Posted on 03/26/2022 2:00:51 PM PDT by Zhang Fei
Google (GOOG, GOOGL) recently revealed a pilot program that will allow Spotify (SPOT) users to circumvent Google Play’s billing system.
Spotify is among the companies that have publicly fought against Google and Apple’s hold on their respective app stores. Apple takes a 30% commission on app and in-app purchases for larger developers, while Google Play takes either a 30% or 15% commission, depending on a variety of factors. This seems like a small but substantial turning point for critics, but it’s unlikely the move indicates that Google is ready to move on, Anurag Rana, Bloomberg Intelligence Senior Software and IT Analyst, told Yahoo Finance Live (video above).
“This is a very high margin business for both Google and Apple,” he said. “They’re not going to give it [up] easily. You’ll have to take this out of their hands forcibly. So, I think they’re trying to appease regulators right now but I don’t think it’s going to go away that easy.”
In 2020, Google raked in $11.6 billion in in-app purchases globally, as previously reported by CNBC, which cited an estimate provided by analytics firm Sensor Tower. The Google-Spotify partnership itself, revenue-wise, is slated to possibly be a big win for Spotify and negligible to Google, Rana added.
“The question at hand is if, you know, the revenue contribution or the loss of revenue for Google is enough to make a dent,” he said. “... The real impact is for smaller companies, like the Spotifys, like Match (MTCH), so they’re the ones who benefit from this.”
Both developers and regulators have been chasing after app store fees for some time. Developers like Spotify have long railed against the commissions that Google and Apple take and that they’re forced to accept, while regulators fear that the companies' app store practices are anti-competitive.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
[Before Apple created the App Store, typical mark ups for software sales to get a software title to the end user were between 50% to 75% of the retail selling price. 30% is extremely reasonable where the publisher/programmer keeps 70% of his selling price. That was unheard of before Apple created it. So quit all the damn complaining about YOU keeping the lion’s share of getting your products to market! The company that facilitates you being able to do that IS entitled for a fair recompense for doing that for you. Would you rather go back to doing it the old way??? You keep 25% to 50%, if you are lucky, and paying for ALL advertising, packaging, and money handling yourself OUT of your end???]
Tying sales have always had a bad odor about them. Democrats have put up with Apple because it’s a ideological ally, and Republicans have refused to intervene because of an abiding distaste for antitrust measures. Increasingly, Democrats think Apple isn’t far left enough, and Republicans think Apple is too far left. So you have a real odd couple in terms of political alliances, but the trend is towards greater antitrust enforcement. We’ll see if Apple manages to buy them off. But rhetorically, at least, the trend is towards kiboshing these tying arrangements.
“People who choose Apple do so for the security, not so they can buy insecure apps from anywhere. If they want that, there are plenty of alternative Android devices from other makers to choose. They did not choose them, they chose Apple devices, and often paid a premium price for that security.”
Well said. I concur.
Many of the apps could be a web page.
A big point of a web browser was to make it so you did not have to load a separate app for various internet site. Apps on phones in many cases are a step backwards.
Yes, I absolutely want and need the extra tight security Apple provides in IOS and their App Store. It’s a major reason (among many) I’m in the Apple ecosystem.
YOU may want it that way, but the fact remains that Apple provides a service to the publisher/developer, a means of getting their software/content TO the consumer, a safe/ secure means of paying for those software/content to the customer, AND delivery of said software and content to that customer, WHILE providing the customer a secure and curated environment that the CUSTOMER PAID to receive, and Apple is contractually obligated to provide.
Just because YOU don’t like it does it mean that you, a third party, can decide to intervene in that contractual structure, upending a freely entered and agreed means of distributing software/content, just to PLEASE YOUR sense of warped “fairness” is demented. It only serves to benefit the competition’s business model which has proved to be less secure, less desirable for consumers, and less successful for developers. More money is made by developers who offer their products on Apple’s market than is made on the Google Play Store or on any other platform, because Apple’s users are willing to PAY for that curation. As a result, they get better results from that curation.
[Just because YOU don’t like it does it mean that you, a third party, can decide to intervene in that contractual structure, upending a freely entered and agreed means of distributing software/content, just to PLEASE YOUR sense of warped “fairness” is demented. ]
If you don’t like the product, don’t buy it.
WHy can I not CHOOSE to own devices that can only download/purchase via a more secure environment (like Apple’s App store)?
Here we are many many years after the model rolled out - and hundreds of millions have gladly forked over $ to enter the Apple/iPhone/iOS ecosystem. Indeed - it is a selling point for me. Despite it’s flaws, Apple has been one the best big tech companies regarding consumer data and privacy protection. The “closed” system of the app store actually is a positive - as it gives teeth to help preserve privacy and data... because a developer can (and has several times) be booted for violating their privacy clauses.
I also like how there have been VERY few apps get through with nefarious malware in the Apple App store. Can’t say that for Google Play...
They need to be broken into a million pieces—not because of their fees but because of their deplatforming and censorship.
That is an international crime against all of humanity—and it must end.
“A deleted App is deleted. It does not remain on your iPhone. “
You have no way to know what software is behind the software.
If folks want privacy they need to get a dog.
In many ways we do. The underlying software of Apple devices is UNIX, open source and available to see. Apple is the only mobile device which offers as its business model privacy as a selling point. Google on the other hand offers Android with a business model of just the opposite.
I wouldn’t say MS gets $0 from Windows software. I mean sure you can sell Windows software without paying MS. But good luck writing it without Visual Studios and probably an MSDN membership. And with that structure MS gets paid whether your product sells or not. Heck you don’t even need to finish the product and they get paid.
This is an old article, but I do not trust any Big Tech company as far as I can throw them:
https://www.welivesecurity.com/2015/01/23/edward-snowden-doesnt-use-iphone-privacy-reasons/
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