This sort of thing is why a lot of criticism of the Google Play Store in comparison to the App Store rings very hollow to me. Google Play has an absolute truckload of stupid and terrible garbage apps on there because of the absurdly low barrier to entry, but that's part of the platform in exchange for Google having a surprisingly small amount of control over the content on their platform. Which I think is better, overall. At least in some ways.
Unlike Apple, Google actually shows some willingness to let their own services fail. Imagine if Google neutered WhatsApp or Telegram when they were pushing Allo really hard. That's basically what Apple is doing with Apple Music. But Google didn't do that. They recognized that nobody fucking wants or likes Allo and they just sort of gave up on it instead of pushing harder.
Google is kind of a disaster and a mismanaged mess but at least they don't act as heavy-handedly as Apple does on their mobile app platform.
Oh yeah, and you don't even need the Play Store to get Android apps, you can just download them from the web and install them like on a PC. I'll never be happy with iOS until they allow users to do that, and we all know that will never happen.
I don't understand, at all. Is this about Apple not allowing them to use Apple Pay? Can Spotify not just use the same payment portal that you would use when you go to their website? Does Apple not allow you to purchase things without using like Apple Pay or something?
Surely you can simply just take debit/credit/paypal like everything else ever created? Why do you expect Apple to be a payment portal for you for free?
It's about Apple forcing Spotify to use Apple Pay, actually. Apple doesn't allow apps to use their own monetization system. Apps can't directly charge your credit card or use a PayPal embed. All payment must go through the App Store, and Apple takes a really tasty slice out of every payment made through that system.
Why don't people just pay for Spotify through other means and then use that on their phone?
That's how it works currently, as far as I can tell. You can't upgrade to Premium from the app, you must do it from the website.
What the flying fuck lmao, that's just about the most retarded thing I've ever heard. How would you even handle buying things with an Apple device then? Surely Amazon, Walmart and like every retailer ever doesn't have these problems? Do you have to make your app pretty much just a website to get past this or?
I haven't used an iOS device since blackra1n was a thing, so I'm far far removed from anything Apple has been doing. Great to know I should always recommend against that ecosystem then.
To clarify, this is specifically about purchasing in-app features. You can buy products from the Amazon app, or any other digital retailer's app, and you'll be using their native CC system or PayPal. Apple gets none of that. But to purchase the premium version of an app, or paying for an in-game microtransaction, 30% of your money goes to Apple and there is no way around that.
Wouldn't surprise me at all if Spotify is making all this shit up. They've been removing features for years while not implementing new ones. (Such as lyrics, third-party extensions, etc)
They also don't have ANY changelogs for the desktop app. Nothing, nada. They used to have them in the past, but because Spotify hates its customers, gone.
just... just log in to your spotify account on the website .... and upgrade to premium? which is what i did? and 0 percent of any of that money goes to apple?
spotify is being very dishonest with this video, shame on them. what the heck.
They're not. Apple is literally fucking with everyone with there monopoly. Don't be a dumbass, even if you hate Spotify, Apple's 30% cut is very real and they definitely do anti-competitive things to hurt there competitors since they control the entire market.
Consumers lose always.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/13/18263453/spotify-apple-app-store-antitrust-complaint-ec-30-percent-cut-unfair
https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/20/17479480/supreme-court-apple-vs-pepper-antitrust-lawsuit-standing-explainer
Apple’s new deal for journalism should send publishers running
Users generally want the most seamless experience possible. In-app upgrades would provide that. For Android users we can upgrade to Premium with no real hassle. Having to hop on to their website to do so isn't the most straightforward it could be. Though I've not used an iOS device recently enough, they could explain it in app that users need to go to the site to upgrade. But that may impact conversions. It can be hard enough to get users to convert even with in-app access to premium.
Spotify as a service is still pretty fucking solid. I just wish to almighty fuck they would stop removing features from their apps with vague promises of "we'll bring it back". The lyrics feature is something the community hub has been demanding comes back for a while now, the mobile app now has a shitty implementation that relies on Genius, meaning you sometimes get a lyric, sometimes you just get some fucking idiots interpretation of the meaning behind a lyric. And for a lot of music it doesn't even provide lyrics at all. The desktop app however is still totally devoid of lyrics.
Is it bad that I'm just looking at this video, thinking about how Spotify is trying to argue that they're the smaller guy (and yeah, they technically are) but are only smaller on a massive scale, and that Spotify has had numerous claims over the past couple years of underpaying artists for their work? I can't imagine ever calling Spotify the one in the corner when they are massive compared to Apple, and are seeing incredible growth as they went from ~60M in 2017 to 96M in 2019. And that's just subscribers, that doesn't even account for all the free listeners having to sit through ads for them, so I can't imagine that Spotify is doing that bad right now that they need to start putting out hit pieces against Apple.
The difference here is that Apple wants to take an admittedly massive cut out of Spotify's profits compared to the <=5% most companies charge for payment processing, but Spotify doesn't just take the cut from their artists, they slice the cake so thin it doesn't even matter, leaving artists with fractions of pennies. While I do agree that Apple needs to be taken down a notch, as any trillion dollar company does, Spotify needs to prove itself that it's going to actually use those potentially lost dollars to actually adjust their algorithms and find better ways for artists to get paid, other than a couple nick-nacks that you can buy for $9.99 on the band's main page or whatever. They've said in the past that it does need to be changed, and it took a court order for that to go from 10% to 15% to the publisher (which is only THEN divided to the artist, leaving them with pennies especially for independent artists.)
Again, I want to see Apple not charge 30% for their payment service, and not allow for alternatives. That's obviously a monopolistic move and should be dealt with accordingly, so good on Spotify for being a big enough name to bring attention to it. But once that smoke has cleared, lets keep an eye on Spotify and see if this was a deliberate act of good deeds that will reward the end user and/or the music producer, or was actually just an act of greed so they can continue to grow and monopolize the bigger streaming industry. It wouldn't be the first time a massive company decided to turn tail on the free market once it's profiting in their favor.
The industry standard of 30% distributor is really garbage. For mobile platforms you can't even make the argument that the store is making it worth the while of the developers- on android the google play store is pretty much your only choice, and on IOS the app store is your literal only choice.
When the playing field is such that all developers have to distribute through the same channels, any value the stores bring to you is completely nullified as you still have to compete with every other developer on the platform to be seen (AKA paying the app store to market your app, meaning you give them even more money).
Apple forces you to use IAPs for payment processing.
“… publishers may no longer provide links in their apps (to a web site,
for example) which allow the customer to purchase content or
subscriptions outside of the app.”
Ironic coming from a company who barely gives artists a fair wage on their platform.
How Spotify, Apple Music, can pay musicians more
Older article but still relevant
'All About That Bass' Songwriter Earned Only $5,679 On 178 Milli..
The 30% fee is a lot, but since you're using Apple's ecosystem to promote your service I guess it's the price you've got to pay?
The only contribution that Apple requires is for digital goods and services that are purchased inside the app using our secure in-app purchase system.
As Spotify points out, that revenue share is 30 percent for the first year of an annual subscription — but they left out that it drops to 15 percent in the years after.
I don't see a lot of problem with this?
As far as I know apps like Amazon can simply using their own payment portal for the stuffs so these most likely aren't getting a cut from Apple.
It seems Spotify is just trying to use Apple's system to distribute the premium upgrade of their app without paying Apple?
This is why I can't use Spotify for my alarm clock? That's pretty gash man
So what if it was a 100%? 1000%? This "it's just the price you've got to pay" is a complete non-take.
30% is the standard, Steam takes that too.
Maybe it’s too much, but this isn’t new.
I'm just pointing out that just because it's "Apple's ecosystem" doesn't mean that whatever cut they take is non-problematic.
I'll also ask the people who are saying Spotify is just another big company like Apple, and they're underpaying the artists etc. to look at Spotify's actual profit margins. Yes, Spotify is a big company, yes artists are not getting paid enough, and yes that is (partially) because people are unwilling to pay much more than $10/month to listen to music literally all day every day. But if you think Spotify's cut is bad, then think about the fact that Apple is taking 30% out of the revenue Spotify would hypothetically make if people bought their subscriptions on their phones... for what exactly? Having built the phones? Letting people download the app? Approving it?
On a PC Spotify would be free to let people download their app from their own server through their browser, but Apple does not allow this. Same with PC games - if you don't want your game promoted on Steam, sell it yourself (see: literally every AAA publisher launching their own store) and keep the cut.
Add this to the ever growing list of why I don't buy Apple products.
All this drama, and I'm just sitting here glad I don't use any streaming services. Or an iOS device.
The only points Spotify really has here are just how restrictive Apple is when it comes to 3rd party apps. That much has been known for the longest time, so at this point, it's nothing new. It's just something you have to deal with if you want to sell to Apple's audience.
Spotify doesn't exactly have the best history though themselves, some of which are touched on in Apple's response.
Either way though, I only really got the appeal of streaming services when I used to have Spotify Premium for free for a good while. After losing it, I felt like $10/month was too steep for me, and the free version has so much annoying bullshit and ads that I just went back to buying the music I was interested in directly. Not only is it less expensive in the long run (like every 1 purchase vs. subscription debate is), but you also have full control over how you listen to your music. Not to mention buying an album directly actually directly supports the artist in question, instead of putting your support in a sort of void that barely goes back to the artist in full.
The only good thing I will give streaming services like Spotify is that they're great for discovering music you haven't heard before due to how they tailor recommendations.
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