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But remember that the 85/15 split only occurs after a year, so Spotify would still need to charge more. I also don't know if the app store is flexible enough to lower the customer's price after that year cut goes into affect.

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The cut happens automatically, and it's in place now for all subscriptions.

So any Spotify subscriptions that started through the app at least a year ago are now getting the 85/15 split, without Spotify having to do anything.

I think his point is that if Spotify charges users 30% extra on iOS to cover the split there is no way for them to reduce that to 15% extra for users registered more than a year. So Spotify will get more money but the user will still pay 30% extra for signing up via iOS.

True. Or Spotify could choose to charge something else, say 10% more, so that on average it worked out to be roughly even for users based on how often they unsubscribe. Where they could charge 15% and eat the other 15% until the subscriber has been around for a year.

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