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Spotify is sending its customers an email informing them that it will no longer accept payments using App Store. This will push the customers to subscribe again to the Premium service using Spotify’s own website.
The move is no longer a surprise since the company stopped the subscription option to its premium service through App Store in 2016. Nonetheless, some who subscribed to the service from 2014 to 2016 continue using the App Store for their Spotify Premium payments. This translates to a 15% cut for Apple, and Spotify no longer wants this to persist.
“We’re contacting you because when you joined Spotify Premium you used Apple’s billing service to subscribe,” Spotify’s email reads. “Unfortunately, we no longer accept that billing method as a form of payment.”
As part of this change, those who subscribed to the App Store for Spotify Premium will see their account transition to the free ad-supported tier at the end of their final billing. With this, they must subscribe to the service again to continue enjoying the Premium perks. Unfortunately, this can only be performed through the web as the subscription isn’t allowed via the Spotify application for iOS. This will prevent Apple from taking cuts from the payments users are paying for the Premium service.
This isn’t the only time other companies expressed disfavor over Apple’s App Store commission rate. For instance, Epic Games sued Apple to challenge its practices allowing the latter to collect fees from in-app payments being made on App Store. To recall, Epic pushed the case after it got banned from the App Store for introducing its own payment system into Fortnite, an act that violates Apple’s App Store policies. The judge in the case ruled that Apple should not stop developers and app creators from offering other payment options to users, even if it will take outside the App Store. Apple now wants to undo this antitrust order by appealing to the US Supreme Court.
