He takes 30% for his platform, what's the issue with Apple taking 30% for their own platform? Quit the platform if you want. If consumers value Spotify enough they will leave Apple for it (spoiler: They won't)
Don't use their app distribution platform? Don't pay their fee. That is how it should work, which is how it does work on android (and yes most companies still use the play store, because it is hard to convince consumers to use another store, but at least the option is there. Also you can not auto update apps installed from outside the play store which also sucks).
My device so I and I alone should determine which software I want to run
2. What does that have to do with Spotify not wanting to pay IAP fees?
3. Should Spotify also allow you to "sideload" the mp3s you bought from bandcamp into their player?
There are hundreds of phones available and most have different variations of Android with their own features and restrictions.
It's a really basic point and I have no idea what's so hard to understand.
An academic exercise of open source isn't an excuse for an actually functional and useful daily driver. We've come as a society to the point where the absence of a cell phone makes you a second-class citizen.
Microsoft got in trouble for the much less bad act of merely bundling a browser with the OS.
Imagine how much worse it would be if they took 30% of every transaction on every computer in the world.
And on the Unix side it's slightly better where you can download apps outside of the Unix Store but they don't autoupdate while easily having the ability to, and that any OEM that doesn't install Unix Store Services gets their Android license removed or severely limited.
That's basically how it's like.
I hear this argument all the time. But what do you think was done before iOS?
When will they have finally gotten paid for all that and don't need to take any more money from you?
And, no, not all software updates were uncommon or charged for before iOS. Windows Update predates iOS by many years. People did pay for development tools but then so do iOS developers for $100 a year. I've personally only paid for dev tools a few times in my life. Developers add value to an ecosystem.
I’m not entirely sure it’s worth it but it sure seems like most people accept this bargain since it’s become standard on the most used devices.
So it’s my device. I want Spotify to be able to side load on my device.
With Google it's just some fucked up AI trying to pretend to be a human. And you can't complain about its decisions.
That's not how reality works at all and you are very aware of it. You are trying to force an equivalence between a device ecosystem which has massive network effects once you are in it, a device most people use everyday in 2022 for most of their lives needs: maps, communication, banking, government interactions, entertainment and so on, and pitting it against a simple music/audio service.
What makes Apple behaviour even more egregious isn't only the 30% cut, it's that they provide a competitor that doesn't have to care about this overhead cost, it's undercutting the competition because they control the whole platform. If this doesn't sound anti-competitive to you then I believe you are deep into a hole.
It should be illegal for apple to force such a choice to begin with.
b) Spotify takes a cut from the payment between consumer and musician so I assume they have no issue with it.