Apple Says Spotify Wants 'the Benefits of a Free App Without Being Free' (engadget.com) 215
Apple has responded to Spotify's European Commission (EC) complaint. In a press release, the company said that Spotify "seeks to keep all the benefits of the App Store ecosystem ... without making any contributions to that marketplace." It added that the App Store has generated $120 billion for developers while offering users a secure platform, and that Spotify is seeking to side to sidestep the rules that every other app follows. From a report: "Spotify has every right to determine their own business model, but we feel an obligation to respond when Spotify wraps its financial motivations in misleading rhetoric about who we are," the company wrote. Spotify's main argument was that Apple's own music service, Apple Music, isn't subject to the same restrictions of its own app. "[A]pps should be able to compete fairly on the merits, and not based on who owns the App Store," wrote CEO Daniel Ek. "We should all be subject to the same fair set of rules and restrictions -- including Apple Music." It added that Apple had often stymied it on app updates and locked it out of Apple services, "such as Siri, HomePod and Apple Watch." Finally, it noted that Apple had blocked communication with its own customers on things like special offers. In response, Apple addressed each complaint point by point, while criticizing Spotify's treatment of musicians and artists. It said that it has approved nearly 200 app updates, and "the only time we have requested adjustments is when Spotify has tried to sidestep the same rules that every app follows."
Apple music should pay the 30% fee (Score:4, Funny)
to Apple. Problem solved.
Re:Apple music should pay the 30% fee (Score:5, Interesting)
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all applicable state and federal taxes must be paid too.
Most states exempt business-to-business transactions from sales tax. There is no federal tax on advertising services either, so there are no direct tax liabilities.
It will shift around their profits, but the accountants and tax lawyers are there to make sure that the profits don't disappear. Or to exploit tax regulations, if the situation allows, for more profits.
It's not completely free to them, even on their own platforms.
It may not be technically entirely free, but it's scarcely more a rounding error on their P&L.
Re: Apple music should pay the 30% fee (Score:2)
What? What state do you live in? Not California, where these companies are located.
they probably do pay themselves (Score:3)
1) Apple has lawyers and accountants; likely they are doing the minimum required. That said, talented people in those areas likely have creative accounting techniques for minimizing their self-payment.
2) Apple's counterpoint is a clear win; Spotify is just being another greedy corp testing the boundaries. That said, Apple didn't address how they pay themselves so I would guess something isn't quite right... the lawyers might be preparing to remedy that if that could be disclosed in detail.
3) They said "Appl
Re:they probably do pay themselves (Score:4, Insightful)
What are Spotify getting for the 30% every month though for each user, after the user finds the app and installs it. For most apps that 30% usually of a small figure like £1 or £2 is almost like a listing fee, 30 to 60 pence to have you app on the store and in the search results.
A Spotify subscription costs £9.99 per month, and if you pay for it through the phone with your Apple Account £3 of that goes to Apple every month (for the first year). Apple aren't running any of Spotify servers, they aren't paying musicians with that money. They are offering the exact same services as the other apps get but for a monthly fee rather than a one of payment.
I think the most reasonable compromise would be 30% of the first month.
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And the percentage of Spotify users that maintain the free tier of service, giving nothing to Apple? Apple’s argument is essentially that it averages out, and that makes it fair for everyone.
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Apple are basically running servers on Spotify's behalf though, handing the downloads, refreshes, and everything else for their application which has vastly more "free" downloads (that Apple still has to support with their infrastructure) than paid ones. Additionally, most Spotify memberships are paying Apple out at the 15% rate for > 12 months, which also includes ~2% card fees right off the top.
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Spotify are paying for the potential to make money from more than a billion active users. It's a revenue share each time this potential is realised. Apple put a significant amount of time and money into making the platform work and building up that 1bn+ user-base. Why should Apple let Spotify have access for free?
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5) If you look over Apple's details, you'll see that they have a huge volume of Apps that skip the 30% fee. So clearly they are shifting the majority of overhead costs to the big players who can afford it. They don't mention what their profits or operating costs are for their store ; perhaps somebody could find an SEC report? I would guess that it is on the high end of normal and nothing close to typical monopoly profits.
Can you cite one? The biggest player I can think of is Amazon, and their Kindle app complies because you can't buy a book in the app! They direct you to a browser to make the purchase, where the 30% fee isn't applied.
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In a discussion about a financial disagreement between apple and spotify: yes.
Re: Apple music should pay the 30% fee (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you do that in real life too? Just run up to people in a conversation and tell them to stop talking about what they want to talk about and start talking about what you want to talk about?
The Truth: (Score:5, Insightful)
The TRUTH is, Apple is a dick when it comes to the handling of the app store and its walled garden iron fist controls. They could be better and should be.
The TRUTH is, Spotify is ruining music in many ways by paying fractions of pennies in royalties. Some artists with millions of song plays have received on $80 for a year of royalties. Fix that, then stop trying to side step app store rules. They could be better and should be.
Two companies who are both pulling bullshit are mad at the other for pulling bullshit. That's the Truth.
Re:The Truth: (Score:5, Insightful)
The TRUTH is, Spotify is ruining music in many ways by paying fractions of pennies in royalties. Some artists with millions of song plays have received on $80 for a year of royalties.
I wonder how much their publisher received though. I bet it was a lot more than $80.
Re:The Truth: (Score:5, Informative)
Spotify pays $0.006 to $0.0084 per stream [cnbc.com] to the holder of music rights. That works out to $6000 to $8400 in royalty payments per million song plays. If the artist is only getting $80 for a song that's listened to millions of times in a year, their publisher is the one screwing them over. The publisher is keeping more than 99% of the royalty payments, passing on less than 1% to the artist.
(Sanity check: Spotify averaged 1.7 billion listening hours per month in 2015. [musically.com] At 3.5 minutes per song, that's 29 billion song plays per month, or 350 billion song plays per year. At the above royalty rates, they'd be paying about $2-$3 billion in royalties per year. And indeed that's about how much they pay in royalties [statista.com] - $3.9 billion in 2018. So yes, it is in fact the record labels who are screwing the artists over, not Spotify.)
Re:The Truth: (Score:4, Informative)
The TRUTH is, Spotify is ruining music in many ways by paying fractions of pennies in royalties. Some artists with millions of song plays have received on $80 for a year of royalties. Fix that, then stop trying to side step app store rules. They could be better and should be.
These artists are free NOT to be on Spotify if they think their music is worth more than that.
I doubt Google/Deezer/Apple and other competitors are paying much more.
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And Spotify is free to not be on the iPhone if they think their app is worth more than the the 70% of the price they charge for it on the App Store. They can also, wait for it, INCREASE THEIR PRICE to what they DO think it is worth - and then find out if their customers agree with them.
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I agree with that, but Apple should at least be forced to allow the convenient installation of Spotify from outside their store. Just like Android does.
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Please explain...
How is music being ruined?
Tell us which artist is getting paid $80 for their "millions of song plays"?
And finally...Why, if you don't like it, don't you take your business elsewhere?
Re:The Truth: (Score:5, Interesting)
You have dramatically simplified Spotify's impact on music while ignoring Apple's. The amount of money artists get have nothing to do with the sums spotify are paying for access to the music. That is the bullshit from the industry which invented bullshit.
An *rights holder* with over a million streams would be receiving somewhere between $30000 and $84000 according to Spotify's current rate. If the artist is only getting $80 then I would really be looking at who is the middle man between Spotify and the artist.
A reference I found to an "artist" rather than a "rights holder" puts the figure closer to $10000
In the meantime Apple is here to help right? I mean for a million songs the "rights holders" would get a whopping $37000 from Apple which would really help those artists sleep at night.
And while it's nice to criticise Spotify for the money equation, maybe you should look at their balance sheet. After all they will cease to exist if they keep up their trend of endlessly losing money. Is it much of a surprise with little income, and passing more than all of their profits to the record industry they are somewhat pissed at the thought of paying Apple on top of that?
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Do you have a source for that?
The one I found cited a $0.00397 per stream rate for Spotify
[ https://thetrichordist.com/201... [thetrichordist.com] ]
Which works out to be $3,970 per million streams.
Interestingly Apply does seem to pay almost twice as much at $0.00783 / stream.
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I wish I could give more points - the score on this should not be limited to 5.
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It's possible to be walled garden without being iron fisted.
The main complaint here isn't that an app needs to progress through the approval process before it's released to Apple's users. It's that Apple has a requirement that they get a 30% cut of any revenue generated through iTunes. Then they're using the app store approval process to reject any version of the app that doesn't have the ability to subscribe through iTunes. This prevents Spotify from simply saying "Go to spotify.com in order to purchase a
Not all recording artists can perform live (Score:2)
Perhaps artists should focus on making their money on concert ticket sales and merchandising
What steps can a recording artist take toward "making their money on concert ticket sales and merchandising" in each of the following cases?
A. The recording artist is independent and relies on income from a day job, which rules out touring, but seeks a way to recover the costs of further production of recordings.
B. The recording artist specializes in a musical style that is impractical to perform live, such as the second half of The Beatles' discography or several forms of electronic dance music.
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Perhaps artists should focus on making their money on concert ticket sales and merchandising
What steps can a recording artist take toward "making their money on concert ticket sales and merchandising" in each of the following cases?
A. The recording artist is independent and relies on income from a day job, which rules out touring, but seeks a way to recover the costs of further production of recordings.
B. The recording artist specializes in a musical style that is impractical to perform live, such as the second half of The Beatles' discography or several forms of electronic dance music.
Maybe such artists should transition to more commercial marketable music if...you know...they want to be commercially successful.
There are some valid arguments (Score:2)
Editing needed (Score:5, Insightful)
"the only time we have requested adjustments is when Spotify has tried to sidestep the same rules that every app other than an Apple app follows."
That extra, bolded part, is what Spotify is complaining about, Apple. You have terms you are hell-bent on forcing on others, but you don't have to play by those rules yourself, do you...
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If you owned a shopping mall, and had your own restaurant inside that mall as well, would you charge yourself the same as you charged other restaurants? Why should Apple have to play that game?
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If you owned a shopping mall you would not be able to charge rent for your shop based on how many customers visit it. You would additionally not be allowed to punish a company in your mall who decided to offer an online store by preventing customers who signed up online from walking into their store but still permitted them to walk in your own.
If a shopping mall did that (which is the complaint filed against Apple) then they will find themselves in court.
Except maybe not in the USA since your antitrust laws
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Except maybe not in the USA since your antitrust laws are so stacked to required a tangible financial impact on consumers and completely ignores B2B competition that they are essentially not worthy of the title antitrust laws.
In the U.S., Anti-Trust law exists to protect CONSUMERS, not corporations.
One thing I've noticed is that there seems to be a dearth of consumers demanding that Apple cut App Store developer fees or that app developers be able to spam-on-demand app users. They're also not asking for price increases on apps or services obtained through the App Store. In fact, ACTUAL BUYERS of Apple's products and services seem to be generally quite happy with them. Those that are not go buy an Android or some other device.
An aware city's zoning board would require it (Score:2)
If you owned a shopping mall, and had your own restaurant inside that mall as well, would you charge yourself the same as you charged other restaurants?
The accountants would make up some nominal amount to put down in the "rent" category in order to itemize tax-deductible expenses. And in order to keep privileges that the city's zoning board grants to the mall, a city aware of the possibility of monopoly abuse would require this rent to be within a reasonable range of what Chick-fil-A and other tenants in the food court pay.
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I'll agree that the accountants would do whatever was necessary to maximize any tax benefits, but that's no different than any other company.
When have cities given a shit about monopolies with maybe the exception of ISPs?
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I imagine that Apple has a lot of API calls and OS functions that it keeps to itself too. Maybe it should be forced to publish all of that....who cares if security goes to shit.
off your high horses (Score:2)
When you see ESPN and Comcast argue over showing the World Series, don't buy the argument that one of them is "trying to prevent loyal customers from being able to see their favorite game", or when your local hospital group withdraws from your employer health plan that "the other side is trying to deprive you of consumer choice".
Each side is wanting to make a share of the mo
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I'd mod you up if I hadn't already commented.
Dumping the label negotiation and streaming (Score:2)
Except in regulated industries there's no law governing the "fair" share that someone has to offer, or someone has to accept.
Music is a regulated industry pursuant to Title 17, United States Code. In addition, the Sherman Act as amended regulates certain aspects of all industries that engage in "commerce [...] among the several states".
Spotify wants a lower $ charge. Apple owns the platform and controls that access and $ charge.
Specifically, Spotify alleges that Apple is "dumping" the service of negotiating with labels and operating streaming servers by providing it to users for free. (In competition law, dumping [wikipedia.org] refers to pricing a good or service below cost in order to harm competitors.) If the music publishers and reco
Apples poor excuses (Score:5, Insightful)
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I imagine Apple set its payment service charge at 30 percent for a few reasons. One of them is that the underlying credit card and ACH payment processors charge roughly 30 cents per transaction no matter the total. This lets Apple not bleed money with a lot of 99 cent transactions.
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No other payment service will host, validate, and serve up the Spotify app (with free updates) for the millions of users who want to download it and pay no money though. That's far from an inconsequential cost.
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The problem is the app store lock in (Score:3)
Nintendo Entertainment System lockout chip (Score:2)
This is basically like saying you can only buy parts and accessories for your car through the dealership.
Then how have companies like Nintendo been getting away with the same behavior since 1985?
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Apple needs Spotify more (Score:3)
Apple needs apps from third parties in order to have a useful platform. Spotify benefits Apple ecosystem by gracing the App Store with their presence. No need to send remuneration to Apple at all.
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Unfair (Score:3)
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Apple has an unfair advantage over Spotify’s current advertising and spamming approach to get users to upgrade to a paid account. That is all.
They can require users to set up an account on their website, and gather the data there, and manage payments there. It is just another step for users though, which will draw people away.
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They can require users to set up an account on their website, and gather the data there, and manage payments there.
Except Apple is not likely to approve an app that works like that.
I say: Apple wants to profit from developers (Score:2)
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But you want Apple to provide you with a cheaper or free way to make your app available for its hundreds of millions of users to buy, right? And those hundreds of millions of users might well buy your app, because they trust that apps on the App Store aren't going to harm their phones, steal their data, etc, right? And that's because of Apple's role. That's what your 30% pays for.
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Bunch of hypocrites (Score:2)
$120B revenue? Don't care. How much profit? (Score:2)
It added that the App Store has generated $120 billion for developers while offering users a secure platform, and that Spotify is seeking to side to sidestep the rules that every other app follows.
I always laugh when they quote revenue figures instead of profit. It doesn't matter how much revenue they generated if it isn't making any profit. As a professor of mine once said, you can make a LOT of revenue selling $2 bills for $1 - you just won't be in business very long doing it. You see this all the time in entrepreneurial magazines. They'll quote how much revenue some new business is doing and leave out the fact they are losing money hand over fist.
I don't have a dog in this fight. I don't use
Google Play Apps With 150 Million Installs Contain (Score:2)
Google Play Apps With 150 Million Installs Contain Aggressive Adware
https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
Tell me again the problem with Apple's walled garden?
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Spotify, why Apple would want to make things easier for you?
I suspect Netflix is next, since Apple is set to launch its competing streaming app.
While I think Apple's 30% tax is extortionate, Apple should get a swift kick in the nuts from a judge over that, but I cannot blame Apple for wanting a cut. If you had a brick and mortar electronics store would you sell Google/Apple streaming boxes without being compensated? ... spend your resources on flogging a product for somebody else for free? If Spotify thinks any app vendor is in the business of handing out their app for free to their users without getting some form of compensation then Spotify is de
Re:Benefits of a in-house app without being one (Score:4, Insightful)
The situation is not quite as simple as that though. Apple has a monopoly on the market for everyone that uses iPhone while a brick and mortar store would have to compete against other stores. It's more comparable to Visa and Mastercard taking a 30% cut of each sale made at every store unless it's a store owned by Visa/Mastercard.
If Apple had a completely unlocked phone where multiple appmarketplaces could compete for customers they could charge a 90% cut for all I care. But when they lock out the competition it gets very shady. In my mind they are abusing their monopoly position just like Microsoft and Intel did in their heydays, to the detriment of us all.
Re:Benefits of a in-house app without being one (Score:5, Interesting)
If Apple had a completely unlocked phone where multiple appmarketplaces could compete for customers they could charge a 90% cut for all I care. But when they lock out the competition it gets very shady. In my mind they are abusing their monopoly position just like Microsoft and Intel did in their heydays, to the detriment of us all.
I have an Apple iPhone; I'm on my second one. Prior to my first one I had an iPod Touch. I have deliberately chosen the iPhone over all of its Android competitors because of the way that Apple has built IOS and the way that Apple administers the app store. Although I appreciate being able to freely install and run software on my home computer, I also appreciate the "walled garden" approach on my phone as I want it to work more like an appliance and less like another system that I have to administer. I don't see how this could work as effectively without Apple's "monopoly" power over their app store. If I wasn't happy with that, I could easily have chosen a platform with an alternative approach, namely Android. Apple's "monopoly" is over their product and what can run on their product. In my opinion that control is PART OF THE PRODUCT and is one of the things that causes me to choose Apple over Android.
FairPlay DRM lock-in was the other way around (Score:2)
When you got your iPhone, you knew you were locked into the Apple Store, right?
No. When the iPhone was introduced, it had no App Store. The "lock-in" was in the other direction: playing iTunes Music Store purchases required an iPhone (or an obscure model of Motorola flip phone), though the iPhone could play music acquired elsewhere. Apple added the App Store came in iOS 2, and its lock-in was and is bidirectional: adding apps to the iPhone requires the App Store, and App Store apps require an iPhone. People who bought an iPhone because of compatibility with FairPlay DRM on pre-2009 iT
Re: FairPlay DRM lock-in was the other way around (Score:3)
But iOS 2 isn't compatible with Spotify, not is the iPhone at the time. Once FairPlay was removed, you were free to switch, but didn't.
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People who bought an iPhone because of compatibility with FairPlay DRM on pre-2009 iTMS purchases ended up additionally locked into the App Store once iOS 2 came out..
To be clear, fault for FairPlay does not reside entirely on Apple; DRM was a condition of being able to sell music electronically imposed by the labels. Between 2007 and 2009 the option to purchase non-DRMed tracks was available, and by 2009 most of the DRM had been removed entirely.
Re: That isn't a part of monopoly/abuse law (Score:2, Insightful)
Bullshit. You knew there was only an App Store on the iPhone. But it is not a monopoly because the iPhone is not a monopoly.
The country you were born in, or the country of your descent precludes choice in the matter, and a government is a de facto monopoly on your rule.
The App Store is apple's way of distributing third party apps. If you don't like it, feel free to develop on another platform. If you don't like it, feel free to buy any other phone.
That's what precludes it from being a monopoly. Apple's succ
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>The country you were born in, or the country of your descent precludes choice in the matter
Nonsense, there's this thing called emigration that's available to everyone. Every day you live in your birth country instead of leaving is a fresh choice in the matter.
Re: That isn't a part of monopoly/abuse law (Score:3)
Tell that to the masses shot and killed trying to get over the Berlin Wall, or the starving and parasite riddled North Koreans. Or the masses waiting for a Visa to enter the US.
No, not everyone has that freedom.
Re: Bullshit yourself. (Score:2)
Microsoft had > 90% of the desktop OS market, which is why they were considered a gateway to users. There was no other option. That's why they were a monopoly. They dominated the market. IOS world wide is in the 'teens in terms of market penetration, so yeah... bullshit to your bullshit on my bullshit.
Re: That isn't a part of monopoly/abuse law (Score:2)
Apple also has a monopoly on iOS cameras... but iOS itself isn't a monopoly. That means it doesn't make the App Store a monopoly.
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You can sell apps for the iPhone without paying a single fraction of a penny to Apple.
Your customers may have issues installing the app on their phones, however.
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And that fee covers everything from credit card processing to hosting and bandwidth, which for all of the free app downloads that Spotify enjoys is a non-negligible amount of money.
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And that fee covers everything from credit card processing to hosting and bandwidth, which for all of the free app downloads that Spotify enjoys is a non-negligible amount of money.
I think Spotify is more than happy to cover their own ~3% or so credit card processing fees.
The app is around 30MB, so even at 10 cents/GB for bandwidth, that's $0.003 per download, and again, I think Spotify would be more than happy to pay that if they could host the app on their own servers.
Apple charges developers $99/year for the app store, and developers should be able to choose whether or not they want to pay Apple for credit card fulfillment and bandwidth. Most small developers will likely still wan
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Oh, that's very generous of you on behalf of Spotify. Now, what do you propose Spotify should pay for the access Apple provides to 1bn+ active users who all enjoy a consistent experience with Spotify's app due to the iOS platform and for Apple's provision of the ability for each of those users to instantly pay Spotify money?
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Oh, you mean the 1B customers that bought a phone so they can run apps on it?
But I say let the consumers decide how much that consistent experience is worth -- let them pay Spotify direct, or pay 30% more to use Apple's system to pay through the app.
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Those 1bn customers bought iPhones so that, among other things, they could install apps without worrying they were going to break their phones, which is what Apple promises. Spotify want access to that, understandably, and the terms chafe, understandably. But tough.
It's in Spotify's gift to set differential pricing (ie X via the web or an Android store where Spotify isn't charged a fee, if such a thing exists; X+30% via the App Store). And of course, Spotify does set differential pricing, with both a free a
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Actually, it is a negligible amount of money. Credit card processing fees for a company that size are probably a quarter of a percent plus a flat fee of ten cents, or about thirteen cents total per month, which is a full three bucks less than what Apple takes in the first year, and a buck and a half less thereafter. Even for ti
Spotify is apple's freind without benefits? (Score:2)
no freebies, Gotta pay
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In what way is Spotify being prevented from contacting its users. Has apple blocked their push notification ability?
Spotify doesn't pay a damn thing to apple for hosting their app, they do pay for processing purchases in the app using the App Store in app purchase method.... which they could easily avoid by simply pushing the user out of the app or even taking credit card information in the app. I have made a retail app on iOS, you could put things in your cart, put in your credit card info and check out
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>which they could easily avoid by simply pushing the user out of the app or even taking credit card information in the app.
Apple doesn't allow taking credit card info in any app that's in the app store, and you have to be very careful about how you push users to pay in any other way or you risk delisting.
Do you sell physical goods? (Score:3)
they could easily avoid [Apple's 30% cut of IAP] by simply pushing the user out of the app or even taking credit card information in the app.
The App Store Review Guidelines ban "pushing the user out of the app" or "taking credit card information in the app" except for physical goods.
I have made a retail app on iOS, you could put things in your cart, put in your credit card info and check out just like on a web page and apple didn't get a dime for it
Were the "things" physical? If so, that is the material difference between your app and Spotify.
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The app I currently work on uses a web view to let a user sign up for a service... that service is required to make the app work. It opens a web view where you can enter your information and credit card and sign up for a service, not physical goods, with a monthly recurring fee.... most users wouldn't eve notice they aren't in native code when signing up.
Now... if Spotify tried exactly the same thing as my current app and got denied while my app and others like it are approved that would be one thing but I
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GIven apple's enormous profit margins.. i think it costs less then you think.
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Given that youâ(TM)ve never read Appleâ(TM)s financials,
That is a terrible assumption on your part...
You mean stuff like this:
Apple reported that its App Store generated over $26.5 billion in revenue for developers in 2017, which was up about 30% year-over-year. This means that the App Store created approximately $11.5 billion in revenue for the company. Growth of services revenue is one of the major positive points for investors since it is growing faster than the rest of the company with higher
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I literally explained the one thing that they choose to do that causes them to pay apple... maybe you should work on your reading comprehension.
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If you buy something from a retailer, they don't give all of that money back to the vendor.
In this case, you're free to buy the product (a Spotify subscription) directly from the vendor for less money if you want to. WIN! And yet people are still willing to pay more money to buy the product through a trusted retailer (Apple, Amazon, etc), for which that trusted retailer deserves to charge a premium. Win for them, too.
Spotify is basically arguing that a 3rd party retailer should accept the same cost model
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The actual logic is: Follow the money.
Apple has a monopoly on its turf. Defending that monopoly is Apple's Job #1. Each and every characteristic must be defended. It's pretty brilliant if you think about it, and totally unfair to competition. It makes stacks of money almost unparalleled in the history of business, creating a cash pool across the planet that is the envy of many businesses.
Not that it's fair or just or competitive.
Various economic shocks have made the DoJ insensitive to these things. Legislat
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In what way is Spotify locked out of Siri? They opened up Siri to third party integrations... are they supposed to do the work for Spotify?
If Apple Music is so terrible Spotify should have no trouble eating their lunch... all they need to do is take credit card payments directly instead of using in app purchases.
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I use Apple Music simply because:
1). I don't give a shit about "discovering" music. I listen to the same shit I've been listening to since the 80s.
2). I just want one billing source to deal with. I will gladly pay extra for that. Spotify objects to using that billing source and paying whatever fee may be involved? Well fuck them then.
3). As an AAPL shareholder, I'd rather give money to Apple than some other company, when a reasonable opportunity to do so exists.
If you want to "find out" about other music
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Oh, and I don't give a shit about Siri integration either. I have that shit turned off.
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It would be awesome if the government cut my tax down to only 30% of my income.