But you can purchase a Spotify subscription on a different platform (say, Web), and then use your account on iOS, enjoying the same experience as every other iOS user. The only part of the experience that's different is the one time sign-up process, for which Apple wants to charge a permanent 30% fee for the entire duration of the subscription (even if after that you happen to primarily use Spotify on Desktop or Android).
This puts Spotify in a weird spot. Their only options are:
1) Charge more to iOS users. This seems unfair to them and of course they will complain and blame Spotify when they find out they've been overcharged since Apple explicitly forbids informing customers about their fees.
2)Charge ~10-20% (depending on the share of iOS subscribers) to users of all platforms to compensate for Apple's fees. Why should I as an Android user pay extra so that someone else can make purchases on an iPhone?
3) Status quo - disable subscriptions on iOS entirely, make customers jump through the hoops to figure out how to purchase a Spotify subscription.
I don't have the exact figure, but I imagine that quite a few Spotify customers use their subscriptions on multiple platforms. Apple just wants to take a permanent 30% cut if the the initial subscription was handled through an iOS app. Maybe this isn't such a huge problem for game DLC where there is no fixed unit cost, but companies like Spotify need to pay royalties to music labels, etc.
This puts Spotify in a weird spot. Their only options are:
1) Charge more to iOS users. This seems unfair to them and of course they will complain and blame Spotify when they find out they've been overcharged since Apple explicitly forbids informing customers about their fees.
2)Charge ~10-20% (depending on the share of iOS subscribers) to users of all platforms to compensate for Apple's fees. Why should I as an Android user pay extra so that someone else can make purchases on an iPhone?
3) Status quo - disable subscriptions on iOS entirely, make customers jump through the hoops to figure out how to purchase a Spotify subscription.
I don't have the exact figure, but I imagine that quite a few Spotify customers use their subscriptions on multiple platforms. Apple just wants to take a permanent 30% cut if the the initial subscription was handled through an iOS app. Maybe this isn't such a huge problem for game DLC where there is no fixed unit cost, but companies like Spotify need to pay royalties to music labels, etc.