Spotify is probably the most successful competitor of Apple in terms of music streaming. This, however, has not stopped the smaller company from occasionally voicing out the unfair practices of the larger tech company.
Previously, Spotify had raised its concern over Apple charging a 30% fee for Spotify's customers who use the app via an iOS device. Now, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren is loudly voicing out her concerns as well favoring the music streaming service.
Yahoo! quotes the senator as saying that Apple "has placed conditions on its rivals that make it difficult for them to offer competitive streaming services." Naturally, when this news went out, Spotify, as one of those who are competing against Apple, chimed in on the issue.
Its Head of Communications and Public Policy, Jonathan Prince, said that Apple has long before used their monopoly over iOS to "squash competition in music." He went on to say that they do so by increasing the prices of its competitors and by "inappropriately forbidding" Spotify to tell their customers about lower prices. By doing this, Apple is definitely putting their needs first.
"You know there's something wrong when Apple makes more off a Spotify subscription than it does off an Apple Music subscription," Prince said.
A representative from Apple has yet to make a rebuttal.
Recode notes that Apple was not the only giant that Senator Warren pinpointed. In fact, she put Google and Amazon under the blaring spotlight as well.
She even went into specifics. For Google, she said that "its dominant search engine harms rivals of its Google Plus user review feature." As for Amazon, she said that the company uses its position to steer customers into buying books published by Amazon specifically.
The reason that Senator Warren is trying to shed some light into these quasi-monopolies is that she believes they hurt the economy by "lock[ing] out smaller and newer guys."
