Apple on the sights of EU officials. It s about Apple Music s dispute with Spotify

Spotify a few weeks ago expressed regret over - in his opinion - Apple's monopolistic practices in the context of Apple Music. It seems that the complaint was heard not only by the media, but also by the authorities of the European Union.

According to information obtained unofficially by the Financial Times , the European Union authorities intend to initiate an official investigation into the alleged abuse of Apple's market position in the market for music services for the iOS platform. We should expect official announcements regarding the investigation in the coming weeks.

The investigation, as always in the case of monopolistic practices, will be highly controversial in itself. On the one hand, it affects the independence of the company's operations, which legally earned the success of the platform, which is iOS and the closely related Apple App Store, and its right to profit from it. On the other hand, however, it is not difficult to understand the position of the applicant as to the practices of Apple's entity, which is Spotify. What went through?

The European Union will check whether Spotify is right, complaining about "Apple tax" and unfair competition from Apple Music.

Apple earns on the App Store service through a commission system. In the case of subscription services, such as Spotify, the company charges a 30% commission on the subscription amount for the first year of the service activation by the user and 15% for subsequent years. In other words, Spotify and his like give back 30 percent. and then 15 percent. revenue to the company through which they can provide their services to iOS users.

It is not difficult to guess that for obvious reasons Apple Music does not have such a problem. Apple does not have to pay commissions on its own, so automatically its directly competing with Spotify Apple Music service can earn more money quickly, thus having an artificial advantage over the mentioned competition. But this is not the end.

Not all APIs in Apple's operating systems are public and can be used by any application. Spotify complained that their client applications can not refer to Siri, HomePod or Apple Watch in such a wide range, as Apple Music can do.

The European Union usually favors little ones. I do not hide that I do not like it very much.

Do not get me wrong, Apple's practice is embarrassing. Apple's mythical ecosystem is to a great extent hindering the lives of the creators of external services. The Apple Music case is just one of many examples. Only that, at least for my simple peasant reason, Apple earned the opportunity to play according to these rules.

I'm not sure if the Spotify I adore would exist at all if it was not for Apple. During the first years of its existence, a significant part of Spotify's influence came from iPhone users. Spotify was not able to build its own ecosystem of devices to play the music it offers. In the end, it's just another mobile application - it would not exist if there were no phones and application stores.

Spotify has built his power just on Apple's back, it's an undisputed fact.

The so-called "Apple tax" seems to me fully legitimate - although in fact it is primarily proof of the weakness of Apple Music, since the creators of the service must resort to such tricks to be able to compete with Spotify at all.

In the end, however, it is not my or your peasant mind, and officials and the law will decide on the finale of this matter. This probably will last for years. And - having in mind different processes against Google or Microsoft - it will rather be resolved in favor of Spotify. It is a pity, because I would prefer Spotify to maintain its leadership position by continuing to be a great service, not through artificial intervention by EU commissioners.



Apple on the sights of EU officials. It's about Apple Music's dispute with Spotify

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