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It has always seemed weird that if I use my Spotify account on my Android phone, iPad, and desktop, who gets a cut of my money depends on which one I use to set

It has always seemed weird that if I use my Spotify account on my Android phone, iPad, and desktop, who gets a cut of my money depends on which one I use to set up billing.

alias_neo 5y ago
Agreed. I mostly use Spotify on a Raspberry Pi using Spotifyd and a display driver I wrote myself, on Linux. Now who should get a cut of my subscription? Do I get any of it? For services which exist and function perfectly well outside of the Google/Apple binary, why should they get any more than a nominal fee for hosting the app download?
conductr 5y ago
I feel like only the one processing the transaction should be paid to process the transaction. The usage part is no different than if you used a free app on every device, they make nothing.
darkwizard42 5y ago
That is because the person who does the billing incurs the costs...the billing isn't based on usage, it is based on who processes the bill.
- asdfaoeu 5y ago
  The fee is much higher than would be for just "processing the bill"
- 8note 5y ago
  I don't think it's costs they care about, but control. When apple gets control over the transaction, they can take whatever cut they want
- ehsankia 5y ago
  processing fees are on the order of 2-3% at most, platform fees are 30%. That being said, the platforms do incur all sorts of other costs, but these costs are unequally shared across all apps. A free app with no ads does not pay anything but gets all the same features as a 100$ app who contributes 30$ on each sale. The problem is that there isn't a more "fair" solution.
  - AndrewDucker 5y ago
    Of course there is. There are multiple other ways that Apple and Google could decide to charge application providers, but they've decided this one makes them the most money. They could have a standing charge for each app, with charges per thousand downloads, for instance, which would more closely follow their actual costs, and charge 5% for payments. That would have a different set of positives and negatives, but the way they've chosen is just one way amongst many options they've got.
    - ehsankia 5y ago
      So if a large non-profit wants to create an app, let's say Wikipedia, they would have to potentially pay millions? What about people in third world countries where value of their money is worth a fraction, how will they compete?

It has always seemed weird that if I use my Spotify account on my Android phone, iPad, and desktop, who gets a cut of my money depends on which one I use to set up billing.

alias_neo 5y ago

Agreed. I mostly use Spotify on a Raspberry Pi using Spotifyd and a display driver I wrote myself, on Linux. Now who should get a cut of my subscription? Do I get any of it? For services which exist and function perfectly well outside of the Google/Apple binary, why should they get any more than a nominal fee for hosting the app download?

conductr 5y ago

I feel like only the one processing the transaction should be paid to process the transaction. The usage part is no different than if you used a free app on every device, they make nothing.

darkwizard42 5y ago

That is because the person who does the billing incurs the costs...the billing isn't based on usage, it is based on who processes the bill.

asdfaoeu 5y ago
The fee is much higher than would be for just "processing the bill"
8note 5y ago
I don't think it's costs they care about, but control. When apple gets control over the transaction, they can take whatever cut they want
ehsankia 5y ago
processing fees are on the order of 2-3% at most, platform fees are 30%. That being said, the platforms do incur all sorts of other costs, but these costs are unequally shared across all apps. A free app with no ads does not pay anything but gets all the same features as a 100$ app who contributes 30$ on each sale. The problem is that there isn't a more "fair" solution.
- AndrewDucker 5y ago
  Of course there is. There are multiple other ways that Apple and Google could decide to charge application providers, but they've decided this one makes them the most money. They could have a standing charge for each app, with charges per thousand downloads, for instance, which would more closely follow their actual costs, and charge 5% for payments. That would have a different set of positives and negatives, but the way they've chosen is just one way amongst many options they've got.
  - ehsankia 5y ago
    So if a large non-profit wants to create an app, let's say Wikipedia, they would have to potentially pay millions? What about people in third world countries where value of their money is worth a fraction, how will they compete?