davidw
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Doctor decries Apple gift card discount 'scam' after failing to understand the terms of th...
This also happens with ..... buy one, get one free .... deals (here in CA at least). One is charged for the full price of both items and then a 50% discount is applied. The reason why it's done this way is so CA can collect the sales tax (or any other taxes like alcohol, sugar, cigarette, CRV, etc.) on the "free" item.Anyone that have done any comparative shopping, knows that ..... buy on get one free ... deals, are a "scam". The "free" one is not actually "free" in States that charges sales tax (or other taxes) on the item.For example ... say that a bottle of wine cost $20 and there's a .... buy one, get one free deal. So it will cost you $20 for the two bottles of wine. But the register rings up $40 for the two bottles and then $20 is deducted for the "free" one. But the sales tax and alcohol tax in based on the $40. BUT if there was a 50% off sale on the same bottle of wine and each bottle of wine is priced at $10, then the register would ring up 2 bottles of wine at $10 each or $20. And any taxes will apply only to $20. (So long as the 50% discount (on each bottle) is accounted, for when entering the price into the register.)I'm sure in CA, the politicians will figure out a way (if they haven't already done so) to tax the amount of the discount its residents receives on items that are on sale below MSRP. As liberal and progressive as CA claims to be, sales tax is the most regressive of all taxes and CA is one of the States with the highest sales tax.
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iCloud storage leads the pack across Apple's entire services ecosystem
That graphical chart should not be used to compare Apple customers usage of various Apple services. While Apple Care and iCloud storage numbers might be the actual percentage of Apple customers that paid for those services, no way that 42% of Apple customers subscribes to Apple Music (or 32% to Apple TV+). If 42% of Apple's over 1B customers subscribes to Apple Music, Apple Music would have more than 2X the paid subscribers as Spotify.I think that the survey actually is saying is that 42% of Apple customers that subscribes to a music streaming service, subscribes to Apple Music. The same with the 32% Apple TV+ number. The 32% should represents 32% of the Apple customers that subscribes to a video streaming service. Not the percentages of all Apple customers.But the article clearly states that 2/3 (64%) of Apple customers pay for iCloud storage and 17% of Apple customers buy iPhone Apple Care, while also stating that 42% of Apple customers subscribes to Apple Music and 32% subscribes to Apple TV+.If 42% of Apple customers actually subscribed to Apple Music, the CEO of Spotify would have more reasons to get his panties in a bunch, than Apple App Store anti-steering policies.
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Spotify crows about Apple being forced to show alternative pricing
gatorguy said:
Netflix isn't a great example, since Apple had a secret “special arrangement” with them, only discovered during an unrelated court case. Netflix didn't hav e to pay the 30% first year cut, unlike everyone else, with Apple halving it to 15%. The media streamer feared the agreement would be discontinued sooner than later, which is why they stopped offering new subscriptions in the App Store.davidw said:danvm said:davidw said:danvm said:
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.rorschachai said:
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.danvm said:
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.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!
I think Apple deserves their cut for hosting the Spotify app. But 15% - 30% every month is too much just to distribute Spotify app.How much is Spotify willing to pay for all that? Because the developer program used to start at $500/year and had multiple tiers.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.)I agree, Apple is entitled to a share, yet I also get why Spotify would opt out of Apple Store subscriptions. A 15% to 30% cut per user each month seems steep considering Apple's role. Spotify's heavy lifting is handled by AWS and GCP, not Apple's infrastructureAlso, it's clear that Spotify addressed their issue by moving away from Apple's payment system. I have no idea why they continued to advocate for changes when they could simply bypass Apple's fees.
You are correct in highlighting the number of subscribers. However, millions of iOS devices still use Spotify every month. My point is that for Spotify, the 15% - 30% fee per user per month may be high. Yet, Apple did not object to Spotify opting out of the Apple App Store payment system. I have no idea why Spotify continued to advocate for changes when they could retain the 15% - 30% by other means.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?Actually, what makes the 15% to 30% steep, is the music industry role. It is the music industry that makes streaming music an unsustainable business model with their 70% cut of all subscription revenue.When Netflix movie streaming service first started, they faced the same 15% to 30% commission in the Apple App Store, Google Play Store, Microsoft Xbox and Sony PlayStation. And Netflix wasn't being a dick about it.
I would be surprised if Netflix is the only company who had/has a special deal, but that's the only one I remembered being mentioned off the top of my head. Those things would obviously not be voluntarily revealed anyway.Are you thinking about this "secret" agreement during the Epic vs Apple lawsuit?If so, then no where in the "secret" arrangement did Netflix not pay Apple their full 15/30% commission. Apple didn't reach out to Netflix (with this arrangement) until 2021, when Netflix threaten to completely remove the ability for iOS subscribers to pay with iTunes. AFAIK ... Netflix has always paid Apple the 15/30% commission. Even up to when Netflix stopped new iOS subscribers from paying with iTunes in 2018, they still paid Apple their 15/30% commission on the iOS subscribers grandfathered-in to still use iTunes. (And by the end of 2019, for every one grandfathered-in, Netflix was only paying the 15% commission anyway. And there were no "first year" subscribers since 2020.) And it's only been very recently that Netflix stopped all payment with iTunes, in the US at least.Maybe you are thinking of this "secret" arrangement that was exposed during the Epic vs Google lawsuit ....The very same kind of "secret" arrangement Spotify made with Google last year.The irony being that it was these type of "secret" arrangements that Google made with developers of very profitable Google Play Store apps, that Epic used to convince the jury that Google was behaving like an illegal monopolist. And Sweeney stated that he couldn't do the same with Apple because ..... Apple didn't write anything down. So if Sweeney couldn't find evidence of any "secret" arrangements (concerning the reduction of Apple commission rate) with Netflix, that he would have surely used against Apple in that lawsuit ..... how did anyone else find out about one?It's very unlike you to make such an error, that resulted in putting Google and not Apple ...... in the bad light.
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Spotify crows about Apple being forced to show alternative pricing
danvm said:
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.rorschachai said:
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.danvm said:
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.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!
I think Apple deserves their cut for hosting the Spotify app. But 15% - 30% every month is too much just to distribute Spotify app.How much is Spotify willing to pay for all that? Because the developer program used to start at $500/year and had multiple tiers.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.)Consumers are not flocking to buy Apple devices because they can get Spotify on it. Not when Apple Music (and other music streaming services) offer almost exactly the same music, for less and in higher rez. Spotify is not offering anything that is truly unique and must have, to Apple consumers. Apple cost of losing Fortnite players revenue will be 10's of 1000's of times more than any revenue lost from losing Spotify.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?
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Epic's Tim Sweeney ludicrously calls Apple's 'Find My' a privacy hazard for thieves
So if Sweeney was is so concern about peoples privacy, which we all know he isn't, why did he sell 40% of his company to Tencent?>Amnesty International gave Tencent a score of zero out of 100 for the company's treatment of data. Raising questions about the potential misuse of user information.<Now, if Sweeney is still able to use "Find My" to locate his stolen Mac laptop, years after it was stolen, wouldn't that mean that the thief is using it? Why would it even be on, years after it was stolen (providing Sweeney was smart enough to wiped it clean and deactivate it)? Which would mean the thief would not be able to even install a new OS or replace the HD because the logic board is locked. Why would the thief even be turning it on and charging the battery, if the laptop should only be a paper weight by now? Was the thief a Fortnite fan and was buying a lot of Fortnite Bucks and thus leaving his laptop for the thief to use was paying off?So if the thief is using it years after it was stolen, wouldn't that mean that they either guess the passcode or Sweeney wasn't smart enough to use one? So if he was using a passcode, was it something like ..... 123456? Now, the thief can't disable "Find My" on the device without knowing the iCloud account (and password), even if they know the passcode to the device. If this "genius" was so concern about the privacy of the the thief that stole his Mac, why don't he provide the thief with his iCloud account (Apple ID) and password, so "Find My" can be disabled and thus preventing him from being able to "invade" the privacy of the thief?
