Tech

Spotify denounces Apple’s anti-competitive attitude against its audiobook service

Years before Epic Games proclaimed itself as a company that fights monopolies (although at the moment of truth it only goes against what interests it), Manzana he already had a rather notorious conflict with Spotifythe popular audio platform via streaming of Swedish origin, who accused the Cupertino giant of basically the same thing: being a monopolistic entity within its own ecosystem and exercising unfair competition from there.

Despite the conflict’s loss of media prominence, the reality is that relations between Spotify and Apple continue to be bad, which is reflected in the fact that the audio format content platform has again accused the Cupertino corporation of having an anti-competitive attitude due to the rejection of their audiobook purchase system.

Delving into the details, Spotify launched its audiobook business last month by making some 300,000 titles available.. The company of Swedish origin has said in an entry published on its official blog that Apple has rejected its audiobook purchase system three timesincurring, once again and according to their version, in an anti-competitive attitude.

According to Spotify, the restrictions that Apple imposes on its own platform prevent users from comparing prices easily, which “hurts not only consumers, but, this time, also authors and publishers who are now under the control of Manzana”.

That Apple governs its ecosystem with an iron fist is no secret, to the extent that the company with the bitten apple even imposes its conditions on third-party services that intend to operate through its app store. In fact, he has told The New York Times that Spotify audiobooks would have been accepted without major inconvenience if the service had conformed to their standards: “We gave them clear guidance on how to resolve the issue and approved their app after they made the changes that made them compliant.”

Having to go through the hoops of the App Store and its rules force Spotify to have to give Apple 30% commission for each sale made, and since deep down this is nothing more than a “second part” of a conflict that has dragged on over time, the audio platform via streaming He recalled that almost four years ago “he filed a complaint against Apple with the European Commission” and that he is still waiting for a decision.

Spotify has commented that, while still awaiting the decision of the European Commission, “Apple continues to dictate what innovation looks like online, causing serious damage to the Internet economy, stifling competition and the imagination of app developers. In the absence of government intervention, in Europe, the US or any other market in the world, Apple has proven time and time again that it will not self-regulate and has no real incentive to change. With the launch of our Audiobooks, Apple has once again shown how brazen it is willing to be with its App Store rules, constantly changing targets to put its competitors at a disadvantage.”

Although Apple has been the target of a lot of criticism in recent years for being, in an obvious way, a monopoly within its own ecosystem, it might not have come to this situation if consumers and developers (for a long time) had not rewarded and elevated its ecosystem for more than a decade. If sales had been lower, surely the Cupertino giant would have been forced to set more flexible and favorable conditions for users and developers.

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