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Comment by pboutros | Hacker News Reader

Neither are being bad, but Spotify is clearly trying to force the issue around the App Store generally. Spotify is clearly at fault here (and the way it's been handled in the media suggests some machination, perhaps), but Apple's revenue model with App Store is just as good or bad as it has always been (or maybe better, now that there's the 85/15 split option).

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But remember that the 85/15 split only occurs after a year, so Spotify would still need to charge more. I also don't know if the app store is flexible enough to lower the customer's price after that year cut goes into affect.

The cut happens automatically, and it's in place now for all subscriptions.

So any Spotify subscriptions that started through the app at least a year ago are now getting the 85/15 split, without Spotify having to do anything.

I think his point is that if Spotify charges users 30% extra on iOS to cover the split there is no way for them to reduce that to 15% extra for users registered more than a year. So Spotify will get more money but the user will still pay 30% extra for signing up via iOS.

True. Or Spotify could choose to charge something else, say 10% more, so that on average it worked out to be roughly even for users based on how often they unsubscribe. Where they could charge 15% and eat the other 15% until the subscriber has been around for a year.

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