For several years now, relations between Spotify and Appleare very conflicting. The Swedish streaming giant accuses the brand to the anti-competitive behavior potatoes on the applications market.
In a very long interview with The Verge, Horacio Gutierrez, head of international affairs and legal director of Spotify returned to the reasons for the anger of his company Vis d'Apple. He mainly attacks the commission of 30 % taken by the Cupertino firm on each purchase made on iOS:
Concretely, with regard to the App Store, it is very clear that the choice to link the Apple owner payment system to the App Store was an arbitrary choice. It was not part of the App Store at the start, as was the 30 % Apple tax was not an obligation when we joined the App Store. They added it later in the process and, in doing so, they created this environment in which competing applications must really face the own Apple musical streaming service as well as other competing products on a playground that is not really fair.
Offer alternative payment services on the App Store
For him, the concern "It is not to know if the rate is 30, 15 or 10 %, the problem is that the rate is arbitrary and that they can fix it unilaterally because they are isolated from the competition."This state of affairs prevents"competitors to arrive and offer alternative payment systems».
Horacio Gutierrez would therefore like Apple to come back to the situation that Spotify knew when he joined the App Store. Clearly, several payment systems, such as Paypal or Mastercard, would coexist on the App Store with real competition.
Spotify is not the only developer to go up to the niche against Apple about the committee of 30 % on the App Store. This is also the case of Epic, the publisher ofFortnite. You can also find the details of this judicial confrontation inOur dedicated article.
Spotify
Couple: Spotify Ltd.
