The European Commission has fined Apple over €1.8 billion for abusing its dominant position on the market for the distribution of music streaming apps to iPhone and iPad users (‘iOS users’) through its App Store. In particular, the Commission found that Apple applied restrictions on app developers preventing them from informing iOS users about alternative and cheaper music subscription services available outside of the app (‘anti-steering provisions’). This is illegal under EU antitrust rules.
And Apple released a letter that sounds petty and greedy.
Apple’s answer is fair. IF THERE WAS A WAY FOR SPOTIFY TO BE DOWNLOADED WITHOUT THE APP STORE
Either that or just don’t directly compete with them. Without Apple Music no one would have complained about it.
But you can’t establish a monopoly and leverage it to charge your direct competitors a high fee.
It reads like a child throwing a temper tantrum…
Doesn’t it‽ it’s nuts how bad it sounds.
Nice interrobang!
I made a keyboard shortcut on my phone to type ‽ when I type ?!
And it’s so utterly ignorant of WHY the fine was issued. This isn’t about a competitors market position, it’s about Apple using its own dominant market position to push its own service. Using a monopoly to create another monopoly is anti-competitive.
Despite that success, and the App Store’s role in making it possible, Spotify pays Apple nothing.
That’s because Spotify doesn’t owe you anything. If I release a piece of software for Apple, Android, Linux, Windows, etc., I don’t owe these OSes anything for that. Apple makes plenty of money selling hardware, that’s good enough for them.
These delusional bastards really need a few slaps around their heads to get this concept to sink in.
I can see an argument for owing something for hosting the app in the App Store, but certainly not 30% of what every user pays or whatever ridiculous amount Apple charges. Price it like hosting a file on S3, perhaps.
You already pay to host your app in the app store.
And the thing is, that if the app is so popular, it gets installed a lot. Which means it only improves their devices.
Apple and app developers are a symbiotic relationship. Both need each other in order to function. Yet Apple is consistently taking a bigger piece than they should.
Perhaps! But only if they allowed third party app stores. Because as it stands right now, they’re basically inventing a cost that they pass on to developers, and then rewarding themselves handsomely for the cost that they would have never needed to pay if they allowed others to compete in this area. It’s still a tactic they could not get away with if they were not a monopoly.
Hell nah. They cannot be the sole gatekeepers, alternative app stores that are outside of Apple’s control need to exist.
Lmaooo
“Spotify doesn’t even pay us!!!”
Edit: omg its so tone deaf, the pot calling the kettle black:
"In short, Spotify wants more. "
Once more, lmaooooo
Damn that’s petty. They’re like a 5 year old child that got their toy taken from them
They’re used to being treated like God’s special little tech company here in the states, so of course they’re going to throw a fucking tantrum when faced with a regulatory body that actually treats them as they should be treated.
I am wondering if it’s really true, that Spotify pays nothing to Apple. If my information is correct every app provider needs to have at least one active Apple Developer subscription (in the case of Spotify there is probably far more than just one account involved). If it is true that Spotify pays nothing to Apple the only possibility is that Apple invited them to bring their app to iOS and granted them free access.
I know 99 USD is not what Apple is after, but it seems dishonest to not disclose this.
Despite that success, and the App Store’s role in making it possible, Spotify pays Apple nothing. That’s because Spotify — like many developers on the App Store — made a choice. Instead of selling subscriptions in their app, they sell them on their website. And Apple doesn’t collect a commission on those purchases.
Oh noooooo, Apple is only making most of the money, instead of all the money 😭
Eat shit and die, Apple
It’s as if Ford wanted a dividend of all contractors revenue that use a F150.
Good metaphor, and their argument is “but we are also paying the gasoline”. Still sounds like slavery with extra steps.
And the devs are already paying $100/year for said fuel.
They’re getting punished for keeping the users in a golden cage, and they are mad that they might have to give some of that power away. You can tell by the fact that not a single paragraph actually addresses the reason for the fine. The EU doesn’t give a damn how many times you flew engineers to Stockholm, this is about the conditions in which iOS operates that hurt both developers and users. But we already knew that Apple doesn’t give a fly about users, it’s money and nothing else for them. “Spotify doesn’t pay Apple” oh cry me a river.
… so that Apple fans can identify with it.
Under the App Store’s reader rule, Spotify can also include a link in their app to a webpage where users can create or manage an account.
Instead, Spotify wants to bend the rules in their favor by embedding subscription prices in their app without using the App Store’s In-App Purchase system.
I’m confused now. What is a “reader app”?
Spotify wants to make subscriptions an app functionality and Apple restricts that to it’s own payment system - and the alternative they provide is external websites?
Why the heck is it called a “reader rule” and “reader app”?
I’m confused now. What is a “reader app”?
This is some of Apple’s own terminology. It applies to any application who’s main purpose is to serve up audial, visual or text-based media.
Apple allows these apps to access existing accounts via apps but not create new ones.
Nice to see a reasonably sized fine. In the US it would be like 5 million and they’d spend 10 times that fighting it in court and still not affect their profits for the month.
It’s only reasonable if they earned 1.8 billion or less from it.
Otherwise they’ll just do it again.
Not necessarily, it could be that if they put the work into something else instead they would’ve made more when you account for the fine, so it could still not be worth it compared to alternatives.
Apple abusing its monopoly? Well I’d never!
Apple have been getting so many giant fines that it makes me think the EU have really just found their own way of taxing them. Which I’m in favour of.
In case anyone is wondering where the money is going: The EU budget. The EU doesn’t really get to keep it though because membership fees will be lowered by that amount next year so the actual windfall goes to member state budgets.
Fair enough.
Good.
EU, I belive in you!
Seeing horrible actors like apple getting fined gives me a nice hit of dopamine.
Will apple pay it? 🤷♂️
They (cant just|just cahant) quit Europe
im done with europe now
Well, when Tim Apple says he’s done ya gotta take his word for it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
RIP El Risitas. 😭
For a middle class person, that’s equivalent of being sued for €1000, with a good chance of getting away with €100 even when losing. When will fines for big multinationals ever be adequate?
$1.8B is quite a chunk, and the EU is not shy about levying further fines if the behaviour continues.
It’s less than 0.5% of their annual global revenue. It’s nothing for a company like Apple.
It’s not company threatening, that’s for sure. But that’s big enough to show up on their annual report, and pull their profit margin down a point or two. That is very much enough to get their attention.
Based on Statista, Apple profit from EU was 36B in 2023. The fine in this case amounts to 5% of their profit from the region. This is something that will impact the company’s decisions.
Or they will fund more infrastructure development in the EU. It’s still just March.
While I do agree that the fine could be higher, this is not like a US regulatory lawsuit. In the EU, fines have to be paid immediately, and Apple can appeal if it wants and may receive some of the money it paid back. Apple doesn’t get to drag it out, and there are no out of court settlements that usually get the fine amount down.
According to this, the fine includes a punitive damage:
Vestager said that the lump sum of €1.8 billion had been added as a deterrent since the basic amount of the fine, which she compared to a “parking ticket,” would have been quite small.
The total fine of €1.84 billion amounts to 0.5% of Apple’s worldwide turnover, according to Vestager.
Still not enough in my opinion, but hopefully if this sticks, future damage awards will be even higher. In any case, there will be a lot more fines and regulations coming down on Apple into the future (thanks in large part to the DMA), so even though this is just a single instance, they will hopefully add up pretty significantly in the coming years.
1.8 billion is around 2% of their last year’s net income. At least it’s a bit better than the insignificant wristslaps companies tend to get.
Global net income, yes. But it is 5% of the income from the EU. As much as I dislike Apple, the fine seems to be reasonable. I do want to see it bumped up if they keep on with their horseplay.
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Apple doesn’t often win appeals for EU fines
So doesn’t Spotify pay them the 100 dollars a year to be a developer? So Apple says they get nothing for from Spotify for developing the platform and tools, but they’re outright lying. And if the 100 isn’t enough increase the price.
Apple just seems like a crying baby in this letter.
$100 top Apple is literally nothing. So are they technically lying? Yes. But in all actuality $100 means nothing to them.
There’s a LOT to complain about Apple, but this is just semantics.
It’s very indicative of the culture though. That people pay hundreds of dollars a year just for the privilege of using their products is taken for granted.
Good guy EU!
