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Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

timetoplayfair.com

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Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#841

Post by scarface74 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #838
scarface74 wrote: post #814

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon very much tries to push publishers around. How is what Amazon does to publishers any different than Apple?

Publishers being bullied by Amazon can go somewhere else and reach the same consumers, for the most part. It's intertwined with how much the consumers are being bullied. In the case of e-ink kindles it's sort of the same problem, but the kindle app is available on many platforms so it reduces the harm by a lot.

In this case Kindle is the platform and it’s far more dominant in its market than iOS is. The book publishers had to conform to Amazon’s terms.

https://www.dailyherald.com/article/20140608/business/140609...

The disagreement spilled into public view last month when Amazon tried to dissuade its customers from buying Hachette titles on its website, removing discounts from some books or delaying shipments by as much as five weeks when items typically ship within three to five days. By refusing to buckle under the pressure, Hachette is leading the charge for publishers' fight against Amazon.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/02/amazon-greedy-...

Besides, how far will a book publisher get if they can’t sell on Amazon.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#843

Post by londons_explore »

throwaway198389 wrote: post #801
londons_explore wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For comparison, Android keeps a very clear line between the 'Platform', and the 'Apps'. Every API on the platform is available to all apps which have the necessary permissions. Sure, it might look like Google has taken over key low level features of the device like updates and wifi location, but in fact from the platform perspective, all those components have an open API and can be replaced. The only fly in the ointm…

This may have changed recently, haven't used an Android in a bit, but this wasn't true (and still probably isn't). Specifically my company wanted to break our app into multiple apps and give a way for people to easily install the companions. If you send the user to the Play Store page, about 75% of users would dropoff, in user studies much of it was confusion about what to do once they saw the play store page. Google…

I believe that API is in the play store itself. If your user used a third party store, you could ask them to give you an API to install other apps with no user interaction too.

As far as the platform is concerned, any app with the right permissions can install any other app. It just so happens that only the play store and other stores have that permission.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#844

Post by gnicholas »

nevir wrote: post #769
bmsleight_ wrote: post #726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow - could not find any other details about this (my google skills are poor?) Great tip. Any idea some where to to find the other hidden combinations ?

I don't think it's actually been advertised anywhere - welcome to a very small group of cool kids ;)

This is the coolest easter egg I have heard about in a bigco mobile app.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#845

Post by oneplane »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #780
judge2020 wrote: post #779

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't sell in Idaho, you lose that market. If you don't sell on Apple's platform, you lose that market. The issue is a combination of the "tax" and the market dominance of these two companies.

...okay? I'm asking why oneplane completely disagrees with using the word "tax" here.

Using the word 'tax' here is like calling anything that you need to pay for 'tax'. If you put a bit of money in a vending machine to buy some chocolate, you don't call that vending machine tax, do you?

If you were to scope it to 'services' or 'platform', then perhaps we should call virtual hosting cost not cost but tax :p and if you rent a movie, that'd then be movie tax, or rental tax? But what about actual tax, are we going to call that tax tax? Because at this point people just start using the word tax for every generic transaction.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#846

Post by stale2002 »

scarface74 wrote: post #835
stale2002 wrote: post #834

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have the legal right to do so, yes. You'd have to probably jailbreak your console, which is also your full legal right to do so.

There is nothing legally stopping you from doing the same thing for iOS and you can become an iOS developer much cheaper than a Gabe developer.

Legally, yes, you also have the right to do this in iOS.

Unfortunately, Apple often disagrees. They have tried to make multiple frivolous lawsuits against people doing exactly this, over the years.

Sometimes it doesn't matter what your rights are, if a company is willing to spend a bunch of money trying to submit illegal lawsuits to bankrupt you.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#847

Post by wdr1 »

GeekyBear wrote: post #396
gurpreet- wrote: post #126

Personally, as an app developer, I think Spotify is taking the right stance here. I believe that Apple should take some cuts but not as high as 30%. I believe for some categories like microtransaction based apps Apple should take maybe 5%. Plus, I think that if Apple has a competing service, then it should waive the tax altogether. It's only fair. If the only function of the App Store (or Play Store) is to provide ho…

Spotify has already turned off the ability for new accounts to pay to upgrade to a premium account inside their iOS app last year. You pay for your account on Spotify's own web site, which bypasses Apple getting any cut at all. https://support.spotify.com/us/account_payment_help/subscrip... Netflix has done the same thing. https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/8471988/spotify-... In my book, the problem is that…

Amazon's Kindle app has done the same as well.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#848

Post by Dylan16807 »

scarface74 wrote: post #841
Dylan16807 wrote: post #838

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Publishers being bullied by Amazon can go somewhere else and reach the same consumers, for the most part. It's intertwined with how much the consumers are being bullied. In the case of e-ink kindles it's sort of the same problem, but the kindle app is available on many platforms so it reduces the harm by a lot.

In this case Kindle is the platform and it’s far more dominant in its market than iOS is. The book publishers had to conform to Amazon’s terms. https://www.dailyherald.com/article/20140608/business/140609... The disagreement spilled into public view last month when Amazon tried to dissuade its customers from buying Hachette titles on its website, removing discounts from some books or delaying shipments by as much as…

Most of that's talking about physical books, which isn't really relevant here.

Also screw a lot of those publishers. They were demanding control over the price amazon sells at, which should be none of their business. Lawmakers need to fix the first sale doctrine for digital goods.

> Besides, how far will a book publisher get if they can’t sell on Amazon.

If they can't sell on kindle they should be fine.

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#849

Post by scarface74 »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #848
scarface74 wrote: post #841

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case Kindle is the platform and it’s far more dominant in its market than iOS is. The book publishers had to conform to Amazon’s terms. https://www.dailyherald.com/article/20140608/business/140609... The disagreement spilled into public view last month when Amazon tried to dissuade its customers from buying Hachette titles on its website, removing discounts from some books or delaying shipments by as much as…

Most of that's talking about physical books, which isn't really relevant here. Also screw a lot of those publishers. They were demanding control over the price amazon sells at, which should be none of their business. Lawmakers need to fix the first sale doctrine for digital goods. > Besides, how far will a book publisher get if they can’t sell on Amazon. If they can't sell on kindle they should be fine.

So did you read the other article about how much Amazon charges in fees for small publishers and the demands it places on them?

So you don’t care about publishers of physical books who according to one of the articles actually go negative because of the “Amazon tax” but you do care about software developers who can’t sell loot boxes without a 30% cut going to Apple

What do you think is Amazon’s motive for selling Kindle books below cost if it isn’t to kill competition just to raise prices later?

Re: Spotify to Apple: Time to Play Fair

#850

Post by scarface74 »

tripzilch wrote: post #832
scarface74 wrote: post #809

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can I download apps for game consoles through a website?

No and that's a bad thing. Generally the ability to do so (or side-loading in general) has been to the public benefit. Think building a Playstation supercomputer cluster, debugging /modding games and of course the ability to use the things for general purpose (or media centre). It's just that consoles never have been nearly as popular to make a stink about it. I never bought a console because of exactly this limitati…

No and that's a bad thing. Generally the ability to do so (or side-loading in general) has been to the public benefit.

There is 30 years worth of malware, ransomware spyware and viruses on PCs to show that most of the public hasn’t benefited from being able to download freely.

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