The 30% doesn't bother me. What bothers me is that Apple prevents you from passing that cost on to your customers. You're not allowed to have your regular price be X and your Apple price be X+30%. That's what's anticompetitive to me.

Apple is saying "we're providing a value-add, pay us" but not allowing developers to price it in to their balance sheet.

They do that to prevent this scenario:

You use them to advertise your site where customers can get a discount if you bail from the app store and buy from you directly. So many developers would try that oh so clever trick that they already know better in advance.

Unless you're one of the anomalies who actually does a better job at driving traffic to your apps than they can, it makes no sense to complain about this.

This is a common occurrence with Groupon.

If you call the shop and mention using Groupon, most of the time they ask you not to purchase the Groupon. They still honor the discount, but avoid a 50% take by Groupon.

"The 30% doesn't bother me. What bothers me is that Apple prevents you from passing that cost on to your customers. You're not allowed to have your regular price be X and your Apple price be X+30%. That's what's anticompetitive to me."

That's not true at all. In fact, Spotify did have IAP in the app, and they charged an extra $3 for it.

Spotify cost $12.99 as an IAP on iOS so yes Apple DOES allow you to pass it of stop spreading FUD.

I think you're misunderstanding something.

The specific, supposed violations weren't mentioned in the article. It was just mentioned, as an aside, that Spotify claims Apple is pressuring them into forcing all iOS Spotify users through Apple's pricing scheme.

If the violation were that Apple was forcing Spotify to pay Apple 30% for subscriptions, then that would be a very clear breach of the spirit of anticompetitive laws in the United States, considering the existence of Apple Music, and considering that it would force Spotify to either raise its prices and reduce its consumer appeal or take a substantial, perhaps fatal, revenue cut.

Except that's already happened. That's been the rule since the App Store was set up. And Spotify responded by having the in-app price be $13 instead of $10. Spotify's other option is to not allow signups in the app at all; I believe this is what Dropbox and Amazon do to avoid falling afoul of these rules.

Spotify is trying to have it both ways here.

That's NOT been the rule since the App Store was set up. Apple added in-app purchases to the App Store in late 2009 and started enforcing it for digital goods/subscriptions in 2010. Previously developers could link and sell their own digital goods/subscriptions in the app.

One does not need to use the signup in the app at all. I both pay for Spotify, and use the iOS app, but have never paid in the app.

I trusted Spotify enough to sign up directly via their website, but for many apps I do not, and prefer to pay via the app store as I trust Apple.

In my personal opinion, this experience is pro-consumer. I can make an informed choice. Hence I don't take any issue with Apple requiring developers to a) pay a cut for the privilege of using their store, and b) impose publishing requirements to maintain the standard of apps.

That's not the case at all. You only have to pay the 30% IF APPLE HANDLES THE BILLING. Any subscription Spotify sells directly, outside the app, does not give Apple a penny even if that user only ever listens to Spotify on your iOS devices.

Spotify has pulled the signup process in the app

Crud. Sorry for the accidental down vote, you had a good comment.