Spotify calls Apple’s new 27% fee hike for developers “outrageous”
“Once again, Apple has demonstrated that they will stop at nothing to protect the profits they exact on the backs of developers and consumers under their app store monopoly.”
Credit: Didem Mente/Anadolu via Getty Images
Apple recently announced it will be charging a steep 27% in transaction fees for developers steering customers away from the Apple Store. Spotify has since raised its concerns, calling the plan “outrageous”.
The fees were officially announced on Friday 19 January, in correspondence to Apple’s long-standing legal debate with Epic Games. While a huge success for Apple, this new law warrants a threat to competitive business. Right now, Apple’s system is costing some of the biggest developers up to 30% and small developers around 15%.
In response to these numbers, Spotify says: “Once again, Apple has demonstrated that they will stop at nothing to protect the profits they exact on the backs of developers and consumers under their app store monopoly.”
It adds: “We strongly urge UK lawmakers to pass the bill swiftly to prevent Apple from implementing similar fees, which will help create a more competitive and innovative tech industry for UK consumers and businesses.”
Spotify isn’t the only developer to speak out, with the CEO of Epic Games, Tim Sweeney, writing to Twitter, that the changes were of “bad faith”. The Coalition for App Fairness Executive Director Rick VanMeter also expressed his feelings, stating that he felt, “these changes do nothing to enhance consumer choice”.
Apple filed a bad-faith "compliance" plan for the District Court's injunction. It totally undermines the order allowing “buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms, in addition to IAP”.https://t.co/ofbuMwe7SH
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) January 16, 2024
While Spotify has vented its frustrations against the fee spike, it doesn’t exactly have the most consumer-friendly track record either. The streaming platform was not long ago criticised for its streaming law that stated artists needed 1k streams to receive royalties for their music. Even with that said, when those royalties are earned, the maximum take-away unit was stated to be as low as $0.003 per stream.
