“Apple Inc on Thursday responded to Spotify Technology SA’s complaint with EU antitrust regulators, saying the audio streaming service ‘wants all the benefits of a free app without being free,'” Reuters reports.
“Spotify, launched a year after Apple unveiled its first iPhone in 2007, said on Wednesday the company unfairly limits rivals to its own music streaming service,” Reuters reports. “In response, Apple said it had approved and distributed nearly 200 app updates on Spotify’s behalf, resulting in over 300 million downloaded copies of the Spotify app. ‘The only time we have requested adjustments is when Spotify has tried to sidestep the same rules that every other app follows,’ Apple said in a statement. ‘Spotify is free to build apps for – and compete on – our products and platforms, and we hope they do.'”
“The Swedish company has launched a website, outlining different ways in which Apple uses its power to make its platform an ‘uneven playing field,'” Reuters reports. “In its reply, Apple has rebutted most of the points made by Spotify on the website, ‘Time to Play Fair.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Whomever advised, if anyone indeed did, Daniel Ek to be a whiny little bitch and run off to the the most-likely-to-arrive-at-the-wrong-conclusion European Commission instead of competing fair and square against Apple Music is a fool. Or perhaps Ek just finally figured out the exceedingly clear writing on the wall and realized that he has nothing to lose precisely because he knows he cannot compete with Apple Music and it’s only going to be downhill for Spotify from here on out. Regardless, Ek & Co. just hastened their own descent into also-ran status with their little hissy fit stunt.
Grind them into a fine paste, Apple!
Spotify is a money-losing enterprise that cannot compete and has already been eclipsed by Apple Music in the world’s No.1 market for recorded music, the United States of America. Seeing the writing on the wall, Spotify runs whining to the EU like little babies crying for mommy; not a shred of dignity left. Beleaguered Spotify predicts an operating loss of up to $406.77 million for 2019.
This boils down to the fact that Spotify wants to use the platform that Apple built and maintains at great expense for free.” – MacDailyNews, March 13, 2019
BTW: You’d have to be stupid to subscribe to Spotify when it has 40% fewer tracks than Apple Music for the same price. Apple Music boasts a catalog of 50 million songs; Spotify has just 30 million. Don’t be stupid. If you’re still subscribing to Spotify, it’s past time for you to cancel it and upgrade to Apple Music. (See also: How to move your Spotify playlists to Apple Music.)
SEE ALSO:
Apple publicly addresses Spotify’s claims – March 15, 2019
Increasingly desperate Spotify demands a free ride from Apple’s App Store – March 14, 2019
Spotify’s Apple Music complaint was a near decade in the making – March 13, 2019
Spotify files EU antitrust complaint against Apple – March 13, 2019
Samsung to preinstall Spotify on phones – March 8, 2019
Streaming services led by Apple Music account for 75 percent of the U.S. recording industry’s revenue – March 1, 2019
Apple Music now leads Spotify in the U.S., the No. 1 recorded music market – December 31, 2018
Fanboy MDN doesn’t get it.
Let’s explain the situation in simpler non-fanboy brand terms (apologies to Tim Lee for borrowed analogy):
Megamart International (MI) is abusing its control using the Megamart Integrated Store (MIS) to give its own music streaming service an unfair advantage over competitors, Audio Recordings Distributor Incorporated (ARDI) argues.
ARDI sold its products in competing stores but it wanted to serve the MI customer community as well. Like many companies, ARDI hoped to give away its popular ARDI-Widget for free but collect a monthly fee for Widget Maintenance. For years, MI pressured ARDI to use Megamart International’s Integrated Purchase service to collect those subscription fees. ARDI resisted because MI takes a whopping 30-percent commission when it would do nothing but act as cash middleman. ARDI already had a convenient customer-direct payment system and had no need of MI cash collection services. Over time, ARDI says MI tightened up its MIS rules to make it increasingly difficult for 3rd party product distributors to direct users to payment methods outside the MI ecosystem. Direct payment on the internet was banned by MI.
In 2014, ARDI finally buckled and gave MI’s service a try. ARDI had no choice but to raise its Widget Maintenance prices by 30 percent to cover MI’s outrageous fees. It was a ridiculous price but ARDI managers hoped that the new customer increase would make it worthwhile.
But then, in 2015, MI introduced a direct ARDI competitor, MINoize. It was a complete copy of ARDI in almost all aspects. MI immediately charged ARDI’s old internet-direct Noize Maintenance subscription price, 30 percent less than the inflated Megamart Integrated Store price ARDI was forced to charge. So clearly the overhead costs necessary to manage the subscription fee collections does not total the MIS inflated price.
ARDI was forced into a difficult position to compete against an MI-branded service and also hand 30 percent of its revenue over to MI. In no other stores was ARDI forced into a 30% price disadvantage with no customer direct internet payment system option.
Think about that the next time you as a small business attempt to distribute a product through a megaretailer with monopoly power.
I believe you committed some errors. Megamart Integrated Store (MIS) does not give its own music streaming service an unfair advantage because the advantage is merely fair and any advantage is legal according to US Code. And I know that you are just itching to say that Megamart is a predatory monopoly but you can’t because you know that it’s merely a strong competitor, not a monopoly and certainly not predatory. The well-known SuperDuperStore, for example, has been proven to be a predatory monopoly.
This is not a monopoly because their is google music, Amazon prime, who knows more