Spotify jumps on Apple’s court loss, gets approved for non-App-Store payments
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But is it cheaper to the customer, or does it just increase profit margin for the vendor?
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This will help with competition, so may have some pressure on prices. Even if it does not affect prices, would you rather the money go to the organization that is building what you want, or to Apple?
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A willful violation means you did something voluntarily and intentionally to disobey a law or court order. Not good. In the court system I work in, it can lead to "further sanctions", which can possibly include incarceration.
Not that that would happen to Tim Apple, but FWIW...
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Want my honest answer? It depends. Some things I have to pay for come from companies I hate to do business with, so in those cases I'd rather Apple take as much as possible from them.
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It will vary by developer, but in my experience they're usually passing the extra charge onto the customer. So usually, yes it'll be cheaper for the customer.
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Apple is appealing the ruling that states they actually have to obey a court order they have ignored since 2021.
I’m curious what they will give as the legal reason they think they’re allowed to disobey lawful court orders.
I’m curious what they will give as the legal reason they think they’re allowed to disobey lawful court orders.
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InfiniteJester
Ars Centurion
Im not a lawyer and more importantly i’m not your not-a-lawyer but my reading of the judge’s ruling is that if Apple had been even mildly reasonable with their response to the original ruling, she might have been willing to let Apple keep the keys to the kingdom?
By changing the percentage from 30% onsite to 27% offsite, Apple basically mocked the first ruling.
Someone with a wrinkled legal brain tell me if I’m reading this right.
By changing the percentage from 30% onsite to 27% offsite, Apple basically mocked the first ruling.
Someone with a wrinkled legal brain tell me if I’m reading this right.
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Of course, businesses can be much slower to lower prices than to raise them.
We will see how long it will take for Spotify to lower their prices. I’m guessing they won’t. If the customers find their subscription fee worthwhile, why wouldn’t they pocket the money?
Other companies may be willing to lower prices. Depending upon their circumstances and competition.
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The option existed already for customers to go to let's say Spotify's web site and subscribe to Spotify thereby bypassing the whole Apple payment system. You just could not do it through the app.
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InfiniteJester
Ars Centurion
Apple would have you believe they complied with all legal orders from the courts. A person can opine one way or the other whether they did or not. It’s obviously a point of contention among highly motivated, highly educated, highly compensated lawyers and executives so it’s not like the matter is so cut and dried that it can’t be argued.
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I'm really mixed on this sort of thing as I don't think either side is really 100% correct. Spotify is a free app and shouldn't get to take advantage of Apple's store and platform and everything they do provide while potentially sending Apple $0 in fees buy pushing everyone to direct payment. Obviously, if everything went that way it would unsustainable for Apple to keep maintaining the store for effectively 0 revenue. It's also obvious that not everyone will want to go directly to Spotify. Even Epic said they only got about 50% on their brief experiment so Apple will get some revenue.
I also don't think that the full fee on every month of a sub or every IAP makes much sense either. At some point, those repeated subscriptions or purchases really don't add any more burden to Apple and they are just acting as a payment platform which doesn't really justify those high fees.
I don't know where the line is between those two scenarios or how to craft a fair fee structure. Part of the problem might be that the fees aren't really tied to costs because AFAIK the actual dev accounts are pretty cheap and there's no review fee or anything for posting a new or updated app.
I also don't think that the full fee on every month of a sub or every IAP makes much sense either. At some point, those repeated subscriptions or purchases really don't add any more burden to Apple and they are just acting as a payment platform which doesn't really justify those high fees.
I don't know where the line is between those two scenarios or how to craft a fair fee structure. Part of the problem might be that the fees aren't really tied to costs because AFAIK the actual dev accounts are pretty cheap and there's no review fee or anything for posting a new or updated app.
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So they can move quickly on this, but can't move quickly on AirPlay 2 support? Obviously, since money. But still... sigh.
Even though Apple pretty clearly won the original case, this was an unforced error in their legal strategy by stubbornly attempting to defend one of their least-defensible policies.
Also not a not-your-lawyer's-not-a-lawyer, but my understanding: If Apple allowed app developers to say "sign up via this link", the percentages would (probably) have been fine. It's basically just taking the credit card processing fee out of the normal App Store fees. But that's not what this was about. Apple didn't let devs say "sign up here". The judge said "you must let people know they can sign up there and not just here". Apple... didn't do that. Now, the judge is pissed at Apple for not doing what was ordered.
Even though Apple pretty clearly won the original case, this was an unforced error in their legal strategy by stubbornly attempting to defend one of their least-defensible policies.
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I do understand the ruling and the arguments against the way Apple has been operating, and how it can be beneficial for vendors to be paid directly.
On the other hand, having Apple handle payments adds some legitimacy and protection to the process., and provides an easy way out of subscriptions. There are apps I subscribe to that I probably wouldn't otherwise if I needed to provide credit cars details directly. Hopefully most continue to operate the way they currently do.
On the other hand, having Apple handle payments adds some legitimacy and protection to the process., and provides an easy way out of subscriptions. There are apps I subscribe to that I probably wouldn't otherwise if I needed to provide credit cars details directly. Hopefully most continue to operate the way they currently do.
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At this point, it would make sense for Apple top simply charge a metered fee to apps that sit on their app store for free, but pull subscriptions elsewhere. Forego the 30% subscription cut, and instead charge a flat fee per download. That will not only make Apple whole for providing them what is free digital foot traffic, but also dissuade some of these big apps from releasing near-daily "updates" that have no actual changes just so that they keep appearing on the Recently Updated list as a marketing impression (I'm looking at you, Youtube, and you, Uber).
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I can't imagine happy Apple customers would choose the "Not Apple" option without some incentive.
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Worth remembering Apple's take on subscriptions like Spotify is actually 15% after the first year, so if any 'savings' get passed to consumer, expect it to be less than that.
Though I suppose Spotify will also benefit from the value of subscription data itself and being able to add dark patterns to the unsubscribe process.
Though I suppose Spotify will also benefit from the value of subscription data itself and being able to add dark patterns to the unsubscribe process.
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Apple forces all apps to be on their store. Free apps aren't "taking advantage" of anything, they're making iPhones more useful and attractive to buyers, which helps Apple sell iPhones and make shitloads of money.
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That would make sense if it weren't for the fact that people can buy anything that isn't tied to digital goods with their iPhones from third party vendors ... giving credit card details to arbitrary third-party vendors galore. And they always have been.
How is it perfectly safe to use an iPhone when buying new physical gadgets and consumables from third parties .... but somehow totally unsafe to do the same thing when purchasing software?
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It is not so much the 3% reduction as the research behind it that that would make it too expensive for developers to use anything but the apple store and then playing games to try to hide that they did that research.
It shows how far Apple (or rather the execs) were willing to go to keep their cash cow. They'd won everything else but this fairly small matter and now they need to go further then an initial reasonable solution they could have presented to show they are staying clear of the line marked by the judge as do not cross.
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Gee, Apple hasn’t responded to a government order this quickly since Xi asked for help shutting down dissidents.
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For what it's worth, I'm a lot more likely to make a purchase from an unfamiliar online vendor that accepts Applepay than one that requires I input details directly. That's for more than just not typing in details, there is value in having that buffer.
I doubt I'm alone in that preference. My mother-in-law doesn't hesitate to buy all sorts of things "from Amazon", but would never hand over her credit card details to some random vendor in China actually selling that stuff.
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Any time you remove a rent-seeking entity, prices will go down on net.
The App Store tax is identical to tariffs in this way: it’s simply an added cost. Getting rid of it means that some gains will go to producers, some of it to consumers. Just like tariffs cause prices to rise and profits to fall.
Getting rid of rent seeking is good! Everyone benefits. Sure, we can debate who should benefit more, but if the market is reasonably competitive, it should shake out. Either way, it’s excellent news. Rent seeking is bad!
Now, about those tariffs. . . .
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That referral to see if what Apple did amounts to criminal contempt probably got their attention. Especially since one of the VPs got name checked instead of just the company.
So trying to get this done fast is just trying to reduce the chances of it being followed up by the criminal court and if it is followed up to reduce the sentence.
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Want my honest answer? It depends. Some things I have to pay for come from companies I hate to do business with, so in those cases I'd rather Apple take as much as possible from them.
Clothing analogy time: I was shoe-shopping recently and found a sale on Amazon (sold by third-party but shipped by Amazon, hence under Amazon's return policy). Then I looked further and found it was a notch cheaper on their own site, but their return policy would charge me shipping and restocking if it ended up not fitting well. So I ordered from Amazon. People will make their own decisions.
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Thank the holy flying spaghetti monster that we are finally getting some cracks in these ridiculous over the top greedy restrictions.
For my content, working in enterprise software, we have a tiny app for a few specific mobile use cases, maybe covering 2% of the enterprise offering. No purchasing in the app, or even links to purchase, just a companion app for when your company has implemented our software. Apple noticed that through our documentation, someone could find our website, which they could then use to find a way to contact us and talk to sales. So they started blocking updates to our app, demanding 30% of all revenue. And they were even blocking us from taking the app off the store too, using the app as like hostage to extort us.
For my content, working in enterprise software, we have a tiny app for a few specific mobile use cases, maybe covering 2% of the enterprise offering. No purchasing in the app, or even links to purchase, just a companion app for when your company has implemented our software. Apple noticed that through our documentation, someone could find our website, which they could then use to find a way to contact us and talk to sales. So they started blocking updates to our app, demanding 30% of all revenue. And they were even blocking us from taking the app off the store too, using the app as like hostage to extort us.
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In the article: “The updated app can show specific plan prices, link out to Spotify's website for plan changes and purchases that avoid Apple's 30 percent commission on in-app purchases, and display promotional offers, all of which were disallowed under Apple's prior App Store rules.”
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Once Epic, Spotify, Patreon, etc are set all the Gatcha/MTX slop will follow suit. That's gonna hurt IAP hard.
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Definitely B, but that still will translate to longer product support lifespans and more services finding enough success to stick around.
For perfectly profitable things, this makes no difference to the customer, but it helps a lot for things that tow the line between success and failure.
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The 2nd paragraph of the article says Spotify is now offering plans minus the 30% Apple tax, but we still have ppl here debating whether the cost to the consumer will drop and if so by how much.
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