EU Commission protects consumers in Apple music streaming case

[rantee]

Lost in all coverage of this battle of the middlemen is the effect on the artists actually making the product. How would lower prices make any difference in Spotify’s royalty rate bullying in a market saturated with alternatives that they already dominate? Are there really that many more consumers who want but aren’t already paying for a streaming service or using free alternatives? There are legit discussions to be had about app store policies, but I can’t see how the music streaming context is the place to have them.

[Someone1234]

Fairer App Store policies allows more streaming choice for consumers, including potentially opting for "fair trade"-style offerings that give more to artists.

Right now, both Apple AND Spotify have an anti-competitive advantage due to the app store (with Apple Music getting a massive advantage, and Spotify getting a better deal than new competition entering the market).

Although a lot of streaming payment rates are set upstream of streaming services.

[madeofpalk]

Spotify doesn't set rates for what artists get paid, labels that make their music available on Spotify do.

"Artists don't get paid fairly" is a tale that existed long before Spotify existed.

[smoldesu]

It's definitely important, but the DMA isn't a response to the existence of music streaming services. It's a direct remediation for Apple's uniquely anticompetitive practices, which affects everyone, artists or not. Arguably, this was a necessary first-step to prevent other platforms from following Apple's example and presenting less choice to the user.

[granzymes]

Hard to see what harm to competition there is in a market that has steadily grown, with Spotify at the top, during the entire period in which Apple was allegedly harming the market. Spotify doesn’t pay the Apple tax and yet charges the same as all the other market participants.

Going to be very interesting to see what the EU courts say in a few years.

[ImPostingOnHN]

This seems to carry with it the implicit assumption that if one competitor is growing, no harm has been done.

I don't see any reason this must be true. It's totally possible, and indeed reality, that both harm has been done, and at least 1 competitor is growing. So there seems to be no mutual exclusivity there in real life.

[smoldesu]

It seems much more plausible to me that America is guilty of protectionism by neglecting to regulate their domestic tech businesses. Europe stands to lose nothing if Spotify goes bankrupt, but disrupting the mobile duopoly threatens America's iron grip on exported surveillance.

[joakimb]

Spotify is an example of a tech company from the eu though?

[piva00]

Apple Music subscription can even be purchased in the System Settings of Apple's OSs (through Apple One); it doesn't pay 30% to Apple when subscribed in the OS or through the Music app; it's distributed embedded into iOS, macOS, iPadOS without you downloading the app.

It's anti-competitive, clearly, which harms consumers.

I really want to understand, what's the actual argument for Apple here?

[the_mitsuhiko]

Maybe, but that seems unrelated. As a consumer living in the EU it's good to see that effective antitrust is a thing here. Which BTW historically the US was very good at. It at least in principle enables more efficient markets.

That we have an issue with entrepreneurship and bureaucracy in Europe is true, something that should be improved, but that is not achieved by enabling monopolies.

[mrtksn]

These meme is not as valid as few years ago since all the computer based advertisement industry has been commoditised and investors focus was redirected to AI and hardware.

This lock-in is an attempt to keep customers paying despite not providing any value over the competition to the customers.

All the rent seeking attempts are clues that "tech" has become like the old industries.

Even more worrisome, the whole American culture seems to be Europeanised. Traditionally since the last few decades, USA was the land of opportunity and innovation where everyone was welcome and it didn't matter what is your background but now Americans are acting like the Europeans, clinging to the properties they own, rent seeking from the past success and freaking out about foreigners, races, border control and cultural divisions.

Isn't it strange that as USA is slowly losing its edge, it becomes like Europe? It used to be that Europeans were freaking out about their data being collected by American corporations and today its the Americans freaking out about Chinese ones.

[asmor]

Regardless of the validity of your comment: How is this relevant? Is it because Spotify is Swedish? I assure you, this is not EU protectionism, this is EU consumer protection and anti-monopoly behavior - something US regulators seem to have forgotten for the most part.

[refulgentis]

I love Apple, they enabled me to turn from a waiter to a startup founder to a sold startup to a Google employee to a lifestyle I could never have imagined or gotten otherwise.

I was writing iOS apps when it was iPhone OS, and there wasn't an SDK.

I don't recognize these sniping negative off-topic comments that have become a regularity on articles about the App Store over the past 3-6 months.

Way back then, we were extremely suspicious of the 30%. And we had no idea that would metastasize into, inter alia, not even being able to mention there's another way to pay.

We never, ever, in a million years, would have imagined ads in the Settings app, for all users, pushing you to sign up to be billed for Apple's competing service(s) that don't have to pay the 30%.

Or Apple saying they they needed 30% from payments for real-life services, like say, concert tickets.*

I accepted the "it's an appliance and safety is paramount and people could do payment scams" argument back then.

We're 15 years past, and there's plenty of scams on the App Store proper.

I don't fault Apple for this, like all gatekeepers, the scale got far past what anyone imagined and it's an impossible problem.

If Sony was requiring 30% from every video producer played on your TV, and they couldn't even mention there was a way to save 30% by simply calling a toll-free number, it'd be obviously wrong at some point.

Certainly now.

That's where Apple is.

* there is an exemption for 1:1 services. There's absolutely 0 rationale for that, leaving me to guess that it is because 'concert tickets' are easier to bully in the court of public opinion than 'taxis'

[gear54rus]

do you really think slapping crapple for their stupidity for a couple bil is gonna make a sizeable chunk of EU's yearly income?

[Hamuko]

Just a reminder that Apple's anti-steering practices, which the European Commission has a problem with here, were found to be against California’s Unfair Competition Law and the Supreme Court of the United States would not review the case despite appeals.

[zx10rse]

The conversation here is really degrading, when EU is mentioned. People down vote for the sake of down vote every opinion that is not in favor of EU, so they can silence it?

It is really disappointing to see such behavior here on HN.

[blackbear_]

I think many are just tired of American "exceptionalism" being pushed with the same fallacies every time.