The difference is the artificial limitation placed on Play Store listings and Apple App Store, versus the freedom of an artist to sell their music to any other platform (it's just that it would be far less successful).

The only "pull factor" Spotify has is the userbase, which is arguably fair. For Google, though, the "pull factor" is because you literally cannot sell directly to users through the Play Store.

One could argue (on Android) that it's possible that you can install third-party markets, and that's true, but there's also pretty big roadblocks to installing, whereas selling on another music platform is much easier in comparison. (Don't believe me? Send your father an APK file and ask him to install it. Let alone iOS where this is not possible at all..

> For Google, though, the "pull factor" is because you literally cannot sell directly to users through the Play Store.

Couldn't you replace "Google" and "Play Store" with "Spotify"?

You can "sell" your app directly to users through your own site (see Fortnite) or dubious sites like https://en.uptodown.com/android/general-android but you have the same "pull factor" with the Play Store that you do with Spotify (the user base).

The Google + Play Store and Spotify (company) + Spotify (platforms) situations don't seem fundamentally different to me, just different by degrees. Google's monopoly on Android app distribution is unparalleled.

Spotify is a service whereas GP is an application platform. You distribute apps (services like Spotify) through GP, whereas you distribute product (songs) through Spotify. GP is the only (reasonable) way to get apps on Android, whereas there are dozens of legal licensed alternatives for Spotify.

You can try to find alternatives for an app store, but that doesn't change the fact that inherently within Android, there are certain roadblocks that simply don't exist for a Spotify competitor, for example.

There are plenty of different platforms besides Spotify which have comparable catalogs and are available on all/most platforms (even Apple Music has an Android app). Their subscription prices are almost the same so the market seems to be very competitive and nothing like the iOS App Store.

Similar prices could also suggest cartel-like behaviour

The contracts that the record labels offer to streaming platforms are (or were a decade ago when I was in the business) set up to strictly control the prices seen by end users but I'm sure their lawyers believe they can do this without running afoul of competition laws. Even if the effect is price fixing...

Less problematic actually. If you don't like Google's policies you're a bit screwed since they control the platform very thoroughly.

Spotify is just a convenience service in the end. They could sell their music through their own app, site, Magnatune, etc.

Steam doesn't belong there, as it's not the only avenue for developers to distribute games on PC.

Even Google Play is iffy, as developers could distribute through 3rd party app stores or sideloading, though Google makes that harder than it should be.

Apple is really the only one of the 3 you mentioned that forces a 15/30% cut if developers want to distribute an app on their platform.