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Apple is being a bit greedy when it comes to subscriptions for high-grossing services IMO. Spotify already has razor thin margins and paying out minuscule licen
by mhomde 10y ago
Apple is being a bit greedy when it comes to subscriptions for high-grossing services IMO. Spotify already has razor thin margins and paying out minuscule licensing fees to content producers, it's not viable to pay out 15-30% off the top to Apple.
However, Apple clearly should be able to require a fee for providing the marketplace and payment framework, and you can see their point in not wanting apps to circumvent that to make it simpler for users to be able to manage their subscriptions easily.
Some kind of cap and/or transaction fee seems more reasonable and would be win-win in the long run. You get a bad taste in your mouth when it feels like Apple is using their walled garden to strong arm competition. You can't compete when your largest rival eliminates your profits.
In the end I think it's to Apple's detriment to play aggressively with content providers in their ecosystem when they're in such fierce competition with Android.
- shostack 10y agoI think we can expect more of this increased rent seeking behavior from Apple as they continue their shift to a "services" business.
- fhood 10y agomy understanding is that this only applies to subscriptions paid through the app though right? What percentage of the total subscriptions does that represent.
- mhomde 10y agoYeah, but that combined with that it's forbidden to circumvent paying inside the app puts app providers in a weird position. For somewhat technical savvy I guess it's not much of problem but I can imagine my mom would be confused why they couldn't pay for the service. Also, every user that is acquired through the app would potentially be a drain on Spotify due to the draconian fee's and there's no feasible way to wean them off the the app store. I'm not sure of the actual percentage, don't think they're public. Spotify have been desperately trying to sign-up people outside of the App store which I guess is what started this debacle. If the fee's are so high that you can't go through the app store it feels like it should be lose-lose for everyone.
- MBCook 10y agoYou're allowed to charge a higher price on the App Store than you do outside of it (to make up for the fee), Spotify did that for years. But you can't point that out inside the app.