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Apple's Proposed Changes Reject the Goals of the DMA
- kanbara 3y agoit’s so interesting to me how the DMA applies to Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Bytedance, Meta, and Microsoft, but the last week i’ve only seen interesting and hot posts on HN about one gatekeeper in particular. all of the notions that apple must do x or y and if not, they violate the DMA and the EU must take damages— or that somehow the DMA is flawed and needs to be rewritten, are kind of wild. the DMA applies to everyone equally, so either something is allowed or it is not, and we dont know yet what the EU will say. this is only the beginning, but the desperation of companies like Spotify and Epic openly trashing any semblance of a business relationship with the company that has 22% marketshare in Europe is pretty wild to me.
- refulgentis 3y agoYou havent been paying attention if you think Spotify and Epic's tone is surprising or that there's a business relationship to lose.
- summerlight 3y agoIt's because other gatekeepers have been fairly obedient regarding DMA or less impacted. At least no other gatekeepers tried to downplay the purpose of DMA itself to the level of Apple's.
- wilg 3y agoCould have to do with how Apple announced its compliance plans yesterday and that's what everybody is talking about.
- kmlx 3y ago> Earlier this week, thanks to the clear language in the DMA, we shared how we plan to offer customers in the EU more choice I followed the link to see their plan of offering customers in the EU more choice [0] and all i saw was dark patterns and cheap marketing, all in order to sell a bit more. Here’s a better idea: why not open up spotify to competing players? [0] https://newsroom.spotify.com/2024-01-24/the-dma-means-a-better-spotify-for-artists-creators-and-you/ https://newsroom.spotify.com/2024-01-24/the-dma-means-a-bett...
- vdaea 3y agoInstead of asking for stricter regulations, Spotify would do well to ask themselves why most (all?) the gatekeepers are in the US and not the EU.
- _cenw 3y agoWhat do you think the answer is?
- exabrial 3y agoI don't understand how companies get so big they'll put everything on the line to get it beat down by regulators. A little bit of good faith actions would get them a long way, but instead they choose obliteration.
- Mathnerd314 3y agoWell there is that story https://a16z.com/why-i-did-not-go-to-jail/ https://a16z.com/why-i-did-not-go-to-jail/,. where they're like "everyone does it, I did it at my last company, it's fine". Maybe Apple similarly has lawyers, CEOs, etc. who tell them "we can handle any fallout, play hard"? Also, as advised against in that story, legal is part of finance https://www.organimi.com/organizational-structures/apple/ https://www.organimi.com/organizational-structures/apple/
- nightowl_games 3y agoCool story. I still don't quite get what law was broken and how? When is the stock option price supposed to be measured?
- spott 3y agoProbably on some fixed date every month, rather than the the day with the lowest price every month.
- rakoo 3y agoThey get so big because they're allowed to, it's not really surprising in our politico-economic situation
- solardev 3y agoIt's more profitable for them to skirt the law or try to change it. Apple has more money than many governments. They're not really scared. To them regulations (and getting around them) are just a cost of doing business. I hope the EU layeth the smackdown, because the US isn't gonna do anything.
- exabrial 3y agoThe other worth mentioning: you can't regulate monopolies into compliance. They will fight over the last penny through sneaky workarounds. The only solution is breakup.
- trinsic2 3y agoYeah, that makes sense. When was the last company that got broken up? Mabell?
- summerlight 3y agoI don't think so. It's only Apple who is blatantly trying to circumvent it. All other gatekeepers already have implemented necessary changes in a pretty conservative, obvious way.
- firecall 3y agoWorth noting that the CCP takes a different approach to compliance enforcement. We cannot assume that over the next century that US companies will dominate globally. We have to find a way to get US companies to enrich our Capitalist Democracy and stop gatekeeping otherwise we are going to lose our position. I’m Australian and am fully aware how much Western Democracies need the US not to fuck up!
- p1mrx 3y ago"0.50 cent Euro" makes my brain hurt.
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- _cenw 3y agoThey're officially called euro cents.
- PhilippGille 3y agoBut then it's either 50 Euro cents, or 0.50 Euro, no?
- solardev 3y agoIt's Verizon math. http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-dollars-from-cents.html http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/verizon-doesnt-know-...
- zshrc 3y agoSpotify has no room to speak. Pay your artist, just as greedy.
- grepexdev 3y agoSpotify doesn't have a monopoly on music streaming.
- caslon 3y agoApple doesn't have a monopoly on smartphones.
- grepexdev 3y agoIf a developer wants to release an app for iOS, what company do they have to go through and are there any alternatives? Sure apple is prepping to allow 3rd party app stores but they'll likely go about it in a very Apple fashion and have some sort of catch.
- firecall 3y agoI heard Cory Doctorrow speak on the Pivot podcast about that! Labels were investors in Spotify….. So to boost profits for IPO they had incentives to reduce payouts to artists… Or something like that. It all sounded very corrupt!
- wilg 3y agoSpotify gives 70% to rightsholders, yes?
- rakoo 3y agoRightsholders yes, not artists. But that's not an issue Spotify is out to tackle
- GeekyBear 3y agoFor a bit of perspective, look at how much the various streaming services pay to artists per stream: Tidal 1.3 cents Apple Music 1 cent Youtube .8 cents Amazon .4 cents Spotify .33 cents https://cloudcovermusic.com/blog/how-much-artists-make-streaming-services https://cloudcovermusic.com/blog/how-much-artists-make-strea...
- JoshTriplett 3y agoIn other news, water is wet. Of course Apple rejects the entire premise of the DMA. Whether you agree with them or disagree with them, you shouldn't expect Apple to be happy about being forced, or to do anything more than the letter of the law requires. If they were cheerful about it, they'd have already done it, globally, before being forced to.
- ratg13 3y agoHopefully the end result is a large concerted effort to regulate Apple as a monopoly. At this point I would be fine with EU and US legislators going overboard on them.
- eadz 3y agoSpotify has its own App Store, with an even worse experience for developers in my experience. Rather than a published set of rules and fees for commercial apps, instead Spotify requires you contact them, and fees and rules are done behind closed doors, if you even get that far. Since Spotify is throwing stones here, what are Spotify’s commercial rates for Spotify integrated apps in their App Store?
- gamblor956 3y agoCan you provide link to Spotify's app store? I've used spotify since it launched and was never aware of this feature.
- eadz 3y agoThey seemed to have recently removed it. The link below shows what it recently looked like. The main issue was if you want to make a commercial app, there are no publicly available commercial terms, and it is easy for Spotify to not offer commercial terms to apps/companies that may in some way increase the chance of competition with Spotify. For example, if you wanted to make an app that would allow you to export your playlists, Spotify may offer you terrible commercial terms or none at all. This is more restrictive than Apple. https://www.iorad.com/player/2097656/Spotify---How-to-view-Spotify-developer-showcase#mobilequick-6 https://www.iorad.com/player/2097656/Spotify---How-to-view-S...
- gamblor956 3y agoThat's not an app store. That's just a gallery of Spotify partners... Due to the way music licensing works, Spotify would never have had the same type of app store as Apple or Google.
- eadz 3y agoIt was a listing of apps on the Spotify platform. The main point is, Spotify has a platform, like Apple, but is throwing stones from a glass house when it comes to trying to build on the platform. Most of the integrations do not have anything to do with using the copyrighted music, e.g. a playlist export app.
- Veedrac 3y agoI'm fine with Apple charging $.X per install from their app store. That should be in their right as a platform. What's not cool, and what I was excited for DMA to fix, is that Apple says that by transacting with a customer _by any means_ on their platform, you owe them a part of that transaction. This is anathema to a free market. Again, it's fine if they charge you for using their payment platform, or even alternate payments made through some Apple payment UI. What's not fine is forcing anyone who wants to sell you a good or service to have to compete with the smartphone market as a whole to access you as a customer unimpeded. It is especially egregious that Apple prevented you from as much as mentioning that alternative payment methods exist off-platform. So the biggest issue in my eyes isn't that Apple is charging per install, it's that they're charging to so much as mention that you are able to transact elsewhere, both in the per install cost and in still taking a commission. That is tying and that should be illegal. It is like if a leading browser blocked websites from companies that refused to share their profits, regardless of if that transaction even happened through the browser.
- GeekyBear 3y ago> Apple says that by transacting with a customer _by any means_ on their platform, you owe them a part of that transaction. That is indeed what the US Federal court ruled in Apple v. Epic, and all possible appeals have let that ruling stand. > as discussed in the findings of facts, IAP is the method by which Apple collects its licensing fee from developers for the use of Apple’s intellectual property. Even in the absence of IAP, Apple could still charge a commission on developers. It would simply be more difficult for Apple to collect that commission. Indeed, while the Court finds no basis for the specific rate chosen by Apple (i.e., the 30% rate) based on the record, the Court still concludes that Apple is entitled to some compensation for use of its intellectual property. https://stratechery.com/2021/the-apple-v-epic-decision/ https://stratechery.com/2021/the-apple-v-epic-decision/
- Alpha3031 3y agoFortunately for EU regulators, US judicial precedent is not binding there while their Digital Markets Act is. We'll see if they take this lying down.
- InTheArena 3y agoI would read John Gruber's post before taking anything Spotify says at face value. Spotify lobbied hard and got their language adopted as part of the DMA - which as Gruber noted - is really much more a "anti-American business" bill. Now that apple has a approach that they believe meets the letter of the law, Spotify is complaining about the intent of the law.