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Comment by mullingitover | Hacker News Reader

I wish this guy would take some of his ample spare time and get his engineers working on the support for HomeKit devices that customers have been demanding for years now[1].

[1] https://community.spotify.com/t5/Live-Ideas/iOS-Implement-Na...

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It's hard to take Spotify's call for openness seriously when they're just as controlling as Apple is when it comes to how it allows its users to use its product.

Most egregiously, they never delivered the promised playback-capable replacement for libspotify, probably because they want to keep their users in their little walled garden where Spotify can subject them to incessant A/B test tweaks to the UI designed to herd them towards the most profitable content. Third party clients that just act like normal music players and don't change constantly would be an affront to that.

As you've pointed out, when Apple has made affordances to allow better support for third party services, Spotify has been slow to take advantage of them. HomePods have had APIs that third party music streaming services can hook as well as the capability to set your default streaming service to things that aren't Apple Music for a year and a half now, and as of this writing Spotify has not used them, despite smaller streaming services like Deezer and Pandora having implemented support months ago. Why? I can only guess because HomePods aren't Spotify Connect devices and thus aren't under the control of Spotify the way that Spotify Connect devices are.

Spotify isn't upset by the lack of openness, they're upset that Apple won't give them the same VIP treatment that they've gotten from other platform/device vendors (including Microsoft, with Spotify being bundled with Windows 11).

You can take him completely seriously: he just wants to be able to sign up paying users on iPhone without handing 30% to Apple. I don’t think that’s particularly opaque.

This is essentially just the typical corporate aversion to taxation. They want to benefit from the infrastructure, but don't want to pay for it.

Nothing new here, other than the weird tech bros leaping to defend the behaviour...

The situation where you can purchase a service for 30% less elsewhere but not on the iPhone is pretty insane. And on top of that, you are not allowed to tell your users how to get a better deal.

Regardless of his reasoning, Apple and some others have too much power.

How can Apple have "too much power" here, when there is a clear alternative where it is cheaper?

It's not a "clear alternative" when Apple doesn't even allow you to mention that. There are other reasonable alternatives such as letting developers mention the alternative payment methods as long as they explain what the benefits of Apple payment ecosystem.

I read a lot of people writing comments like "I prefer to go through Apple because of the ease of unsubscription." If the benefits are so clear, why are developers not even allowed to mention the alternative?

Android is a very real and clear alternative. Android dominates market share. How you can say there isn't a clear alternative, I don't know.

Given the vendor lock-in and Apple's 50% market share, it's not much of an alternative.

That doesn't justify your argument. 50% is not a dominant position.

> They want to benefit from the infrastructure, but don't want to pay for it.

The infrastructure is already paid for. I paid for it when I bought my $1000 iPhone.

That would be a valid point if the phone wasn't vertically integrated with cloud services and ongoing support from the manufacturer.

The terms for access to the app store are based on licensing for the software that's part of the device. I could see a reasonable compromise where you can wipe the iPhone and start from scratch with your own OS/drivers/etc, waive your warranty, and then be free to go nuts installing anything you want from any app store. I just can't imagine anyone being happy spending the thousand bucks purely for the hardware.

My last iPhone before this one was also $1000. Oh, also, I pay for iCloud storage. I think I’ve covered the ongoing support and cloud costs as well.

Why should Apple be allowed to have a competitor in the same space without paying the 30% Apple tax on top then?

That's anti-trust 101.

So should we also stop console makers from having first party games? Stop stores from selling store brands?

I'd say yes if console makers would force all 3rd parties to not directly advertise how to create an account with them and pay through their own means for a subscription when needed instead of the console game store.

I'd say yes if stores with their own store brands would force producers of 3rd party products to always pay a 30% cut and disallow the consumers from being able to purchase the product at a different place of their choosing.

Consoles have forced third party game makers to pay a license fee for every physical game sold since the 80s no matter where you sold the game.

My example was about subscriptions, no console maker takes a cut of a subscription to a game done through the game publisher's own servers/service. No console maker takes a cut from sales of digital items done through the game's platform.

You are moving the goalposts, licencing is a well established practice and only interferes with the sale of the initial product: the game, not subsequent upsales where the console maker has absolutely no interaction with, just like royalties for IP and so on, it's another broken analogy...

Which console makers allow you to have subscriptions that you pay for outside of the game?

Final Fantasy XIV for example.

Actually, maybe yeah!

Whataboutism doesn't solve anything. Two wrongs doesn't make a right. Etc.

Not only whataboutism but also broken analogies. I can't think of a proper analogy to the market power that Apple holds by having the whole platform coupled with devices that people don't have that many other choices (Android vs iOS, that's basically it). I can always try to twist the analogy to bring it closer to the actual reality of the issue at hand but it's always an uphill battle to dismember it and re-create the analogy more similarly to what's actually the problem.

Sometimes I wonder if it's really other's ignorance about the reductionist analogy being broken or if they're maliciously using it to misrepresent the point made.

> can't think of a proper analogy to the market power that Apple holds by having the whole platform coupled with devices that people don't have that many other choices

There are three console makers as opposed to two major phone manufacturers. How is that different?

You can release your games for PCs and have enough market share to be sustainable. You can't just release your app on the web and have the exact same experience as a native application, there's no alternative with enough market share for mobile platforms.

Do you really not see a difference between these worlds or are you being purposefully obtuse and ignoring reality to try to push your point?

It's again an example from HN threads/commenters completely ignoring degree and level of issues and instead forcing a black-and-white view with broken analogies...

The PC game market is a nothingburger compared to console.

So the same people who aren’t willing to walk away from ios with 50% market share are going to suggest walking away from all consoles which combined have a much larger than 50% market share in the games market?

People have been complaining for years that Apple is holding the PWA market back. Where are all of the companies that are releasing iOS + web only and telling Android users to use the web app?

Would it be ok for you then if Apple took a 30% cut of every sale made through an app distributed by their App Store? Like Amazon, or food delivery, or grocery apps, and any other app that sells something through the app?

No I wouldn’t. But software has a zero marginal cost and even server costs are minuscule on a per user basis.

80% of all Apple revenue from the App Store comes from pay to win games (came out in the Epic trial)

What does it matter if software has marginal costs or not?

The principle is the same, it's a product being sold by a 3rd party which Apple has no involvement at all in its production costs being distributed by the App Store which Apple takes a fee of 30% off.

The costs of software services are part of the cost of a subscription, as the cost of production of something Amazon is selling is part of its cost. Streaming services have ongoing costs for development, maintenance, etc. that physical goods don't have after they're sold. You are just paying one upfront and the other one is ongoing.

> 80% of all Apple revenue from the App Store comes from pay to win games (came out in the Epic trial)

And what's the argument here? That those are easier to produce they deserve to get taken a 30% cut because marginal costs are near zero?

Netflix and other streaming services have much higher costs than these P2W games if that's your argument; costs for licencing content, maintaining infrastructure, paying for development. Nothing of that is cheap, what is the big difference between a product such as a streaming service and physical goods sold by Amazon that makes you not support Apple taking 30% from Amazon per purchase?

Do you think it'd be fair if every Netflix subscriber using Android devices had to share a slice of the 30% Apple takes if Netflix allowed subscriptions through their iOS app and Apple took a cut? Because it's either that or Netflix having different subscription prices between iOS and Android, both are bad for Netflix and good for Apple. All while Apple also produces a competitor.

In what world is this a fair market practice when you have so much power over a platform? And even directly competes with some companies that you are putting in a natural disadvantage?

Why is Netflix even relevant to the discussion? Netflix hasn’t allowed in app subscription prices for years

They don't allow it exactly because they have to pay the 30% on top, the same with Kindle books, etc. that's exactly why it's relevant in this discussion, mate... Not sure how to be clearer, I've been playing around with your analogies and get just a brick wall in return, exhausting.

The whole argument is that they didn’t have a choice but to pay the fee when they in fact chose not to go through in app purchasing. They were not forced to pay Apple to be on iOS

You can and in fact Spotify hasn’t allowed in app purchases for years.

Plenty of other threads about the fees but you feel the need to come comment this in a chain about Spotify neglecting to build for and support their customers. Your reply (and mine) are so incredibly unrelated to this comment thread.

He can. Users can go to Spotify.com in any browser and they can even make it easy by supporting Apple Pay.

Apple Pay charges standard credit card processing fees of around 2% as opposed to in all purchases.

Until very recently, when courts forced Apple to allow it, Apple prevent developers from event mentioning that a website exists where there's a cheaper option to sign up.

Apple has rules, and that's "fine". But they also have rules about the rules that disallow developers from explaining the rules to users. That doesn't sit right with me.

Spotify stopped allowing in app purchases years ago before any Court said anything.

Because, rightly or wrongly, they didn’t want to have 30% more expensive plan on iPhone.

How is that different than any other product where you can sell cheaper through your own website than on a third party platform?

Spotify also holds on to about 30% of their subscription revenue. He should drop Spotify to 5% and demand Apple do the same.

Surely Spotify has reasons related to music licensing that makes them enforce strict control of playback interfaces? I remember the days of libre Spotify clients, but that was during the days of Spotify still being a relatively small service compared to the iTunes' of the world. Spotify won the battle for 2010s music and that made record companies more eager to control the distribution of their IP.

Hi originalvichy, I was lurking through old threads about devops and came across one of your comments about how you and your company were bundling common devops tooling in a bundle and serving that as a product. I'm new to hackernews and recently found out you can't DM, so I'm replying to this message in hopes of kicking of a conversation around that original message. I'd love to learn more about that specific solution - is it alright if I pick your brain on the topic? Thanks!

Spotify corporate seems to be actively hostile toward their community. I see post after post with user questions that just get left unanswered.

Unanswered != hostile

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