Apple responds to Spotify with words, but no real answers
This seems like an overly emotional interpretation of things, written in an intentionally aggressive style.<p>Are there any lawyers here who can actually make an interpretation of the situation free of emotion and PR speak? I still don&#x27;t understand the fundamental basis for why Apple is legally obligated to &quot;play fair&quot; on the App Store. Reasons I&#x27;ve heard that don&#x27;t make sense to me include:<p>- XYZ, inc. made a business on the App Store, so XYZ should be free to pay a cut to Apple that is intuitively &quot;fair&quot; in some vague sense, simply because their entire business is on the App Store.<p>- 30% just sounds intuitively too much, so they aren&#x27;t playing fair<p>- 30% is higher than other, vaguely related platforms charge for vaguely related services, so that means it&#x27;s unfair simply because the number is higher<p>- Apple also makes apps that sell the same types of subscriptions, so Apple should be fixing prices of competing services at a point where...? Spotify can make a profit? Consumers are just always charged the same amount for any &quot;music app&quot; from any competing company? This seems to be the one that a lot of people hang their hat on as the nuanced way to look at it.<p>&quot;No, but it&#x27;s about the <i>competing product</i> they offer, they <i>undercut</i> Spotify&#x27;s price.&quot; etc.<p>But, undercut what? Spotify&#x27;s price point relative to their current business model? I don&#x27;t understand the argument here. Spotify is another business. We&#x27;re not talking about some minimum wage thing for a person where you have a moral imperative to keep the price above a certain point, inherently.<p>I don&#x27;t understand why any legal system should be forced to take Spotify&#x27;s current business model as the peak optimal one possible, and then say that they couldn&#x27;t possibly lower their price to match Apple&#x27;s competing service without irreparable harm to their business. Why does any of this matter, legally? Companies make money, industries grow and fade, niches pop in and out of existence as paradigms shift, business cycles up and down. What are the laws that mean Apple must be civil with Spotify here?