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1. 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%

1. 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 ago
It'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 ago
  The 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 ago
  It'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.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    Spotify doesn’t pay a 30% cut to a 3rd party either. They don’t allow in app purchases in iTunes.
    - _aavaa_ 3y ago
      Okay. That isn't really much of a counter argument. They can't afford apple's 30% gatekeeping take so they lose out on a large number of potential customers.
      - scarface_74 3y ago
        That must be why AppleTV+ is the number one video streaming company. It took Spotify over a year to implement streaming over the cellular Apple Watch after the API was introduced
- jerojero 3y ago
  Okay but this completely irrelevant to the argument at hand. If you want to choose apple music over Spotify for the sake of the artists. Good. Though I'd also he cautious, Spotify does have a much stronger market share than apple in this regard but precedent seems to indicate that apple will happily leverage their strong position to squeeze money out of people. These companies are all wanting to make more money, this money needs to come out of somewhere. Users, artists, developers...
  - CharlesW 3y ago
    > Spotify does have a much stronger market share than apple in this regard but precedent seems to indicate that apple will happily leverage their strong position to squeeze money out of people. We have 23 years of history (Apple's digital music services launched in 2001) showing that's not true, so I'll take that bet. And the only thing that's changed about the App Store 30% cut implemented 15 years ago is that was halved for the vast majority of software sellers.
bearjaws 3y ago
> 3. Doesn’t Sootify also take a 30% cut to allow artists on their platform? Is Apple paying for their engineering staff, data centers and streaming bandwidth? No. Once someone purchases Spotify, Apple just pushes app updated, a microscopic fraction of the cost of running Spotify. Putting that aside, the real issue is that Apple has their own competing service that effectively doesn't have to pay the same tax. That is where things become anti-competitive.
- JimDabell 3y ago
  > Is Apple paying for their engineering staff, data centers and streaming bandwidth? No. Is Spotify paying for artists’ session musicians, recording studio, or musical instruments? No. > Once someone purchases Spotify, Apple just pushes app updated, a microscopic fraction of the cost of running Spotify. How much work does Spotify do to publish an individual song?
  - smoldesu 3y ago
    I think the point is that the tax is a double-standard. Apple can inherently exploit more competitive tactics by offering a first-party option that is financially infeasible to resist. Spotify isn't squeaky-clean either, but their argument is sound. Not only can Apple grant themselves private API entitlements (a literal competitive advantage), but competitors cannot offer a cheaper alternative even if they wanted. It's a situation where ad-ridden platforms like YouTube and TikTok are rewarded and legitimate licensed competitors can barely justify a native iOS app.
    - scarface_74 3y ago
      What private API entitlements does Apple take advantage of that affects Spotify? It took Spotify over a year to implement streaming over cellular Apple Watches after it was introduced with a four month lead time when it was in public beta
      - smoldesu 3y ago
freedomben 3y ago
On what does Spotify charge this? Do they sell music now? I was under the impression that they paid out by track streams
- scarface_74 3y ago
  They take 30% of the revenue customer’s pay them and distribute the rest in a pool they give rights holders.
Mindwipe 3y ago
> 3. Doesn’t Sootify also take a 30% cut to allow artists on their platform? LOL No. Spotify would not be in so much trouble as a business if it did anything like that.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  Spotify in fact does take 30% of the revenue from paying customers and ads and puts the rest in a pool to pay artists. How is this any different?

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 ago

It'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 ago
The 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 ago
It'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.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  Spotify doesn’t pay a 30% cut to a 3rd party either. They don’t allow in app purchases in iTunes.
  - _aavaa_ 3y ago
    Okay. That isn't really much of a counter argument. They can't afford apple's 30% gatekeeping take so they lose out on a large number of potential customers.
    - scarface_74 3y ago
      That must be why AppleTV+ is the number one video streaming company. It took Spotify over a year to implement streaming over the cellular Apple Watch after the API was introduced
jerojero 3y ago
Okay but this completely irrelevant to the argument at hand. If you want to choose apple music over Spotify for the sake of the artists. Good. Though I'd also he cautious, Spotify does have a much stronger market share than apple in this regard but precedent seems to indicate that apple will happily leverage their strong position to squeeze money out of people. These companies are all wanting to make more money, this money needs to come out of somewhere. Users, artists, developers...
- CharlesW 3y ago
  > Spotify does have a much stronger market share than apple in this regard but precedent seems to indicate that apple will happily leverage their strong position to squeeze money out of people. We have 23 years of history (Apple's digital music services launched in 2001) showing that's not true, so I'll take that bet. And the only thing that's changed about the App Store 30% cut implemented 15 years ago is that was halved for the vast majority of software sellers.

bearjaws 3y ago

> 3. Doesn’t Sootify also take a 30% cut to allow artists on their platform? Is Apple paying for their engineering staff, data centers and streaming bandwidth? No. Once someone purchases Spotify, Apple just pushes app updated, a microscopic fraction of the cost of running Spotify. Putting that aside, the real issue is that Apple has their own competing service that effectively doesn't have to pay the same tax. That is where things become anti-competitive.

JimDabell 3y ago
> Is Apple paying for their engineering staff, data centers and streaming bandwidth? No. Is Spotify paying for artists’ session musicians, recording studio, or musical instruments? No. > Once someone purchases Spotify, Apple just pushes app updated, a microscopic fraction of the cost of running Spotify. How much work does Spotify do to publish an individual song?
- smoldesu 3y ago
  I think the point is that the tax is a double-standard. Apple can inherently exploit more competitive tactics by offering a first-party option that is financially infeasible to resist. Spotify isn't squeaky-clean either, but their argument is sound. Not only can Apple grant themselves private API entitlements (a literal competitive advantage), but competitors cannot offer a cheaper alternative even if they wanted. It's a situation where ad-ridden platforms like YouTube and TikTok are rewarded and legitimate licensed competitors can barely justify a native iOS app.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    What private API entitlements does Apple take advantage of that affects Spotify? It took Spotify over a year to implement streaming over cellular Apple Watches after it was introduced with a four month lead time when it was in public beta
    - smoldesu 3y ago

freedomben 3y ago

On what does Spotify charge this? Do they sell music now? I was under the impression that they paid out by track streams

scarface_74 3y ago
They take 30% of the revenue customer’s pay them and distribute the rest in a pool they give rights holders.

Mindwipe 3y ago

> 3. Doesn’t Sootify also take a 30% cut to allow artists on their platform? LOL No. Spotify would not be in so much trouble as a business if it did anything like that.

scarface_74 3y ago
Spotify in fact does take 30% of the revenue from paying customers and ads and puts the rest in a pool to pay artists. How is this any different?