Rhapsody has issued a statement, which says that it’s not going to play ball and even
levels a bit of a threat: “We will be collaborating with our market peersin determining an appropriate legal and business response to this latest development.” The big trouble stems from the fact that Apple requires anybody offering a subscription service to offer that service for the same price or less through Apple. That means you can still sign up folks through
your own methods and get all the cash, but if anybody signs up through your
app, Apple gets a 30 percent cut. In addition, Apple is no longer allowing
applications to include a link to an external site for purchasing, which means vendors will have trouble getting new users to pay them directly instead of using Apple’s simple but heavily-taxed option.
Rhapsody said it can’t offer its services at existing prices with Apple being so money hungry. I see Apple doing the same thing it did to the music industry. Only difference is that publishers and internet companies are not having that. Ready…Fight! I see an antitrust case very soon and so does the Wall Street Journal.