Home / Lifestyle / Mobile / Apple / Spotify accuses Apple of anti-competitive behavior

Spotify accuses Apple of anti-competitive behavior

Spotify is putting Apple on blast, arguing that its App Store and iTunes practices are anti-competitive. This follows reports that Apple is currently trying to push music labels in to withdrawing support for Spotify's free ad-supported business model.

We already know that the EU Commission is already investigating Apple's currently unannounced music streaming service for anti-competitive behavior and now it is speculated that Spotify could be behind the complaint that led to the EU's involvement.

beats-apple-e1427995205387

In a report from The Verge, Spotify has claimed that the ‘Apple Tax' gives the company an unfair advantage. The Apple Tax is essentially when Apple takes a 30 per cent cut from all sales on iTunes or the App Store. This cut also applies to subscription services. One source speaking with the site said: “They control iOS to give themselves a price advantage. Thirty percent doesn't go to any artist, it doesn't go to us, it goes to Apple.”

Obviously, if Apple is using its industry influence in order to put pressure on labels to no longer support Spotify's free tier, then the service could be in a lot of trouble. Right now out of Spotify's 60 million users, only 15 million of them are paying subscribers. The rest of account holders rely on the free tier.

On top of that, Apple is reportedly going to undercut Spotify on price with Beats Music. Right now, Spotify Premium costs $9.99, while Apple's offering will cost $7.99 per month. It seems that Apple's strategy is to limit Spotify's free music selection as much as possible in an effort to tempt people with its cheaper subscription service.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: If these reports are accurate and Apple is trying to squeeze Spotify out of the market by putting pressure on labels to pull music from the service's free tier, then I imagine a lawsuit will be coming at some point. 

Source: The Verge
Via: The Inquirer

Become a Patron!

Check Also

Apple Arcade Million

Apple Arcade reportedly saw just 2 million subscribers in its first year

While the company itself has not shared any figures, Apple Arcade reportedly only attracted 2 million users within its first year of operations.

2 comments

  1. If Apple is really trying to make its own service more attractive, by making competing services less attractive, I’ll be even less likely to switch. A company that is not interested in providing the best service for consumers, but only in the least bad service should get lost.

  2. < col Hiiiiiii Friends….upto I saw the draft ov $8289 , I accept that my father in law woz trully earning money parttime from there labtop. . there moms best frend has been doing this for only about 8 months and recently cleard the mortgage on there house and purchased a new Dodge . linked here HERE’S MORE DETAIL

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We've noticed that you are using an ad blocker.

Thank you for visiting KitGuru. Our news and reviews teams work hard to bring you the latest stories and finest, in-depth analysis.

We want to be as informative as possible – and to help our readers make the best buying decisions. The mechanism we use to run our business and pay some of the best journalists in the world, is advertising.

If you want to support KitGuru, then please add www.kitguru.net to your ad blocking whitelist or disable your adblocking software. It really makes a difference and allows us to continue creating the kind of content you really want to read.

It is important you know that we don’t run pop ups, pop unders, audio ads, code tracking ads or anything else that would interfere with the KitGuru experience. Adblockers can actually block some of our free content, such as galleries!