A secret Google deal let Spotify completely bypass Android’s app store fees - The Verge
A secret Google deal let Spotify completely bypass Android’s app store fees - The Verge
Spotify’s “unprecedented” popularity justified the deal.
Holy moly!
“If we don’t have Spotify working properly across Play services and core services, people will not buy Android phones,” Harrison testified.
Google: Sorry, other devs! You just aren't as important as Spotify!
[I mean, they aren't wrong. But this does not bode well for them!]
I mean, they could also say "Epic is just trash compared to Spotify as far as value to have on your platform goes" and I couldn't really fault them for that.
I don't think it causes issues for them specifically though. I bet they offered Epic deals, Epic just didn't want them. If anything they could point to a few recipients of such deals and go "But look, we're doing this, we just won't do a deal with Tim Sweeney because well, who in their right mind would?".
No wonder they are a bit of a brat about iOS.
I can now only laugh about their past statements of "uwu we are losing dominance as the market leader because we can't compete with apple music on iOS, because they can offer the service for less money uwu"
All while no other service is able to compete with them on android because of their special deal lmao
How many more of Google's anticompetitive practices don't we know about, I wonder?