“I love you, neither do I”. Here is the title of the column published by Horacio Gutierrez, legal director of Spotify, in the columns of the WSJ and of The Verge. As the title of his paper indicates, he does not particularly appreciate the practices of the Apple brand.
Although he admits to liking Apple products (“Jobs remains a reference” he declares), he considers that she is “intimidating” and “dishonest” by taking advantage of its dominant position. He writes :
There is a lot to admire about Apple, but my company, Spotify, also saw another, brutal side to it. Apple designs, develops and sells some of the world’s most desired products. My firm is one of the few to insist that behind this facade hides a very intimidating, ruthless entity, which uses its dominance to hamper its competitors.
Spotify still angry at App Store commission
The executives of Spotify therefore did not take off. Behind these criticisms hides a problem highlighted by Epic Games: the commission of the App Store. As a reminder, Apple takes a 30% commission on paid applications or application subscriptions. Spotify, for example, must pay this commission for any premium subscription purchased from the iOS app.
The Swedish company had already expressed its dissatisfaction with the launch of Apple Music. She considered that Apple was not playing on a level playing field and was suing its rival.
In recent days, the lawsuit between Apple and Epic Games has resurfaced this problem. And we can’t really say that Tim Cook succeeded in convincing the judges.
The legal director of Spotify is also surprised by the shaky explanations of the American company. “It’s remarkable how little we’ve learned from Apple’s explanations. They keep coming back on the same pretexts ” he writes.
More specifically, Apple justifies its 30% commission by costs related to the protection of the privacy and security of its users. Gold, “They do not even apply these rules to certain applications which are nevertheless in the App Store” concludes Horacio Gutierrez. Of which act.
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