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Spotify attacks Apple's 'outrageous' 27% commission
- Moru 3y agoWhat if Spotify makes it 27% more expensive to use Spotify on Apple?
- BadHumans 3y agoPeople would move to Apple Music which sounds great for Apple.
- internet101010 3y agoThe playlist moat is deep at Spotify. Between ease of building playlists, sharing playlists, following playlists, and the "fresh finds" playlists that Spotify creates, it's tough to compete. I don't think very many people are going to go through that transition for a couple of bucks.
- BadHumans 3y agoA playlist moat doesn't sound like a real thing. I don't know how the average user uses Spotify but aside from the playlist that Spotify generates, all the music I like goes in one massive playlist. I've never used Apple Music but if another service generated playlist for me I would just as easily listen to those.
- nickthegreek 3y agoIt 100% is a real thing, I dont even really understand the opposite. Users curate lists, and even share those. I am a YT Music user and that severely cuts down on my ability to find playlists that others have created compared to spotify. When I switched to YT Music, my partner was pissseed. I had to locate and run some python scripts to run to transfer over the playlists or we were gonna be switching back. There are people who have Youtube Premium & Spotify because of their playlist/social lockin. Spotify Wrapped alone keeps people from jumping ship.
- BadHumans 3y agoWe are on opposite sides of this because playlist as as social feature is not something I can understand. However, every streaming platform has copied Spotify Wrapped. Hell, Steam sends me a Spotify Wrapped type email about the games I played at the end of the year now.
- nickthegreek 3y agoThe YT Music equivalent to Spotify Wrapped is a complete joke.
- stuaxo 3y agoProbably not allowed to ic you want to be on the appstore.
- t_sawyer 3y agoThen people will use Apple Music which is exactly the leverage Apple has. Apple let Spotify test the market of music streaming. Entered the market at basically the same price. Then charges Spotify 27% to compete with them directly.
- puppymaster 3y agobut thanks to Epic court case Spotify can now put a big fat banner on their app that says 'go to this link to subscribe to Spotify premium'.
- eddd-ddde 3y agoDoes that mean that subscribing on the app has a commission but subscribing on a web site on the browser app does not?
- reilly3000 3y agoRight, if a user subscribes via app it uses Apple’s payment system and Apple is paying merchant processing fees, vs if they subscribe directly with Spotify they handle processing fees, chargebacks, support etc. The ~30% was relatively reasonable when the App Store launched with most transactions being $0.99 one-time purchases, but isn’t very equitable for things like $15/mo subscriptions.
- Jcampuzano2 3y agoIf they go to the browser themself - without clicking a link in the app - to subscribe, then no commission has to be paid. However, if they clicked a link from within the app itself to subscribe then they must pay the commission, even if the payment eventually happened from within a browser. In other words, no matter how the subscription/payment happened, if it originated from within the app (whether via a link to an external site or via apples payment system) you must pay a commision.
- blashyrk 3y ago
- rapfaria 3y agoThey'd have to make it 36% more expensive to break even
- apozem 3y agoIt was 30% more expensive if you signed up on the iOS app. I'm not sure if it still is. https://community.spotify.com/t5/Accounts/higher-costs-per-month-for-spotify-premium-via-app-store/td-p/878937 https://community.spotify.com/t5/Accounts/higher-costs-per-m...
- seaal 3y agoThey just don’t let you upgrade from the free plan at all. Change was rather recent. https://www.macrumors.com/2023/07/05/spotify-subscribers-no-app-store-payment/ https://www.macrumors.com/2023/07/05/spotify-subscribers-no-...
- simonbarker87 3y agoI’d still use Spotify since Apple Music is such a bad app.
- scarface_74 3y ago1. Spotify hasn’t allowed in app purchases for 7+ years 2. When Spotify was allowing in app purchases they did charge more 3. Doesn’t Sootify also take a 30% cut to allow artists on their platform?
- voisin 3y ago> 3. Doesn’t Sootify also take a 30% cut to allow artists on their platform? Woah woah woah - this is HN, we only shake our fists and scream at the unfairness of Apple earning a commission on its IP. When others do it, it’s ok.
- tommoor 3y agoIt's 30% commission all the way down
- CharlesW 3y ago> Doesn’t Sootify also take a 30% cut to allow artists on their platform? No, but Spotify is known for happily starving artists (via their label payouts) to increase its bottom line. For example, Apple Music pays nearly double the royalties Spotify does.
- crimbles 3y agoThe one simple trick to avoid here is to not be "an artist". Unless you make it big the only thing you're getting out of Spotify and Apple is possibly the easy of distributing a link to your music. I know a minor band with a few 10's of thousands of Spotify plays and they make 10x more money out of Bandcamp and gigs than they do out of streaming services. And they can't live off that so have day jobs anyway.
- _aavaa_ 3y agoIt's easy for Apple Music to pay double the royalties when it doesn't have to pay a 30% cut to a 3rd party. It doesn't have to pay one on Apple's Store, and I doubt it pays one on Google's.
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- mebazaa 3y agoThe best part about this is that Apple Music historically asked Android users to put in their credit cards, bypassing Android’s own IAP system. (Might have changed a few years ago)
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- max_ 3y agoI absolutely agree. Free markets are a battle ground. Businesses should use what ever advantage they have over each other to get ahead. This is why I am very against people that often beg regulators to come and reduce on the so called "unfair" business practices. The free market is not some place where businesses gather together around a fire singing Kumbaya Or as brothers in arms breaking bread. This confusion as to why businesses should be left to fight each other is what I mostly disagree with people on.
- bearjaws 3y agoThose who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Anti-trust was started for a reason, we know how this ends long term, little competition and increased prices for everyone.
- max_ 3y agoThe most regulated areas are the ones that have the worst prices for consumers and least competition. Think banks, insurance, pharmaceuticals, law etc.
- smoldesu 3y agoPossibly that's because regulating them prevents bad banks, insurance and medicine from being issued. Businesses concerning wealth, provenance and health should be scrutinized heavily. Your opinion is like blaming American food being bad on the FDA. Without the (few) places where the FDA draws the line, that food would not get any better. Trust me.
- smoldesu 3y ago
- gumby 3y agoFunny that Epic, Spotify etc don't complain about the same cost levied by other platforms like Playstation, Xbox etc? Usually the strategy (mostly, but hardly exclusively, followed by patent and other trolls) is to start with the smallest, weakest participants and then use them as a precident and then work your way up. Starting with the richest of them all with decades of litigation experience seems foolish, and indeed it hasn't worked for Epic. Also a lot of people admire Apple, so why face that in the court of popular opinion when you could have build the case that they are the bad guys? FWIW: I think Sweeny is a dick, that Spotify is financially precarious, and Apple is basically a great white: efficient, relentless, and not your friend.
- notyourwork 3y agoCan you expand on financially precarious? Would like to understand what this refers too.
- WanderPanda 3y agoI would assume margins are razor thin in the music streaming business, there are only very tame moats
- _aavaa_ 3y agoThey are being squeezed both by the app store gatekeepers who have a monopoly, in all but name, over distribution avenues, and by the music labels who have monopoly power over most artists.
- mlyle 3y agoYup, being wedged between monopsony and a music oligopoly can't be fun.
- julienreszka 3y agothey're not profitable
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- toasterlovin 3y ago[flagged]
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- r721 3y agoRelated discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39020365 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39020365 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39034951 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39034951
- pvg 3y agoAnd https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39014642 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39014642
- Workaccount2 3y agoImagine if google had just developed a proper iMessage competitor in 2012, and made it a cornerstone product like gmail. We probably would actually have a competitive smartphone landscape in the US today.
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- ChiefEngineer 3y agoBlackBerry had BBM on their legacy devices and it didn't stop the original iPhone from being a hit. BlackBerry released their BB10 devices in January 2013 with BBM that were very competitive, and objectively better than the iPhone at the time, and it did not stop the iPhone. Then BlackBerry released BBM on Android and iPhone allowing cross-platform communication with objectively the best messenger available at the time. It failed. The success of the iPhone was built on the culture of iPhone-first app development and the unwillingness of companies to develop for a third platform.
- Workaccount2 3y agoAndroid was much more competitive with iPhone back then, as social circles hadn't yet solidified around one platform. Google was also still widely praised back then as an innovative leader. BB had lost enormous market share by 2012, it was too late. All google had to do was make an iMessage clone, probably even could have made a better service back then, and make it the default on all android phones. Suddenly Google would have had a powerhouse feature for the main thing phones were used for in 2012: communication. But instead Google decided to leave SMS default and instead toy around with their stupid a/b model that nobody ended up using anyway.
- reilly3000 3y agoThis is how Apple has implemented its “StoreKit external purchase link” system: https://developer.apple.com/support/storekit-external-entitlement-us https://developer.apple.com/support/storekit-external-entitl... It’s important to note this is US only, not UK. It appears to apply to net new subscriptions being solicited through iOS apps which also have in-app subscription enabled.
- goguy 3y agoWow, glad I avoid native app development. The eternal dictatorship.
- xcrjm 3y agoFrom 2019: > https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/apple-fires-back-spotify-pays-fees-on-less-than-1-percent-of-members/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/apple-fires-back-spotify-pa...
- seatac76 3y agoAt the very least Apple should not be able to do this in categories it competes in. Charging Spotify 30% is hella anti competitive because they also have Apple Music.