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Comment by Fwirt | Hacker News Reader

Other device manufacturers ship hardware built on pre-existing software with some customizations, often using off-the-shelf drivers and software components. Apple is not only selling you a device, they’re selling you an OS and a quite decent software package including options that compete with other paid software offerings.

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And?

Apple also benefitted from third-party developers writing software for its platform. Remember the "there's an app for that" ads?

I think developers deserve to be treated fairly by Apple, not exploited four different ways. Because to develop for Apple you need:

1. Buy Apple hardware, because Apple doesn't provide cross-platform development tools (unlike Android or even Microsoft).

2. Pay $100 a year just to be able to publish the software.

3. Pay 30% of the app income to Apple (this changed only recently).

4. Have to endure odious restrictions imposed only because Apple wants to keep control of its platform.

> Pay 30% of the app income to Apple (this changed only recently).

This is among the biggest fictions of this crazed argument. Spotify, the company that whines about Apple the most, pays Apple $0 (sorry, $99) for building the entire market for consumer mobile internet upon which their business depends.

> Spotify, the company that whines about Apple the most, pays Apple $0 (sorry, $99) for building the entire market for consumer mobile internet upon which their business depends.

You mean, Apple leeches that glomped onto Spotify success to prop up the iOS market share? When not having Spotify meant that people might end up moving to Android? And yet they still required Spotify to pay 30% up until 2022, when the "reader app" exemption was made?

Remember when Apple offered Spotify private APIs for subscription control to work around the iOS App Store piss-poor subscription management?

That Spotify?

The "reader app" exemption Apple introduced in 2022 is merely about an entitlement to link to your website for account management, isn't it ([1])? But your argument sounds as if each Spotify purchase made through the app is or was taxed 30% by Apple, which would seem anti-competitive. Could someone clarify what Spotify or its users have to pay to Apple?

[1]: https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=grjqafts

Spotify has not supported IAP for premium in a decade and therefore has never paid Apple any fees besides the $99/yr developer fee.

I assure you iOS users would’ve been perfectly happy using Rdio, Tidal, Apple Music, or any one of a dozen other equally good streaming music services over dealing with the garbage of Android.

I assure you you're wrong. Clearly Spotify sold subscriptions, I bought one on my iPod and my SO pays for Spotify on his current iPhone.

The parent is right. Resorting to catch-22s proves how utterly indefensible your stance is.

I thought the DMA lovers were all aboard saying companies that win in their marketplace do it because of coercion, not because they had a better product?

How much does Apple pay every networking equipment manufacturer, ISP or carrier upon which its market depends on? Last time I checked Apple devices don't operate on an Apple-exclusive worldwide mobile internet network.

Apple users pay carriers so much money that for half a decade there was substantial competition to be the exclusive carrier for iPhone and even still carriers will pay Apple users to become their customers through device subsidies.

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