In Silicon Valley, like in the best historical dramas, you always have to rely on a neighbor, a half-brother, or a spiritual son to stick a knife in your back, Tu quoque mi fili style. Thus, Spotify and Google have just announced “a new chapter in their partnership”.
This is a “multi-year agreement that represents a never before seen option of payment choice and offers possibilities for both users and developers”, explains the joint press release from the two giants.
Thus, people who have downloaded Spotify from Google’s Play Store will have the choice of paying for their subscription either with the music platform’s payment system or with Google’s in-app purchase system. The two options coexist, hand in hand, in a beautiful embrace whose projected shadow could look like, perhaps, a sardonic finger of honor in the direction of Apple.
Because if the new couple of the year explains that the work is still to be done and that it will be in the months to come, for a launch of this offer “later this year”, it is difficult not to see where the gaze of the two actors is, behind the scenes. And this, even if this partnership remains unique, for the moment, in the Android/Play Store environment.
Especially since the musical platform gives a small layer of it before “dropping the mic”.
“Spotify has publicly advocated for platform fairness and expanded payment options, among other things, because fair and open platforms enable better user experiences, and allow developers to grow and prosper – when that happens. everyone wins”…
No need for a magnifying glass to see the subtext, Apple is the bad guy in the room. Its App Store is still locked, and hermetic to sideloading – for now and for how long? It continues as much as possible to impose a centralized and unique payment service, except when local justice obliges it to do so. While lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic are working on laws that could force Apple to water down its wine, the Cupertino giant’s position seems increasingly difficult to hold.
To tell the truth, beyond the financial question, which undoubtedly weighs heavily, it is difficult to understand why the teams of Tim Cook cling so much to these postures, which seem more and more isolated. On the question of the opening of the payment, the acceptable point of questioning the security of the App Store does not seem really relevant.
We know that historically it is better to support change than to cling to the past and suffer the full force of novelty. Remember Julius Caesar…