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Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

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Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#361

Post by alickz »

falcolas wrote: post #208
dale_glass wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems pretty fair, since if it was easy for an artist to undercut Spotify, they'd be doing it.

Just like the application developers on Google Play, Apple's app store, and Steam, eh?

Steam doesn't belong there, as it's not the only avenue for developers to distribute games on PC.

Even Google Play is iffy, as developers could distribute through 3rd party app stores or sideloading, though Google makes that harder than it should be.

Apple is really the only one of the 3 you mentioned that forces a 15/30% cut if developers want to distribute an app on their platform.

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#362

Post by alickz »

ryanobjc wrote: post #303

For a site filled with developers y’all really misunderstand the whole 30% cut thing. It’s an alternate way to pay for API, sdk, and platform access. Before the era of phones, if you wanted to develop for some kind of gated platform, for example video game consoles, one would have to pay very high SDK fees. Fees that would scale based on licensed seat, enterprise size, and more. Then when you ship, you’d pay royaltie…

But why are phones considered gated platforms in the first place?

How is a phone not just a general computing device? How is a phone not just a laptop in a different form factor? Because Apple/Google say so?

There would be massive pushback if developers had to pay $100/y and 30% of revenue to develop an app for macOS, or Windows. But for iOS and Android we just accept it as true.

I don't know, I just feel like phones are a lot closer to laptops than they are to video game consoles. I don't feel like them being gated is justified, or good for anyone other than Apple/Google.

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#363

Post by madeofpalk »

Nextgrid wrote: post #353
gumby wrote: post #51

I do see one potential customer benefit: rather than increasing your attack surface by giving two companies your CC info you just give one (google). In theory Google is going to have more security than a bunch of smaller companies. I use Apple Pay whenever possible for this precise reason. I don't want to trust Target with my CC info. Of course since under this scheme the company I'd be sharing my card info with is t…

I don't understand the worry behind CC info. You are not liable for card-not-present fraud. When it comes to personal data, CC info is always the least of my worries. Fraudulent card transactions are my bank's problem, not mine.

It is an inconvenience, i would imagine. I would prefer credit card fraud does not happen to me (it never has).

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#364

Post by eddhead »

chihuahua wrote: post #240
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.

For Spotify in particular, I'd rather have more money going to Google instead of Spotify. Because I don't want to be funding Joe Rogan.

And that is because you hate to think for yourself, or do you lack the attention span for long form interviews.

He got popular on YouTube BTW.

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#365

Post by jeltz »

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…

No, industry standard for online credit card transactions is 1-1.5% in the EU and 2.5-3% in the US. Even back in 2008 before 3d secure was common and before the EU regilations we as a tiny online casino had 2.5% fees.

30% is between 10 and 20 times a reasonable fee.

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#366

Post by LewisVerstappen »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #298
LewisVerstappen wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's still on YouTube btw, so still making money off the YouTube platform and gaining listeners/distribution from there. Also, there's far worse people than Joe Rogan who make a full living off YouTube, so yeah just completely ideologically inconsistent if someone is going to reject Spotify because of Rogan and still use YouTube.

Some of us actually don’t use either of these products. I can’t speak for the person who got the whatabout, but I think it’s presumptuous to jump straight to hypocrisy without any information about other choices and how they might or might not be consistent.

Yeah, that's fair.

So, you don't use YouTube at all?

What video streaming sites do you use as an alternative? Or do you just not consume online video that isn't behind a strict publisher?

My understanding of the YouTube-alternatives is that they tend to be more anti-censorship, so they're likely to host even more "worse" content then Joe Rogan vs. YouTube.

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#367

Post by whywhywhywhy »

enos_feedler wrote: post #229
smileybarry wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would hate carrier-based charging. We still have a shared cellular account in my family so I would end up billing someone else, rather than my credit card, and that's on top of giving my carrier more lock-in (subscriptions? delayed billing? etc.). The Payment Request API existed in browsers for years (always saw it in settings but never in actual use other than Google Pay/Apple Pay), what about something like that?…

Yes thats what I see happening. On top of this there would be strict policing by Apple and Google to provide a good user experience. Carriers and banks would certainly be subscription providers. The reason why I like carriers specifically is because they invest in a core resource of the mobile computing experience. Apple provides the compute and storage, while Verizon etc provide the network. So far, Apple has captur…

Verizon has decades to capture the value but chose to try and do it in customer negative ways by locking you in contracts and locking devices behind contracts.

If they’d have been smart they’d have done it the apple way instead and made the customer experience great but scoop cream off every financial transaction on their network.

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#368

Post by Hardik_Shah »

Google and Spotify have announced a first-of-its-kind partnership that will give Android users a choice to pay for the music streaming service with a payment method other than Google Play Billing.

Google is also working with other developers to test third-party billing in the Play Store that will allow users to bypass its own billing system.

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#369

Post by Wowfunhappy »

TrueDuality wrote: post #319
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't naturally follow that if I gave Spotify more money, they'd give it to the artists versus taking it as extra profit.

But the corollary is definitely true, if 30% of the revenue goes to Google there is no chance of that money going to the artists.

Sure, Spotify just isn’t the example I would choose to demonstrate OP’s point, which I thought was excellent.

Re: Spotify and Google Announce User Choice Billing

#370

Post by Wowfunhappy »

happymellon wrote: post #357
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't naturally follow that if I gave Spotify more money, they'd give it to the artists versus taking it as extra profit.

There is no proof that if Spotify gave the labels more money, that it would go to the artists. I think Spotify is an excellent example of labels using a 3rd party to mislead where they money is really going when Spotify is paying nearly 80% of its income as fees to 3rd parties.

Yes, that too! There are multiple intermediaries involved here.
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