story
This isn't an Apple/Google/Spotify thing, it's a service thing.
An app store costs money too - the creation and maintenance of the billing platform/API, bandwidth, human curation, cross-device storage of saved configurations, user acquisition, etc.
What makes musicians so different from software developers that it's perfectly acceptable for Spotify to take such a large share of the revenue their music has earned?
(To make my own position clear, I don't think any of them deserve 30%)
Why not internet provider? Verizon's infrastructure costs money, too - should they also be eligible for a 30% tax?
The data will be transmitted through Cisco routers or Nokia's BTS - it costs a lot of R&D to develop those
What about the phone manufacturer - Xiaomi or Samsung would definitely not reject their fair share
None of this would happen without electricity - power transmission companies deserve a portion
There really isn't a coherent moral argument in favor of the current status quo - it's simply about market power, nothing else
Had Verizon singlehandedly created the internet and had no real competitors they might have been able to tax it’s usage. Thank God that did not happen, though…
Since HN is a lot more familiar with the cuts the stores take out of developers earnings, it makes for a nice point of comparison.
> The data will be transmitted through Cisco routers or Nokia's BTS - it costs a lot of R&D to develop those
This is a novel idea. Verizon and Cisco could charge a price above their cost. They could call this a "profit margin". You might be on to something here.
Access to listener, or even if you limit to Mobile listener, are not bound to Spotify.
If 30% is too much, publish your content as a web app. If you want to play in the walled garden, pay the cover charge.
On the other hand if you want to write an app for a mobile device you're, realistically, either going to write it for Android or iOS. On the Android side you can distribute it as an apk assuming you can handle the cost of writing self-updating code - but on the iOS side you're hooped. Mobile devices are a part of modern life, the fact that one company dominates the market (and another company takes the remainder) leaves the market extremely unhealthy.
Musicians have about the same freedom in this respect as any application developer, practically speaking. AKA, they're just as exploited (if not moreso, see other comments about how musicians are also being screwed over by studios).
These companies created something that grew into a foundational element of modern life in about a decade. That’s amazing and should be awarded with trillions of dollars. The market should reward this corporate behaviour extremely well, and punish the IBMs and GEs and Boeings harshly.
As an aside, Apple et al are also not resting on their laurels, and keep pushing the envelope. My 2 y.o. + iPhone is literally better than on the day I bought it. I’m more than happy to pay more for apps / subs to get this.
Apple makes very popular computers in their iPhones, but other phones, tablets, laptops, gaming consoles, etc all do the same stuff.
Eg. When your phone is broken, you can still call people over your laptop, and you can access an internet browser from basically anything
What’s the difference?
