Daniel Ek, the CEO of Spotify, has used the recent round of Apple criticism to highlight a blog post he made four years ago. In a tweet, Ek said “Four years ago, we filed a complaint detailing Apple’s anticompetitive practices. Some context.” The blog post centered on a complaint Spotify filed with the European Commission regarding rules Apple had implemented in its App Store, which “purposely limit choice and stifle innovation at the expense of the user experience.”
The complaint, and subsequent blog post, essentially accused Apple of treating the apps it hosted as competition and unfairly disadvantaging them. It referred to the 30% “Apple Tax” on digital services, and says that if they paid, it would force Spotify to raise prices well above Apple’s own music service, which is one of their direct competitors.
Refusal to pay the “Apple Tax” allegedly results in the tech giant imposing a “series of technical and experience-limiting restrictions,” which limits a company’s ability to communicate with customers, blocking updates, and locking them out of Apple’s other services — including the ones used for smart homes. The EC complaint also included a number of suggestions on how the playing field could be leveled: Including giving customers a choice of payment systems instead of “locking them in” to Apple’s, as well as subjecting all apps to the same set of rules and restrictions — even those Apple creates in house like Apple Music.
Finally, the Spotify CEO wanted Apple to not have any control of communications between third-party companies and their users, nor be able to place “unfair restrictions” on marketing and promotions. As a result of the complaint, Apple is currently facing a series of antitrust charges in Europe.
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