Spotify — one of Apple’s biggest critics — says Apple’s new plan to comply with the European Union’s tech regulations is “a complete and total farce.”
In a post published on Spotify’s website, the company calls Apple’s new app installation fee “extortion, plain and simple” and says Apple is trying to force developers not to leave its store.
The fee, which Apple calls the Core Technology Fee, will require developers using third-party app stores to pay €0.50 for each annual app install after 1 million downloads.
Spotify says the new tax will hurt developers, especially if they’re offering apps for free. “From our read of Apple’s proposal, a developer would have to pay this fee even if a user downloaded the app, never used it and forgot to delete it,” Spotify writes.
The company also calls out the 17 percent commission that Apple will still take from the developers who choose to use third-party payment processors.
This will make a “developer’s choice between the status quo and this new program as difficult as possible,” Spotify adds. While Spotify revealed plans to roll out its own in-app payment system in the EU this week, it seems unlikely this will pan out.