Epic and Spotify are against a reduction of the commission in the App Store

Spotify and Epic Games are unhappy with Apple’s decision to lower rates for App Store developers. The decision would be arbitrary and distribute it to developers, the companies complain.

The criticism comes from the two companies that have been taking action against Apple’s practices around the App Store for some time. Epic Games, which makes Fortnite, among others, and music streaming service Spotify joined earlier this year in the Coalition for App Fairness against Apple’s alleged monopoly position with the App Store, and specifically against the remittance of 30 percent of developers’ revenues. Earlier this week, Apple lowered the commission to 15 percent, but only for developers making less than a million dollars annually on iOS. Epic and Spotify are not covered.

The companies react angrily to The Verge. “This would be something to celebrate if it wasn’t Apple’s calculated move to maintain their monopoly,” said Epic CEO Tim Sweeney. He thinks that the action will result in fewer critics, which means that the coalition has less chance. He not only refers to the lower remittance for small developers, but also to special deals that Apple has concluded with, for example, Amazon, a party that also pays less commission.

Spotify is also not happy with the changes. The company calls the action ‘arbitrary and erratic’ in a statement. The service still disagrees with the communication rules in the App Store that prohibit referring to cheaper subscriptions that can be purchased via the website. The new price cut would therefore be ‘window dressing’, and infer from the fact that Apple is abusing its dominant position, the company says. “Keeping the market competitive is an important task,” Spotify writes.

Both companies also criticize the fact that Apple’s rules are now different for different companies. Apple has often argued in the past that it keeps its rules the same for everyone, but that is not true, according to Spotify and Epic. It’s not just these two companies that are criticizing Apple’s new policies. Also David Heinemeier Hansson from Basecamp, which is also affiliated with the Coalition for App Fairness, calls the plan ‘as smart as it is sick’.