In March, we covered Spotify’s It’s time to play fair campaign where the company laid out reasons it felt Apple wasn’t playing fair. Like most services, Apple obligates Spotify to pay a 30% cut in order to use in-app purchases when signing up new subscribers (it drops to 15% in year two of the subscription). Ultimately, Spotify wanted the EU to probe Apple Music in relation to how Apple treats its competitors vs its own business.
After spending some time thinking over it, I laid out my reasons why I felt like Apple was playing fair, but Spotify obviously disagrees.
Part of Spotify’s complaint is that Apple doesn’t give third parties the same access to new features as it gives itself. Spotify said it tried to submit an Apple Watch app to the App Store in 2015 and 2016, but was blocked by Apple. Spotify fails to mention that they could have submitted an Apple Watch app that syncs playlists since watchOS 5 was released, though.
Apple Music EU probe
Spotify’s plan seems to be working so far. According to Financial Times, The European Union is set to launch a formal probe into Apple over Apple Music and Spotify.
Both Spotify and Apple declined to comment on the rumors, but these probes can take years to complete, so it’s likely we won’t know anything for some time.
My main frustration with this entire complaint is that Spotify wants to flex its muscles as the premiere provider of streaming music in the world when it suits them. But then it acts like Apple is the big bad wolf when they don’t want to let them use their purchase platform for free. Spotify seems to want all the benefits of Apple’s platforms without having to give Apple a share of the revenue generated.
Right now, Spotify is free to do that. If customers download the Spotify app, they’ll be prompted for a login screen. If someone wants to figure out a way to sign up, they’ll probably Google it and find a sign-up page very easily. It’s not Apple’s job to build the platform, build the devices, sell the devices, support the devices, and then help Spotify sign up more customers.
What do you think? Is Apple playing fair, or is Spotify at a disadvantage?
