App Store Fee Cut Attracts Criticism From Key Developers Like Spotify and Epic

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Several industry players, including Spotify, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, and Basecamp CTO David Heinemeier Hansson, possess today criticized Apple's proceed to launch a new App Store SMALL COMPANY Program which will halve App Store service fees for small enterprises and independent creators (via The Verge).

After Apple announced the new program, Spotify released a statement declaring that it proved the ‌App Retail store‌ policies are "arbitrary and capricious."

Apple's anti-competitive habit threatens all creators on iOS, which latest maneuver further demonstrates that their ‌App Store‌ policies are actually arbitrary and capricious. While we find their charges to be unnecessary and discriminatory, Apple's tying of its own payment program to the ‌App Shop‌ and the communications constraints it uses to punish creators who choose never to use it, put applications like Spotify at a significant disadvantage with their own competing provider. Ensuring that the marketplace remains competitive is normally a critical task. We wish that regulators will disregard Apple's "window dressing" and action with urgency to safeguard consumer choice, ensure fair competition, and create an even playing field for all.

Spotify has repeatedly sparred with Apple in recent years, accusing the company of anti-competitive behavior. The accusations peaked with Spotify's formal complaint to the European regulators that Apple utilized the ‌App Shop‌ to deliberately disadvantage additional app developers, which result in an EU Commission antitrust investigation.

‌Epic Game titles‌ CEO Tim Sweeney also released a assertion, arguing that Apple is "gerrymandering the city with a patchwork of distinctive deals" by establishing the Small Business Program.

This would be something to celebrate were it not really a calculated move by Apple to divide iphone app creators and preserve their monopoly on stores and payments, again breaking the promise of treating all designers equally. By giving special 15 percent terms to choose robber barons like Amazon, and now also to little indies, Apple is wishing to eliminate enough critics they can escape with their blockade on competition and thirty percent tax of all in-app purchases. But consumers will even now pay inflated prices marked up by the Apple taxes.

Apple and Epic have been embroiled in a legal battle since August, when Apple removed Fortnite from the ‌‌App Retailer‌‌ after ‌‌Epic Games‌‌ introduced a primary payment option found in the app, defying the ‌‌App Store‌‌ rules. ‌‌Epic Game titles‌‌ promptly filed a lawsuit against Apple, accusing the company of anti-competitive actions.

Source: https://www.macrumors.com

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