Honest question: Let us say Apple is not charging anything for 3rd party app stores for the EU. Do you think app makers will charge less for apps in the EU? Do you think Spotify will pay extra to artists for all streaming done in the EU region? Discuss.
@nixCraft NO. More profit for the Company.
@nixCraft No way. It's free real estate. Maybe some portion can go to creators "as a favor" but no chance that 100% will go to them.
@nixCraft but I can't easily imagine how the 3rd-party app stores can emerge in a near future. My coworker thought other big companies like Steam can launch its own ecosystem tho.
@freevolt24 @nixCraft isn't there already SteamOS and the steam deck?
@nixCraft Absolutely not. That would mean less profits, which means smaller dividends.
@nixCraft Not all will, but if some do those who don't will have a competitive disadvantage. You don't just build a clone Spotify including all license agreements of course, but it's a significant margin that would ordinarily be a game changer in any sector.
@nixCraft My guess, by analogy with credit card fees: some will, some won't. With credit cards, some places give you a discount if you pay with cash (which means they don't have to pay credit card fees), while other places have the same price for cash and card. The same incentives leading to that would probably apply also for app store fees.
@nixCraft lol no, of course not
@nixCraft
I don't think they are going to necessarily charge less on third party app stores. At least I don't think we'll see anything like this from big brand names.
Some of the most honest companies, especially those associated with open source, I imagine they might give some sort of benefit like low price or otherwise to people who download their apps from third parties. Mullvad charges less for cash/crypto purchases since they don't have to deal with card transaction fees for example.
@nixCraft Since the beginning of the year, Spotify isn't even paying the vast majority of artists on their platform (the small/indie ones) because they imposed a "revenue threshold", so... they don't.
That's exactly why I left Spotify.
@nixCraft yes, It will change the app store market from a monopoly to an oligopoly, which has a small pressure for competition. Prices will drop based on the store's fee.
@nixCraft I wonder if Spotify is a good example. I think the big players will get around everything, not matter what. They have the resources to build different apps for different continents. They will choose the options withe the best outcome for them.
Also Spotify doesn't care for the artists, they seek market dominance.
@nixCraft it's not about existing large businesses who are and will screw anyone they feel they can. It's about allowing small developers to use and provide their own applications without needing paid subscriptions
@nixCraft on a tangent, doesn't Spotify pay like 75% of what it makes from streams already, and the blame is usually on the record labels for not paying the artists properly? I'm not defending Spotify here, but I know that record labels are incredibly predatory and greedy
@Virkkunen @nixCraft The last figures I saw were 71%. That’s roughly the same as physical media sold at retail.
And yes, you’re right. It’s labels playing fast and loose with contracts that predate streaming who are gobbling the artist’s share.
The other problem is that a lot of artists don’t understand that, because it’s easier to blame Spotify than their own lousy supply chain.
@nixCraft No, because price is set by what the market will bear, not the cost of production and distribution. Basic Economics 101.
@nixCraft No, since there is no competition for the most popular apps (due to the network effect), their (in app) prices are purely defined by what people are accepting to pay, not by costs or any other mechanism. So this change probably means more profit for apps and less for apple, which I think is more reasonable here and at least decentralizes the profits a little. I don't care though because I'd never buy apple shit and don't use proprietary apps all that much.
@nixCraft I think Spotify will continue to be a shitty company, ripping off artists. They just wanted to keep more of what they expected to be higher earnings… and I’ll stay with Qobuz who seem to pay artists a bit more and are also a European company.