Spotify is taking its gloves off in what has up to now been a subtle tug-of-war with Apple: today CEO Daniel Ek announced that his company has filed a complaint against the iPhone giant with the European Commission (EC), over how Apple has “introduced rules to the App Store that purposely limit choice and stifle innovation at the expense of the user experience—essentially acting as both a player and referee to deliberately disadvantage other app developers. After trying unsuccessfully to resolve the issues directly with Apple, we’re now requesting that the EC take action to ensure fair competition,” he notes. At issue are high fees for accepting payments, which he refers to as the “Apple Tax.”
The base of his claim is that he wants Spotify to be treated like “numerous other apps on the App Store, like Uber or Deliveroo, who aren’t subject to the Apple tax and therefore don’t have the same restrictions.” He requests that people not be forced — “locked in” — to Apple’s payment platform and tariffs that it dictates; that apps compete on merits and just just who owns the app store, specifically Apple Music should be subject to the same rules as Spotify. And finally that app stores should not be able to control communications between users and app publishers, “including placing unfair restrictions on marketing and promotions that benefit consumers.”
This is a huge move for Spotify to make, since it’s the biggest company to complain and formally file a regulatory complaint over how Apple treats developers. It underscores how the two companies have long been frenemies — Spotify relies on Apple for distribution of its app, but at the same time the two are in hot competition in the music streaming market.
But it is not the other one. Netflix, similar to Spotify has been bypassing Apple’s subscription model, which requires the app developer to pay Apple a fee for charging users to use the service, by asking users to pay outside of the app. This works to some extent, but making it harder to pay will also put some buyers off.
Last month, the company made waves when it announced that it would acquire a pair of startups, Gimlet and Anchor, for about $400 million to further its ambitions in podcasting and to diversify its business into more than music (and specifically costly licensing deals with record labels). The company has continued to see business grow for its existing products. In Q4 it noted that monthly active users were up 20 percent to 207 million, but it also missed analyst expectations on revenues of $1.7 billion.
Although its own video ambitions have not expanded too much (yet) beyond a small selection of music-related content, it has also teamed up with Hulu to expand its offerings with bundles.
More to come.