Elon Musk and Spotify CEO complain about App Store rules… again

2023-05-01 16:17:33

In a brief discussion on Twitter, Elon MuskCEOChief executive officeror executive director.”>¹ of the social network, and DanielCEO do Spotify, criticized the App Store’s rules regarding subscriptions. Ek also took the opportunity to once again voice his dissatisfaction with the fee charged by the Apple store on payments made in applications.

It all started with a simple notice from Musk that now everyone can activate signatures on their Twitter accounts, so that other people can pay a monthly amount to the creator in exchange for some benefit, for example. In a subsequent tweet, he stated that subscriptions take longer to start working on iOS than on the web, as Apple would need to approve all signatures.

Note, it takes a few days longer for subscriptions to go active on iPhone vs web, as all subscriptions currently have to be approved by Apple

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 28, 2023

Content creators can now activate subscriptions for their texts, photos and videos worldwide on this platform!

Note that it takes a few extra days for subscriptions to activate on iPhone vs. on the web, as all subscriptions currently need to be approved by Apple.

Spotify’s CEO then tweeted commenting on Musk’s latest. Ek called the practice “preposterous” given that it is likely to have scaling issues as the number of creators and subscribers grows.

He also recalled the problem of the commission charged by the App Store, questioning the 30% charged by Apple to developers on the value of transactions. Musk responded to this post by agreeing with Ek’s remarks.

This is absurd… How would this scale with every creator on every platform on the internet? And what about if a platform thought the right fee was 0% or 10% instead of Apple’s 30%? https://t.co/rolBNuXOvt

— Daniel Ek (@eldsjal) April 30, 2023

This is absurd… How would this scale with all the creators on all the platforms on the internet? What if a platform thought the right rate was 0% or 10% instead of Apple’s 30%?

It is worth remembering that this is far from being the first time that the two criticize Apple, in particular the issue of App Store rules and commission. Spotify, for example, has already signed a joint letter addressed to the European Union criticizing Apple’s allegedly unfair competition stance regarding Apple Music.

Musk, in turn, starred in a series of controversies with the Cupertino giant a few months ago. He has already said that Apple would be threatening to remove Twitter from the App Store, in addition to having criticized the commission charged by the app store.