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It's 30% for the first year of subscriptions and 15% thereafter. According to Apple in 2019 Spotify didn't actually pay 30% on any of it's subscriptions at tha

• thayne 6y ago
  But I think the key here, and probably a big reason Spotify went after Apple and not Google, is that on iOS you have to use Apple's app store. You can't distribute your app using your own infrastructure, or an alternative app store even if you want to.
  • ChrisRR 6y ago
    And aren't even allowed to mention in your app that you can sign up outside of the app.
  • simonh 6y ago
    Sure I understand that, but personally as an iPhone user I don't care. Users benefit from consolidation in the app store space, it much easier for me to have all my apps come from one app store with one set of rules and policies. I benefit from the fact Facebook can't bypass the App Store rules for security and privacy through side loading and an alternate store. Why do you want to take that away from me? Also as a user I don't see any evidence that I am suffering from this, are app prices significantly lower on Android App Stores other than the Play Store? The vast majority of Apps are free, or rally pretty cheap. Show me the evidence. I think the idea that competition in this area will benefit users is highly dubious. Does it really benefit users on Android? Side loading didn't work out for Fortnite very well. At the end of the day it's Apple's product and they get to decide what code they do or don't write and what features they do or don't support and how they work. They get to decide, and are accountable for the security architecture. As long as hey are meeting trade, advertising and safety standards it's up to them.
    • simion314 6y ago
      So if you personally won't benefit from it you should not be against someone else benefiting right? If you want to buy Cyberpunk 2077 you have the option of at least 3 stores, I did not see any Steam user getting damaged by the fact the game is on other stores too.
      • ericmay 6y ago
        As the topic has been beat to death a million times, the danger is that adding additional app stores will result in decreases in the exact thing the OP likes the App Store for. All of the hard work fighting for privacy, security, etc., goes out the window. Facebook will put their app on a 3rd party store and now we’re back to them and others abusing privacy and tracking users and not sharing what and how they’re tracking. Apple’s benevolent dictator approach has revealed some nasty stuff these companies and others were doing. With a third party app, companies don’t have to tell me how they are using my data or give me an anonymous sign in option. Naturally they’re fighting back. The App Store gives Apple a way to collectively bargain against app makers on behalf of users. Take that away and we lose what little power we have.
  • f6v 6y ago
    You also don’t have to buy a subscription in the app, do you? You can pay on the web directly to Spotify and use the subscription in the app.
    • Macha 6y ago
      A fact Spotify is not allowed inform you of, and is not allowed make the only way to buy a subscription
    • ahiknsr 6y ago
      > You also don’t have to buy a subscription in the app, do you? You can pay on the web directly to Spotify and use the subscription in the app. Apple doesn't allow App developers to Inform users about Alternate payment options.
    • seszett 6y ago
      Spotify is forbidden to mention it in their app, though.
      • ClumsyPilot 6y ago
        Thats a violation of freemarket
        • lodovic 6y ago
          Say you buy a can of Coke at Walmart. Would Coca-Cola be allowed to print on that can that it can be bought for less at 7-Eleven?
          • thayne 6y ago
            The way I've seen the rules inforced (though inconsistently) it would be more like walmart not letting Coke put their website on the can, because you can buy coke directly from the website.
          • ClumsyPilot 6y ago
            Wallmart and Appstore are not equivalents: I don't need to accept a huge licence agreement before I enter a supermarket If I were to piss off their staff and get banned from Wallmart, they don't get to take away everything I bought from Wallmart in the past 10 years. If I buy a game from Walmart, and the game sell in game items, I don't need to call wallamrt employee to come to my house to collect the money for that - that's effectively the epic lawsuit.
  • anoncake 6y ago
    While the situation is better on Android, not using the Play Store isn't a real option in most cases. Alternative stores cannot provide auto updates.
    • georgyo 6y ago
      The bigger difference is that the play store does not mandate using Google as the payment processor for transactions and subscriptions. Spotify would have no reason to look for an alternative app distribution mechanism on Android.
      • realusername 6y ago
        > The bigger difference is that the play store does not mandate using Google as the payment processor for transactions and subscriptions. The rules have changed, they do now.
      • halostatue 6y ago
        Fortnite was kicked out of the Google Play store for the very same violation of rules and consumer trust that they pulled with Apple. Epic are also suing Google under the same concocted story.
        • mfost 6y ago
          No they sue Google for a different reason althougher. On how they blocked OEMs from making a deal with Epic to include their store/launcher on phones (thus allowing it the same capabilities for autoupdates and the like than the Play Store)
      • kevingadd 6y ago
        Google requires you to use them for payments, that's been policy for a while. (They do it because Apple proved you can get away with it)
    • MiddleEndian 6y ago
      >Alternative stores cannot provide auto updates. That sounds nice to me. Want me to update? Provide an appealing update! Although I am still not a fan of having any sort of app store in the first place.
  • FredPret 6y ago
    That fact is key to the advantage that the iPhone ecosystem offers. I, and millions of users like me, like the closed garden. I’m effectively outsourcing the duties implied by caveat emptor to Apple. I don’t have the time/inclination to check the safety & honesty of each app developer.
    • ClumsyPilot 6y ago
      "millions of users like me, like the closed garden." Alcapone was popular, but he was still a criminal and a murderer
      • FredPret 6y ago
        If you think about it really carefully, Apple vetting apps before I get to see them is not... exactly... the same thing as being a murdering gangster
        • fouric 6y ago
          It's pretty clear that the parent was not stating that those were the same thing, but instead that popularity does not mean correctness (either in the technical sense or the moral sense).
      • rattlesnakedave 6y ago
        Peak hackernews comment. This is an inane comparison. Murder is not the same as me being satisfied that every app publisher under the sun cannot make their own app store to pollute my phone further.
    • fouric 6y ago
      > That fact is key to the advantage that the iPhone ecosystem offers. That's not an advantage - that's a disadvantage. Having an open ecosystem is a strict superset of the functionality of a closed ecosystem. If I can sideload, then I can sideload and use Apple's app store. If I can't sideload, then I can only use Apple's app store. It's a strict downgrade. > I, and millions of users like me, like the closed garden. Meanwhile, I, and millions of users like me (more, if you count every Android user as not liking walled gardens), do not like the closed garden. Popularity does not make you right. Absolute popularity doesn't even matter - only relative popularity does. > I’m effectively outsourcing the duties implied by caveat emptor to Apple. I don’t have the time/inclination to check the safety & honesty of each app developer. Apple doesn't do those duties consistently - malware repeatedly appears on the app store, and Apple doesn't even attempt to make sure that the vast majority of apps adhere to their privacy labels.
• hajile 6y ago
  That paints an even more anticompetitive problem. If you started a music streaming service, could you get those lower rates? If not, is there any way you coins compete?
• megatron4537 6y ago
  Is this 30%-15% only for Spotify subscribers that paid through Apple Pay or is this for all Spotify subscribers that use the iOS app?
  • ericmay 6y ago
    If you sign up for Spotify outside of the app then Apple sees 0 of that revenue. And yet they are then also hosting and distributing apps for these companies. I think they’ll probably start charging companies like Spotify a banana amount of money to be on the App Store or on iOS at all if they lose these legal battles. I think the pull of the iPhone is far stronger than any app and there are many developers waiting for their chance to reach the iOS audience.
    • withinboredom 6y ago
      Hah, I’d rather just host my own infrastructure if they’ll start charging for hosting… oh wait…
      • ericmay 6y ago
        What infrastructure would you host?
    • defaultname 6y ago
      Every major app that iOS missed would be a significant dollar amount of sales that Apple would lose. If Netflix or Spotify or PrimeVideo wasn't available on iOS, not only would that be a marketing disaster, it would yield sales consequences. This ignores the catastrophic regulatory consequences they are already poised to incur. Apple runs the app store for users (people like me who in aggregate have made it the most valuable company in the world), and it is simply bizarre seeing these claims like it's some enormous expense that they're doing because they're benevolent (which is quite clearly the foundation of your comment, given the claim that Apple could charge "banana" amounts just for being on the app store, contrary to reality where they're already under enormous scrutiny for claiming these fees as a payment processor). There is an argument that Apple could charge some fee for their expenses of operating the app repository. Those fees, to avoid the regulatory hammer, would be absolutely tiny compared to what they are currently getting from their take.
• defaultname 6y ago
  "The rest are ad supported and Apple gets 0% of the ad revenue." The vast bulk of the rest likely signed up elsewhere and aren't free users. I signed up online, as I imagine most people do for most services. I'm not sure if Spotify even had an app subscription at the time, though even if it did I wouldn't have used it. I signed up for Netflix, Skillshare, Prime, Disney+, etc, all on their own sites. Even my Microsoft Office apps I bought a multi-year subscription on some site (saving something like 40% over the app fees). There is zero value for me subscribing to things like that through Apple. Actually negative value. If it's some single-platform little app that needs a subscription to use the beautifier filter or something, sure, provide that "value". "there are 199 Spotify app users Apple is distributing the App to for which they get nothing" They have gotten hundreds of billions in purchases from consumers, all but the very first purchases predicated on a robust and healthy app ecosystem. Apple runs the app store for me, the guy who buys their devices. They are certainly getting loads for it. It is perverse that Apple bars notifying users that they can subscribe elsewhere, and eventually that is going to be regulatory eliminated.
• benhurmarcel 6y ago
  > only paid the 15% on 0.5% of the App's users. That's the point. This is clearly because they removed the ability to subscribe in the app to avoid paying those 15%. So the rule imposed by Apple is costing them subscribers, all those who would have subscribed if it was available in the app (or even just if they could be informed about how to subscribe). The fact that Spotify has barely no customer who subscribe through their app is showing that there's anticompetitive behavior. In a healthy market they would have a share there.
  • rstupek 6y ago
    Or most of Spotify's users want the free ad supported version?
  • halostatue 6y ago
    I don’t necessarily think that’s the case. I haven’t ever subscribed to Spotify because I don’t see any _value_ in Spotify as opposed to what I get from Apple Music. I’m smart enough to know how to subscribe to Spotify from the web. (There are other services like Pandora I would have paid for, in or out of the App Store, had they been available in my jurisdiction. Spotify just never interested me.) I know that makes me an outlier, but it seems to me that Spotify has a much heftier case to make that they’re _missing_ customers because of Apple’s payment rules. I personally don’t want alternative app stores; they will reduce the security and trustworthiness of the iOS platform. I do think that Apple should be reviewing its app / in-app purchase pricing, and I do think that there is a market access concern problem. I don’t have any good answers for it, because I _do_ think that some of the actions criticized have been net positives.
• sneak 6y ago
  Market rates for payment processing are closer to a tenth of that amount.