Isn't it against the law to sell things at a loss?
Not at all.
I know for a fact it is illegal in France. I don't know if the E.U. has passed a law like that yet...
AFAIK it is not against the law ANYWHERE in the world to lose money on a business venture. Hell I would have been arrested at least twice so far. What you are apparently referring to is intentionally under-pricing products, intending to sell below cost, to drive competitors away. Yes that can be illegal.
Yes. Selling below cost is against the law in France unless officially sanctioned. Spotify is selling below costs.
Isn't it against the law to sell things at a loss?
Not at all.
I know for a fact it is illegal in France. I don't know if the E.U. has passed a law like that yet...
AFAIK it is not against the law ANYWHERE in the world to lose money on a business venture. Hell I would have been arrested at least twice so far. What you are apparently referring to is intentionally under-pricing products, intending to sell below cost, to drive competitors away. Yes that can be illegal.
Yes. Selling below cost is against the law in France unless officially sanctioned. Spotify is selling below costs.
That's what I said!! Spotify is NOT selling below costs, they just have been unable to be profitable yet. They are making headway. Massive difference on intent. If profitable operations were required from day 1 many, many companies would be guilty of breaking the law IMHO. LOL!
REPEATING: It is not against the law anywhere in the world to (unintentionally) lose money on a new business venture. What would be against the law perhaps is Apple selling Apple Music or Arcade below cost, possible because it's supported by other profitable lines, in an attempt to drive competitors out of business. Not that they are, but that would be an example of where the French law might come into play.
Good! I hope they rule in favor of Spotify. Not because of Spotify, but that the App Store model and monopoly needs to change. 70/30 is no longer sustainable to many developers as it was in 2007. Secondly it’s conceptually wrong to own an entire ecosystem - just one of two - and abuse that by taxing 30% and very specifically create exceptions to hurt competition (such as not allowing Siri to control Spotify)
The only time a developer has to pay Apple 30% of the sale price of an app, in the App Store, is if they want to allow their Apple iOS customers to pay with their Apple iTunes accounts. There is nothing and I mean nothing, that prevents a developer from having their customers pay by way of their own payment system, outside of the App Store.
If developers thinks paying Apple a 30% cut of the price of their app is too much, then let them host their own payment system. Let smaller developers require their customers to PayPal the money to their email account directly. Let them host their own web sites for payment purposes. Let them set up a business account with Visa and MasterCard, so they can accept CC payments and then pay the CC company 5% of each charge. Let them worry about securing their customers personal and account data from hackers on the internet. Let them have their customer mail them a check or money order. Let them handle any customers dispute with the payment.
Then they can still have their app in the App Store, without paying the "Apple tax". Apple will not "tax" them for having their app in the App Store if the payment is made outside of iTunes. How hard can that be for these developers complaining about the "Apple tax"? Surely, you must think that the cost for a developer to host, maintain and keep secure, their own payment systems, will easily be paid for by no longer having to pay the "Apple tax", if you're thinking Apple 30% cut is too much. ........ Right?
That's how I pay for my Netflix. I'm using Netflix auto pay, where Netflix directly bills by CC every month. Netflix do not have to pay the "Apple tax" with my subscription and yet, their app is available for me to use on my Apple devices.
What percentage of the their sales in the App Store, do you think it's going to cost developers to have their own payment system to handle the sales of their apps? Specially for the smaller ones. And that cost is the same whether they have any money coming in from the sales of their apps or not. At least with paying the "Apple tax", they are paying for a payment system with money that's coming in. If there's no money coming in from sales, there's no cost associated with maintaining a payment system outside the App Store.
Your arguments are so flawed on just one point.
Apple doesn't let developers include links to their website in the said app where the user can subscribe in the way you mention. So Apple is saying, "Use our payment method and take the 30% cut, OR hope that users are intrigued enough by your service that they go out of their way to find your website where they can subscribe on their own through your payment system."
Do Amazon allow sellers advertising and selling in Amazon Marketplace, to place a link to pay for the item outside of Amazon? Do Amazon allow their Marketplace venders to advertise that they can get the same item cheaper on their eBay sellers account?
I've on more than several occasion bought items I saw advertised on Amazon, for a lower price on eBay. And when the item is delivered, it comes in an Amazon box, from an Amazon warehouse. Evidently, the seller sells his stuff on Amazon Marketplace and eBay, with eBay being lower in price because eBay takes less of a cut. But you wouldn't know that the seller is also selling on eBay, because they are not allowed to advertise their eBay prices on Amazon. Nor can they provide a link for you to pay for the item sold through the Marketplace, outside of Amazon. Even though they can handle the payment without Amazon.
With Amazon Marketplace sellers, sellers pays Amazon 15% to 20% of the sale pice plus a $.99 listing fee of each item sold. Unless the seller pays a monthly fee of $40. There by they don't have to pay the $.99 listing fee but have to sell over 40 items a month to make up for the fee. So if a seller sells a $10 item and have to pay 15% of it to Amazon plus the $.99 listing fee, that's 25%. Of course the percent goes up and down depending on the price of the item sold, as the $.99 becomes more or less a factor.
But there's no way to list and advertise an item on Amazon, sell it and not pay Amazon a percentage. Where as with the App Store, developers can advertise their app in the App store and not have to pay Apple anything on a sale, by making it possible to pay for it, outside the App Store.
I've also bought items on eBay that shipped from an Amazon warehouse, without ever realizing that the seller is also sell the same item on Amazon, because they are not allowed to advertise that. And I had to pay with PayPal. I would love to had pay for those eBay items using my reward dollars from my Amazon CC, if i knew the seller also sold on Amazon. But neither eBay or Amazon would allow the sellers to provide such links on their sites or even mention that they also sell the same items on each others site.
If I'm shopping at a Target and just happens to see a TV on display, that got my interest, do Target allow BestBuy to advertise that they sell the same TV and provide a map to the nearest BestBuy, with a flyer right next to the TV?
Netflix had no problem with following Apple App Store rules and they still ended up being one largest video streaming service. Larger that Apple streaming service itself. And Netflix still follows the rules.
It's your thinking that is flawed.
Your argument doesn't work. For Amazon and eBay, the seller is maximizing their chances of selling a product by doing it in both places. Some people just default to going to eBay to search for something, some people default to going to Amazon, and others might do a Google search which has an ad listing to one of the two stores selling said product. While Amazon may have a slightly higher cut over eBay, you get dinged at least 2 times (and upwards of way more) on eBay (eBay's 10%, eBay's 10% of your shipping fee, PayPal's 3 to 5%, fees for more pictures and shorter bidding time, etc) that might end up being more than Amazon.
When it comes to TVs or damn near every other physical product, everyone knows that if they see something at Target that they can buy it at any other store that sells similar goods. There is a different mindset when it comes to buying physical goods vs digital goods and services.
For Netflix, they started out as a 1- to 2-day mailing DVD rental service and got into streaming at a later time, so people were already aware of them and had accounts setup.
Your argument about not being able to advertise in a competitors store also doesn't work. I can agree that Target wouldn't want Best Buy having a flyer in a Target store to their (Best Buy's) nearest location and say they sell the same TV, possibly even for less. They are direct competitors in that regard. But Apple is not a competitor to Netflix (yet and have not been since Netflix was in the streaming business). They are simply the payment processor. And considering that typical payment processors (PayPal, Square, etc) usually only charge something like 3% plus $0.10 a transaction, Apple's 30% cut is ridiculous.
The point was that Apple do not allow developers to have a link in their App Store app to pay for a sale outside the App Store. Which I stated is the same for sellers on eBay and Amazon. They do not allow their sellers to advertise that they are selling the same product at another site, in their listing or allow any outside payment. In other words, Amazon Marketplace sellers can not advertise or supply a link in their Amazon listing, pointing to the same product on they are selling on eBay. Or make the payment outside Amazon. Same for eBay sellers, they can not supply a link to the same product they are selling on Amazon, in their eBay listing. Same as Target not allowing advertising within their Store, from other retailers selling the same product.
And it's more than just the payment processing fee that developers gets. They get to advertise and sell their apps to people that own Apple products. People, that research has shown, that are far more likely to pay for apps. Just like how sellers in Amazon Marketplace gets to advertise and sell their stuff to Amazon shoppers with Amazon accounts.
Amazon is the first and only online retailer that tens of millions of people shop at. The fact that Amazon does enough volume to justify starting their own delivery service shows just how much they sell. And if you want access to those Amazon customers with Amazon accounts, you need to pay Amazon. You don't think that there's an advantage to selling items on Amazon or eBay vs trying to sell items on one's own website? You think the only thing Amazon and eBay does for their sellers, is process the payment when an item sells?
ugh, no. it’s not a monopoly when android has far more marketshare and far more open than iOS
That depends on how you look at the monopoly. Marketshare for developer works differently (I’m a employer with 30 developers). You don’t look at how many phones are sold with a certain operating system, you look at the addressable market based on what content you make and what audience that content has. There are just two options: iOS and Android. Each option has just one store owned by one company, which means a monopoly for both options (let’s exclude China for this examples - rules are completely different there).
Will be interesting to have the vicious side of Apple exposed here. Hopefully they will get what they deserve.
Care to explain?
Apple develops operating system. Apple designs and makes devices for that operating system to run on. Apple develops the tools to write apps for that operating system. Apple creates a developer program to allow developers to write apps for that operating system. Apple creates and maintains a way for developers to sell and distribute those apps.
Developers are allowed to sell their software at ANY price. Apple asks for 30% of that. Which goes towards financing the last three parts above. Developers AGREE to that before they start selling on the App Store.
That last part is what’s the most significant here. Developers have to AGREE and Apple has to ALLOW before ANYTHING can happen.
If Spotify wants a fair playing ground, then they need to start doing all the above themselves. Make their own devices and platform that they can run their service on. Amazon did it with the Kindle. Apple did it with the iPod and iTunes.
Exactly. And over ten years in this has grown to huge proportions. A developer, on mobile, has zero options except to work with Google or Apple to distribute their content.
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REPEATING: It is not against the law anywhere in the world to (unintentionally) lose money on a new business venture. What would be against the law perhaps is Apple selling Apple Music or Arcade below cost, possible because it's supported by other profitable lines, in an attempt to drive competitors out of business. Not that they are, but that would be an example of where the French law might come into play.
And it's more than just the payment processing fee that developers gets. They get to advertise and sell their apps to people that own Apple products. People, that research has shown, that are far more likely to pay for apps. Just like how sellers in Amazon Marketplace gets to advertise and sell their stuff to Amazon shoppers with Amazon accounts.
Amazon is the first and only online retailer that tens of millions of people shop at. The fact that Amazon does enough volume to justify starting their own delivery service shows just how much they sell. And if you want access to those Amazon customers with Amazon accounts, you need to pay Amazon. You don't think that there's an advantage to selling items on Amazon or eBay vs trying to sell items on one's own website? You think the only thing Amazon and eBay does for their sellers, is process the payment when an item sells?