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Nobody is talking about the price of app distribution though. It's about the cost of a Spotify subscription. This subscription has nothing to do in the slightes
by efdee 8y ago
Nobody is talking about the price of app distribution though. It's about the cost of a Spotify subscription. This subscription has nothing to do in the slightest with Apple. Apple doesn't have to promote it, distribute it, host it, pay for its bandwidth, nothing.
Spotify already has their own distribution channel (sign up on their website), and Apple is prohibiting them from mentioning it on iPhones and instead forces them to use Apple's distribution channel, which comes with a hefty price tag.
So if they want to distribute their free app on the iPhone, they are welcome to do so, as long as they don't mention that people have to go to their website to sign up for the premium service.
We can still argue about whether Apple is allowed to behave this way, but at least we'll be arguing about the right thing.
- mlthoughts2018 8y agoThe only thing anyone is talking about is the price of app distribution. That price includes obeying the terms of Apple’s distribution channel. > “Spotify already has their own distribution channel (sign up on their website)” Yes, and if they don’t like the prices for oveying the rules of Apple’s distribution channel, they are free to remove the app from Apple’s app store, and notify customers that they cannot use the service on iOS devices.
- mythz 8y agoThe cost of distribution is the cost of selling their commercial digital services on Apple's platform. If Spotify deems 30%/15% split is too much to be able to sell their services on iOS, they don't need to participate in that market, they can continue selling their online streaming services on the Web and Android and and spend the money they would've paid Apple in distribution costs in more advertising/marketing to acquire new Customers. If the App Store revenue share is so lucrative they can also consider that as an opportunity and are free to build and sell on their own platform, invest their resources in building hardware + mobile devices, OS, Apps + software, dev tools, distribution channels, retail stores, marketing/advertising to entice everyone to use it and enjoy the 30%/15% revenue share from everyone else choosing to participate and thrive on it. Or maybe it will end up being cheaper for them and they'll get more revenue because of iOS's larger and quality user base to just pay the App Store fees for being able to offer their commercial services to the iOS ecosystem created with Apple's investments.