611–620 of 688 posts
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> you might already own a PC [...] if you also want to use Xcode and develop iOS apps as well then you have to buy a Mac. You might already own a Mac.
And if you own a Mac it costs $0 to develop for any other platform. See the imbalance here?
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It's anticompetitive, but is it illegal? Is it unethical? Does Apple's favoritism of its own products on its platform mean competing products cannot exist on the platform, or that they're less capable/visible? There are many platforms which rigidly control what's allowed on it. For example, is Netflix comparable? Netflix can control which providers are represented on its platform.
Apple is most likely using predatory pricing against Spotify which is illegal [0]. I highly doubt Apple music is profitable at a price point of $10 once the 30% cut is taken into account. But since they also get the 30% cut back, they can subsidize their product while Spotify has to charge $10 at a loss or price it at $14 which is more than Apples price and makes the un-competitive. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki…
You're correct that Apple Music may be a loss leader, but even if it is a loss leader, there's significantly more nuance involved before we can declare it to be predatory pricing.
> Spotify wouldn’t be the business they are today without the App Store ecosystem, but now they’re leveraging their scale to avoid contributing to maintaining that ecosystem for the next generation of app entrepreneurs. We think that’s wrong. I think that's a very hypothetical claim. > Let’s be clear about what that means. Apple connects Spotify to our users. We provide the platform by which users download and update…
> Apple connects Spotify to our users. This is a bit of a ridiculous claim. From another perspective, an iPhone is just another way to access your favorite apps and content. Taken to more of an extreme, imagine Comcast or T-Mobile claiming that they provide users to Spotify... Apple is easily just a middle man here but they make themselves sound like the entity that owns the users and plugs them into apps. It's not l…
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But the difference is both of them can be circumvented by competitors If the App Store could be circumvented as easily, Spotify probably wouldn't be raising this issue to begin with.
It can be circumvented quite easily and Spotify already does. You can upgrade to Spotify Premium through a website which they advertise during their free tier ads.
Apple doesn't allow that apparently.
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How do Netflix and Hulu get around this?
When you download the Netflix app, you only get a sign in button. The only extra info you get about how to get a Netflix account is a help button that calls support. I don’t know what Hulu does, but I presume something similar.
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Apart from Lightning...
>Apart from Lightning, which was created when no better alternative existed... There is a better universal alternative out there today and yet they continue to use Lightning port in iPhones.
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They used shady tactics to force them to bill through the Apple's marketplace so they could get the 30% cut, forcing Spotify to raise prices by 30% so they could maintain their revenue position. Then they released Apple Music at the $9.99 price point that Spotify was at previously. The shady tactics resumed when Spotify stopped using the App Store to bill and reduced the price to compete with Apple Music. Apple isn't…
Why does the value of Apple's App Store infrastructure and network effects always get zeroed out in the equation here? Spotify is welcome to build their own app distribution infrastructure on their own mobile hardware and charge whoever whatever they want for it and keep all the profits themselves.
Has Apple ever tried to defend their rule that apps can't link to or even inform users of the existence of off-site registration or payment methods? That has always seemed like the most absurd thing to me and the most blatant example of Apple's true intentions with their app store.
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I am very hard-pressed to believe iOS has a monopoly by most arguments. Market share argument: Android has 71% market share in the EU, as of February 2019 - compared to iOS's 21%. [1] Ease of customer switching argument: If Apple pressed too much in a way that harmed consumers, there are many other cheaper alternative Android phones vs. iOS to which they can easily port their number over (say what you want about ISPs…
Your argument relies on combining the markets for iOS and Android apps into a single market. These are separate markets because you can't put an Android app on iPhone or an iOS app on Android. If iOS had 100% share, you probably wouldn't say it doesn't have a monopoly on apps because you can just use desktop apps instead. I also wouldn't say Comcast doesn't have a monopoly because they only have xx% share and you can…
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Antitrust law in the US bans monopoly "tying": using a monopoly you have in one market to try to control a separate market. I believe Spotify is claiming Apple is doing this with Apple Music vs Spotify and I didn't see this issue addressed by Apple's message. I am not sure I agree with Spotify's claim, and US antitrust is in a parlous state, but this approach may get traction in the EU. However Apple's market share i…
>Apple's market share is far far from monopolistic. "We're a duopoly not a monopoly" is not a particularly compelling argument.
In particular, "monopoly power" is typically not interpreted (in the US or EU) to mean literally a single supplier but rather whether you exert dominance in the market. You're correct that "it's a duopoly" is not a compelling argument but Apple would not bother to try to make that case either. They'll just point to the fact that they have about a quarter of the market world wide and slightly more than that in the EU alone; evening the US it's a little less than half the market.
I suspect they have a strong case legally, whatever the merits of Spotify's claim, and doubt they would prevail in court (though IANAL -- it doesn't matter what I think). However if the lawsuit is part of a strategy to get the EU competition commission to act, then it can be effective, even perhaps more effective if they lose!