Hacker News Reader

Comment by wheelie_boy | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, the context for this is that spotify recently launched a website & EU legal complaint against apple for not opening up its platform sufficiently to competitors (or not sufficiently prioritizing feature work desired by competitors).

I assume OP found spotify's actions hypocritical, which is why they posted this.

Then the question is whether we should see spotify's 'time to play fair' website as a true statement of principle, or a cynical attempt to sway public opinion against actions that harm it as a business, but that it would be more than happy to engage in itself if it were in apple's position.

View on HN

Making it so your data structures in a Saas platform can't instantly be ported to a competitor is standard and a no-brainer business practice in my opinion.

Spotify's complaint against Apple is that they're abusing the App Store platform to an anticompetitive end because non-Apple apps have disadvantages on the platform that Apple's competing apps don't.

I think this owning-the-platform-while-also-selling-on-it situation we see Apple, Amazon, and others in is something that we will see formal regulations appear on in the coming decade.

So would it be similar if Spotify created some of the media that it put on its own platform?

For example if it just bought two podcast companies?

I would assume there would not be the same application of antitrust law, if any (IANAL) because Spotify isn't a marketplace that sells the podcasts.

That situation would be more comparable to Netflix since you're just paying a bundled subscription and you're getting 3rd-party work as well as Netflix originals. While openness would be awesome to have, they don't really have any obligation to provide it.

Of course it's not exactly like Netflix since you can self-publish onto Spotify so there's wrinkles. But my point is that it's a lot different than operating a buying/selling marketplace.

Because spotify owns the podcast companies, and podcasts have paid ads, spotify directly benefits if they are played more often. That is not the case with netflix.

But they are doing some things the same as netflix, in that they are also creating exclusive podcasts to drive traffic to their platform.

> That is not the case with netflix

It is. They do a lot of product placement (https://www.whats-on-netflix.com/news/is-product-placement-g...).

They also don't have to pay others for views, though I expect that to be less of a motivation.

But it's not new. Physical stores have had own brands for a super long time. How is software different?

I think it's the kind of thing that doesn't matter unless you can argue that a single company has monopoly control of marketplace

Reply on news.ycombinator.com