starting first does not mean you are not abusing your monopoly.

Another way of looking at this is that a 30% margin is preventing a lot of businesses from happening until Apple do it. The 30% is less of a concern that the fact that they can shut you down on a whim.

Apple doesn’t get a cut of their advertising revenue, and according to Apple was only paid 15% on subscriptions. With credit card processing fees and other associated costs it’s far from 100% profit.

30 percent fee is not a 30 percent margin. You are factoring in any costs of running and developing the service.

That argument leads to the logical conclusion that Apple needs to be broken up so their music subsidiary have to pay their app store subsidiary the same 30% as Spotify do. Still not a logical defense.

How is that a logical conclusion? It's just one conclusion.

It’s hardly abuse if Apple was the first to invent an iPod and iTunes and the online music business and then evolved their own products around their own offerings. They decided to let others into their own platform to enrich it, not to crush them. Spotify entered knowing that Apple already had a competing product. Why did they enter and start competing if they thought it was an unfair competition from the start? I find it hard to believe given the history of events. If it was in any way different then perhaps I could understand but to me it feels that Spotify just decided that now is the time to look for avenues to increase their profits and see the AppStore as the first opportunity to attack after never having had a problem before. Only a fool would start a business in a platform which tries to crush them so clearly that was never the case.

EDIT (cannot reply):

So if Apple would basically not have an AppStore for third parties and only distribute their own apps then it would be fair.

If Apple was to not allow other Music apps on their AppStore then it would be fair.

But when Apple allows others to distribute a competing product to Apple on Apple’s own platform for a fee then it is considered unfair?

I honestly don’t understand this logic.

It is not about who is first, is about fair competition, If Apple is the best then they should not be afraid to compete fair, let other web browsers exist, let alternative stores exist, let free apps show a Patreon link, let apps show the user the information that they have the choice to buy outside the store (defend this please, this information can harm the user somehow or it harms the pockets of some rich guy)

I don’t think EU cares about fair competition, rather being petty about not having their own FAANG.

But you could be wrong right? Maybe we should analyze if there is actual any merit for the complaints on Apple or about the tracking on the web instead of inventing some conspiracy.

I would show you the example with Microsoft or Intel, this companies were found guilty and all the US nerds did not complain that EU is anti-american.(they were found guilty in US too)

You know what? The funny thing is that all of FAANG has their international HQs in the EU (Dublin, Ireland) for tax evasion purposes. I’d argue they are more reliant on the EU then.

Tax evasion is illegal. Tax avoidance is rational. Other EU countries have the ability to lower taxes right? It’s ironic that the EU is suing Apple because Spotify doesn’t want to pay 15% to Apple, yet the same people complaining of that have no problem with Apple attempting to avoid higher costs by having a non-Irish EU headquarters.

Government taxes are a different ballgame than private company (Apple) profits. Interesting that you see them as the same thing. :/

Yeah , the Apple tax makes Apple lazy and focus on how to suck even more, also makes some rich dudes richer while government tax goes into research, schools, roads etc.

Apple tax should not exist, you should pay for what you use or have freedom to chose exactly how you can chose web hosting companies and plans.

Nobody thinks of FAANG as EU creations. Even if Nintendo is headquartered in the USA, it’s still considered Japanese. IKEA is Swedish and so on. Where the companies were founded seems to play the largest role in their national identities.

I was making a comment more about how the socialist EU can offer better corporate taxes than the more "capitalist" country (USA).

Apple are in the wrong here.

> So if Apple would basically not have an AppStore for third parties and only distribute their own apps then it would be fair.

> If Apple was to not allow other Music apps on their AppStore then it would be fair.

> But when Apple allows others to distribute a competing product to Apple on Apple’s own platform for a fee then it is considered unfair?

> I honestly don’t understand this logic.

I mean, it's kind of textbook vertical monopoly.

Selling Windows is fine - you're competing over who makes the better OS. Selling Internet Explorer is fine - you're competing over who makes the better web browser.

But using Windows to push Internet Explorer is not fine - you're using your unrelated OS superiority to fight off Netscape Navigator.

It's a distorted market because the consumer is induced to go with iTunes over Spotify not because iTunes has the more appealing product, but because Apple makes iPhones. If the exact same software as iTunes was made by a non-Apple company, it wouldn't necessarily compete.

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And I'm not sure it would be "fair" if AppStore didn't allow music apps, either. With web browsers and app stores, there's a decent case to be made that allowing those apps would compromise the iPhone product/ecosystem as a whole (although I'm personally of the "It's my phone and I demand to be able to install whatever the hell I want on it" philosophy and loathe walled gardens in all forms). Banning music apps simply because they compete with their own product would likely attract Vestager's ire just as well.

Of course Apple's music business was a whole separate legal minefield for decades

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Corps_v_Apple_Computer

They bought out the name rights 8 years after iTunes launched.

That payment was $500 million, but they were printing money from iPod+iTunes at that point (revenues of $9.5 billion in 2006, $10.5 billion in 2007). I'd call it an ongoing headache more than a minefield.

When they started have no bearing. It’s using their power in one market to strongarm others in another. It’s not about what is fair, it’s about making sure the market is healthy.