

Post by ric2b » Wed, Mar 13, 2019, 2:54 PM UTC

ppeetteerr wrote: post #207

thomascgalvin wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine if Spotify offered a lower rate for Android users... Wouldn't that send a very clear message to Apple? I believe this is also against Apple's Terms of Service. IIRC, they have a "most favored nation" clause which prohibits you from offering a lower price on a competing platform.

I was just looking for this in the App Store review guidelines and I couldn't find it. https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/

1. "Subscriptions must work on all of the user’s devices where the app is available. Learn more about sharing a subscription across your apps."

2. "You must not directly or indirectly target iOS users to use a purchasing method other than in-app purchase, and your general communications about other purchasing methods must not discourage use of in-app purchase."

I think this implies that the subscription must be the same for all devices and you can't treat iOS differently. Pretty sure having a lower price if you subscribe on Android would violate that second clause.