danvm

rob53 said:

Meson said:

Microsoft considers this low risk, because, let's be honest, no serious company is going to run their business on macs.

I assume you should have added an /s at the end. I remember Delta Airlines mentioning they are seriously thinking about going to Apple products. Most publishing houses, big and small, are running on Apple hardware because it just runs better but it also runs longer, making their ROI much better. Many companies are required to run on Microsoft software because of business and legal (forced) requirements. This doesn't mean they'd really want to, they just are forced to continue paying for client licenses. Apple hardware is much easier to secure than Windows-based hardware. Checked out the government requirements for securing government systems. Apple has almost everything built into its operating systems while Microsoft requires a of extra software and tons of specialized configuration. 

disclaimer: I used to work for a large DOE contractor and helped Apple with government configuration requirements. This was back in the '90s and early 2000's. It tool Apple several years to bake in everything that's needed. Microsoft will never be close to Apple because it has to stay open enough to satisfy all the third-party hacks. Unfortunately, the efforts by the EU is breaking this baked in security because government organizations want to be able to hack into every single computerized device in the world.

davidw said:

danvm said:

rorschachai said:

danvm said:

Sequoia.Vagrant said:

Imagine opening a shop in a mall and telling your landlord you don’t want to pay rent. Oh the great injustice!

Spotify could argue that AWS and GCP act more like landlords, rather than the Apple App Store. Apple simply provides a platform for users to download the app. And I don't think that advertisements in the App Store provide them with any substantial benefit, considering Spotify's widespread popularity.

I think Apple deserves their cut for hosting the Spotify app.  But 15% - 30% every month is too much just to distribute Spotify app. 

Apple provides a suite of developer tools entirely for free. They also provide hundreds of frameworks with thousands of APIs that are tested and regularly updated. Not to mention the developer technical support that only costs $99/year.

How much is Spotify willing to pay for all that? Because the developer program used to start at $500/year and had multiple tiers. 

That's a good question, and only Spotify have the answer. Consider this, Spotify boasts nearly 250 million subscribers. Assuming an average subscription fee of $10.00, this translates to a monthly revenue of $2.5 billion. From this, Apple could be raking in anywhere from $350 million to $750 million just for offering app hosting, developer tools, and handling payments. Plus, Spotify has to cover costs for cloud services from Amazon and Google. Maybe Spotify's argument that Apple's charges are too high might be justified.

There's more to it than just paying to be hosted in the Apple App Store (and the processing of payments). You're forgetting about the commercial use of  iOS. AFAIK .... iOS is not public domain nor considered a public utility. iOS is still Apple IP and Spotify is using iOS for commercial gain. There is no "fair use" here. Apple deserves to charge a fee to anyone profiting from the use of iOS. No different than a songwriter getting paid a royalty for the commercial use of the songs they own the copyrights to. No matter how much they already profited from any of the songs they wrote, no one has the right to say that they already made too much and can no longer charge for its commercial use, regardless that they still own the copyrights to them. I have no doubt that Spotify would cheat artist and songwriters out of their royalties, if they can find a way to get the government to help them. 

Apple spends billions developing, maintain and improving iOS. Apple do not charge Apple device customers for any of the iOS upgrades that their Apple devices are still capable of utilizing. And Apple spends billions in PR, software and hardware, to attract consumers to use Apple products. It has been shown that consumers that uses Apple products tends to spend more than average, on apps and subscriptions services. This customer base has its value. It's like the difference between opening a retail store in a Beverly Hills shopping mall and a strip mall in a middle class neighborhood. One expects to pay a lot more rent to be in a Beverly Hills shopping mall because having access to the wealthy customers the mall attracts, will more than make up for the extra cost.

Google (for over 10 years) been paying Apple about 33% of their search ad revenues generated on iOS devices and iOS accounts for more than 50% of Google mobile search ad revenue. Even though iOS is only on about 20% of the global mobile devices.  (It was revealed that Microsoft offered to pay Apple 90% of their Bing search ad revenue, if Bing was made the default search on Apple devices.)  No way that Spotify should think that they should be able to profit from Apple iOS customer base .... for free. Or what that idiot CEO of Epic Games claims ....... that Apple should not be charging to access iOS because Apple already makes billions selling iPhones. While Microsoft is justify in charging 30% because they make very little profit selling Xbox hardware.) 

BTW- your Apple revenue projection is off. Apple only collects a commission on the Spofity subscriptions paid for with an iTunes account. Apple gets nothing from subscriptions paid for on Android or on Spotify own website.  So unless all 250M Spotify monthly subscribers are using iOS and paying with iTunes, Apple is not going to be raking in anything close to $350M to 750M, a month. The way to look at it is .....  if Spotify was not on iOS, would Spotify still have 250M monthly subscribers?  (Not to mention the over 400M music listeners using Spotify free ad supported tier. From which Spotify generate revenue from ads.). How many subscribers and users of their free ad supported tier, would they lose if Spotify was not available on iOS?  

rorschachai said:

danvm said:

Sequoia.Vagrant said:

Imagine opening a shop in a mall and telling your landlord you don’t want to pay rent. Oh the great injustice!

Spotify could argue that AWS and GCP act more like landlords, rather than the Apple App Store. Apple simply provides a platform for users to download the app. And I don't think that advertisements in the App Store provide them with any substantial benefit, considering Spotify's widespread popularity.

I think Apple deserves their cut for hosting the Spotify app.  But 15% - 30% every month is too much just to distribute Spotify app. 

Apple provides a suite of developer tools entirely for free. They also provide hundreds of frameworks with thousands of APIs that are tested and regularly updated. Not to mention the developer technical support that only costs $99/year.

How much is Spotify willing to pay for all that? Because the developer program used to start at $500/year and had multiple tiers. 

Sequoia.Vagrant said:

Imagine opening a shop in a mall and telling your landlord you don’t want to pay rent. Oh the great injustice!