Spotify head wants UK to show leadership and stop Apple's App Store dominance
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek has been lobbying the UK government, saying it should use its freedom from the EU to enact tough new laws to end Apple's dominance with the App Store.
Spotify's Daniel Ek
Ek's lobbying comes as the UK considers a Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill. Amongst other things, the bill might mean the country's Digital Markets Unit would be granted authority and powers -- three years after it was set up.
Speaking to the Financial Times, Ek said that this was the time for the UK to step up, since it had left the European Union and was not bound by the laws of the vastly larger and more influential EU. The EU has already enacted a Digital Markets Act, and was key in Apple's decision to replace Lightning with USB-C in the iPhone 15 range.
Still, Ek insists that "[the] UK can be nimble right now and show leadership."
"The UK is now setting its own agenda [following Brexit]," he continued.
"I find it insane that [Apple and Google] essentially control how over 4bn consumers access the internet around the world," he said. "Not only are they dictating the rules, they also compete directly downstream with those providers."
Apple competes with Spotify through its Apple Music streaming service, but Ek has been arguing that Apple's offering doesn't have to pay the same 30% as other apps in the App Store. Spotify does not pay 30%, either.
In his Financial Times interview, Ek said that actually it's not the cost of using the App Store that is the problem. Rather it's that Apple is a gatekeeper, while also offering competing services.
"Imagine that this was a mall and literally half of the UK population is in this mall," said Ek. "That's where [having to pay App Store fees] becomes anti-competitive."
"This is for every single developer," he continued. "More and more of these developers are now finding that Apple is a competitor."
Separately, in July 2023, Spotify cut off all subscribers who were paying for the service via the App Store.
The UK voted to leave the EU in 2016. As well as failing to make its own COVID app after spending $15.6 million on the project, its efforts to control Big Tech since leaving most recently include it having backed down from an unenforceable online safety law.
In 2022, the UK did state that it would not be copying the EU's mandate for a common USB-C charger, except where it would, in Northern Ireland. The UK appeared to believe that Apple could therefore continue selling iPhones with Lightning connectors.
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Spotify has already tried to develop services to supplement its music business the same way that Apple and Amazon have. They have just been less successful at it. Maybe more time in business development and less time in court and lobbying legislatures would help.
Point being that Apple didn’t set out to create a new anticompetitive business model. They used a model that was generally accepted in the gaming market and had also been upheld in an antitrust court case that involved Nintendo.
Why doesn’t the CEO focus on making some kind of profit for his company and spend less time pissing and moaning about the success of other companies? Without them, he wouldn’t even have a business. Apple created the app economy leading to the scale we see today — you exist because of them.
Just like the millions who choose to go the iOS route instead of Android.
This doesn’t even make sense. The mall in this analogy would be the iOS platform, and the stores inside would be the apps. The owner of the mall gets to decide what rent is and who they want to rent to. Maybe some companies think the rent is too high. But there are other malls (platforms) that exist which anyone is free to go to. And anyone is free to build their own mall, just as they are free to build their own platform. It would take a lot of work and money to do it, but that fact doesn’t mean existing malls are anticompetitive. Apple themselves has spent billions of dollars developing and growing and supporting their platform. And there was nothing that guaranteed the iPhone and the App Store would be successful.
What Ek is saying is essentially that it’s unfair for Apple to be successful and to decide what happens on their own platform. Spotify wants all the benefits of Apple’s platform without contributing anything. How much money does Apple spend on developing all the APIs that Spotify uses? Does Ek believe every developer is entitled to use them for free (or an essentially nominal $99/year)?
If forced to allow other App Stores, Apple should a) charge a license fee to use its APIs and b) require developers to choose to be in the App Store or a third party one, not both.
Anyway, digital marketplaces are unique in that there’s no limit on how many products or producers you can have present, which creates the discoverability and ratings problems.
Either way, I don’t see Apple apps as anti-competitive, I see them as a bulwark against large monopolistic developers ever again screwing Apple over the way they did in the ‘90s and ‘00s.
I mean let’s face it — if not for Apple’s pioneering work on the iPod and iPhone (and iTunes) for paid music (and Android’s copycatting) Spotify as we know it would not exist.
UK: "You're from the EU, right? P*** off."
This is getting ridiculous; Apple ecosystem and products are not mandatory, are not essential to human social, political and personal activities (everyone can very much use a Nokia 3310 phone to communicate and a laptop with Linux to access banking apps, government sites, electronically sign documents, read the news, watch TV or a Samsung, Motorola, Huawei etc device) and Apple only has a small portion of the total market.
Just make something better and I am the first to use it (because why not use something better?)
So someone builds a mall that can hold half the population of the UK (Apple/Google) and half the population of the UK are attracted to and are in the mall. So some idiot (Ek) thinks they should be able to set up a store in the mall, in order to sell their products to the half the population of the UK that are already wandering in mall ........... without paying the mall owner any rent?
Did Spotify help pay for any of the 10's of billions of dollars (mostly likely over $100B) that Apple and Google have invested, that makes it possible for idiots like Ek to easily market and sell his products to over 4B people from around the World, that are owners of just a single handheld device? And then the idiot bitch about Apple and Google not having to pay a commission (to themselves) as though they are getting a free ride?