Spotify, Deezer, Proton, and others write to Margrethe Vestager, demanding the European Commission take action against Apple's “unfair practices”, like IAP fees
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the second act of a six-year campaign: Spotify, Deezer, and Rocket Internet first signed a letter to the European Commission back in 2017 urging antitrust action against Apple and Google over app store terms. That lobbying produced results — the EU opened an antitrust probe into Apple after Spotify's complaint about App Store fees in 2019, and by 2021 was reportedly set to press antitrust charges over App Store rules for competing music streaming services.
The new letter — now joined by Proton alongside Spotify and Deezer — lands while that case is still unresolved, and its purpose is to keep the Commission moving rather than to surface new allegations. It matters because it shows the complainants coordinating publicly at the exact moment enforcement could stall.
First-order effects
- Margrethe Vestager and the European Commission face renewed public pressure to convert the pending charges against Apple's music-streaming App Store rules into a formal decision.
- Apple's IAP fee structure — the specific practice named in the letter — stays under active political scrutiny in Brussels, with a widening coalition of named complainants behind the case.
Second-order effects
- Other subscription-app developers watching the case have a template to join: Basecamp already signed the parallel letter, suggesting the complainant group can expand beyond music streaming into email, productivity, and other IAP-dependent categories.
- If the Commission acts, Apple's App Store economics in Europe become the reference point for every developer negotiation over commission rates, forcing Apple to defend or restructure the fee model regionally.
Third-order effects
- The pattern — developer coalition, complaint, probe, charges — points toward app store commissions being treated as a regulated platform take rate in the EU rather than a private pricing decision, with gatekeeper leverage over distribution as the legal theory of harm.
The trend: App developers are escalating from ad-hoc complaints to sustained, multi-company political campaigns aimed at turning app store fees into a formally regulated platform take rate in Europe.