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If you want music from Apple, you have to pay. That’s fine, but Spotify’s free service is actually a public good. If people thought like Apple thousands of years ago, there would be no public libraries. What? You let people read books for free? You’re robbing the authors and publishers!
This Is an Anti-Competitive Move
The bottom line is, Apple lets Amazon, Sling TV and others get away with this. They are playing hard ball with Spotify as an anti-competitive move. They enforce their App Store policies inconsistently and based on anti-competitive motives. They can’t make a better app, despite the free intellectual property ride they got from Spotify.
The devil makes work for idle hands. Instead of working hard to develop a great app and business model, Apple had a free ride. This frees up resources for nefarious activities. Now their lawyers and MBAs have figured out how to put Spotify out of business, much like how robber barons gobbled up farmers’ land in California. They’re modern-day robber barons. This is why we have antitrust laws. Unfortunately, Apple can tie this up in the courts for years.
Spotify Must Use the App Store
I like Apple hardware and OS X. I think iOS is a decent mobile operating system. I am not a knee-jerk Apple hater. That said, this is a really bad move, not only for Spotify, but for consumers. Even if you love Apple Music, supporting this move takes away your freedom of choice.
The App Store is the only viable app market for iOS users. We cannot side-load apps from third-party app stores or the web. In fact, I think macOS will eventually disable this capability. As it stands now, they make it seem like you are installing malware whenever you download an app outside of the App Store. The irony is that the App Store does not protect users from malware. Apple’s malware warning would equally apply to any app downloaded from the App Store. They disingenuously lull customers into a false sense of security.
Most of the OS X apps I have purchased or installed (TextMate, AirParrot, GIMP, VNC, Eclipse) are not sold in the App Store. They know that Apple taking a 30% cut is too much. At best, if they get their app in the App Store, it is buried among so many other apps. Developers must market and promote their apps by creating websites, ads and social media engagement. The cost of hosting an app is negligible. The cost of developing and maintaining the App Store app is negligible. Apple does not spend billions of dollars to operate the App Store. It’s not a brick and mortar store like Target or Walmart.
The notion that Apple should get $36 per year from each Spotify customer for merely hosting an app download is extortion. Spotify has to run the data center that streams the actual music. Apple’s general council claims that they must bear the cost of the retail operation. It’s not a real store! It’s a virtual store! Furthermore, Apple Music bypasses in-app subscription purchases on the Google Play store.
Doesn’t Google need to pay to operate Google Play? Apple’s contradictory behavior demonstrates their lack of principle and greedy motives. (continue…)