The penalty is for preventing Spotify and other music streaming services from informing users of payment options outside the Apple app store.

The European Commission’s decision was triggered by a complaint by the Swedish music streaming service over this restriction and Apple’s 30% fee.

The EU competition enforcer said Apple abused its dominant position in the market for a decade.

Margrethe Vestager said, Apple had done this by "restricting developers from informing consumers about alternative, cheaper music services available outside of the Apple ecosystem.

  • thisisnotgoingwell@programming.dev
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    8 months ago

    The comparison is pretty poor, and I’m afraid you are not familiar enough with the topic. If I make an application with a subscription service, it must be sold on the play/apple store to reach users. Google/apple get a 30% cut of any subscriptions I sell, meaning if I make $10, they get $3. Since iOS/Android own 99+% of the smartphone OS market, there is no other alternative. So you say, “I understand they’re processing and facilitating the payment, but 30% of my earnings is way too much! I can process my own payments and have people sign up on my own website. When people go to purchase a subscription, I’ll just redirect them to their browser to complete the transaction…”

    That’s what Apple/Google are doing. It’s a monopoly.