Spotify CEO renews attack on Apple after Musk's salvo

I want the option to control my devices. I don’t understand the arguments that claim Apple needs to rule the device with an iron fist. What problems does it cause to make the locked down experience the default with the option for me to disable that and take control of the device after I buy it?<p>I want to <i>own</i> my stuff. I want to repair it and I want complete control over it. I think that in 10 years we’ll all have cars with a half dozen subscriptions forced on us and the apologists will still be here telling us how 10 companies all doing the exact same thing to deprive us of true ownership is a healthy, competitive market.

Stop buying Apple if you don&#x27;t like it. Seriously. At the end of the day all of these companies would do the exact same thing as Apple if they were in Apple&#x27;s position.<p>The real solution to this is improved functionality of web apps and complete migration to those, then you can be free of the duopoly. Other than using phone specific features, why can&#x27;t all apps run on your desktop, laptop or elsewhere?<p>I&#x27;ll never get why Apple makes their rules very clear, and people buy Apple and then complain it&#x27;s restricted. By people purchasing non-Apple phones you incentivize the production of non-Apple phones, helping break their hold on things.

It&#x27;s pretty obvious that legislation or anti-trust action will come that opens up mobile computing platforms.<p>Considering the whole of a large market share mobile computing OS a private market, and not subject to competitive pressures, leads to monopolistic capture similar to what utilities could achieve without regulation. Why not just move to another neighborhood if you don&#x27;t like your electric bill? Well then you&#x27;re subject to the monopoly on that side of the fence just the same. Illusion of choice&#x2F;competition<p>Competitive markets are what drive down margins, thus feed those margin savings back into consumer&#x27;s pockets. Cheaper goods+services are what enriches broader society and are a net positive in my view.<p>Some states solve the natural monopoly problem with utilities by allowing consumers to choose the energy provider separately from the utility itself. e.g making the power provider a competitive market.<p>If Apple&#x27;s app store and browser are the best, and people prefer them, they can continue to use them. But they will have other choices in the future

People are digressing into all kinds of matters unrelated to the article and issue.<p>The heart of the matter is not control of the device, it&#x27;s about the Apple tax, and how it makes no sense in particular scenarios, such as subscriptions.<p>Sure enough, the app store services are worth <i>something</i>. Real labor, infra and costs go into it. Although Apple could very well subsidize it, it&#x27;s not 100% unfair to ask for some kind of fee, such as the fee to set up a developer account.<p>This fairness argument goes completely out the window in the case of Spotify or Twitter subscriptions, it no longer is related to any real costs made. When you pay 10$ to stream from Spotify, it&#x27;s absurd to have to pay $3 to Apple for this &quot;privilege&quot;. Nothing about the streaming or value delivered is in any way related to the App store. They leech enormous sums of money from creators, companies and consumers.<p>The argument that they&#x27;re a private company that can do whatever they want is moot. They&#x27;re an unavoidable ecosystem middleman that affects the entire digital industry. It is insanely hostile to every player except Apple.<p>The fact that you can&#x27;t even MENTION an alternative payment in your app should tell you how draconian and power hungry Apple is. You shouldn&#x27;t cloud your judgement by liking Apple in general or disliking Spotify.

Elon just tweeted from Apple HQ and is meeting with Tim Cook. Elon also deleted the tweet meme that he&#x27;s going to war over the 30%.<p>All talk and no substance, this thing won&#x27;t go anywhere. Elon probably got what he wanted from Apple and everything else is just fud for the masses. Elon does not care the 30% or what Apple does in China. He wants Twitter to stay in the app store and Apple to pay for advertising on Twitter.

Kettle. Pot. Black.<p>Monopolistic practices is what Spotify is, not just something it does.<p>Recently they went about buying podcasts. The idea was&#x2F;is to kill off the free protocol and centralise podcasts under their control... That way, listeners, advertisers and podcasters would all have to live by <i>spotify&#x27;s</i> rules. Like streaming music.<p>Sure. Apple give themselves every advantage, cream the market, etc. They have a monopoly. So does Spotify!<p>What happens when an artist doesn&#x27;t like Spotify&#x27;s take-it-or-leave-it terms? Why should apple treat <i>you</i> better then you treat others? Cry me a river.

I wish this guy would take some of his ample spare time and get his engineers working on the support for HomeKit devices that customers have been demanding for years now[1].<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;community.spotify.com&#x2F;t5&#x2F;Live-Ideas&#x2F;iOS-Implement-Native-HomePod-Support&#x2F;idc-p&#x2F;5388594" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;community.spotify.com&#x2F;t5&#x2F;Live-Ideas&#x2F;iOS-Implement-Na...</a>

Can someone explain why Apple is always the target for these complaints regarding fees? Is it just shorthand for both companies or a target people rally against? As Android has the same 30% fees for in-app billing, it&#x27;s not like it&#x27;s cheaper for Spotify on Google&#x27;s platform. I get there&#x27;s theoretically F-Droid and sideloading, but I don&#x27;t see Spotify on fdroid so presumably there&#x27;s not enough users to make it worth it.

Sharecroppers complaining that the land baron has stacked the deck in his own favour.<p>Spotify and Twitter began life on the web, not in the app store. No feature they offer requires a native app. Hence there was no reason to corral half the US userbase into someone else&#x27;s pen and leave them there for over a decade.<p>Epic has already gone to court on this matter (re: Fortnite on App Store) and lost. And Fortnite wasn&#x27;t even web-first!

This is minor - but Spotify doesn&#x27;t support Apple&#x27;s home pod&#x2F;home pod minis Siri integration...<p>This is especially disappointing as this (Siri integration) is one of the few areas Apple has opened up to 3rd party platforms!<p>Practically it&#x27;s annoying, I can&#x27;t `hey Siri play ...` and instead always have to start a song through my phone or computer and then airplay it over.<p>This has been ongoing for years now [0].<p>It&#x27;s only Spotify that hasn&#x27;t supported this. Apple Music of course, Pandora, and a host of other 3rd party apps support this but not Spotify!<p>[0]<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;community.spotify.com&#x2F;t5&#x2F;Live-Ideas&#x2F;iOS-Implement-Native-HomePod-Support&#x2F;idc-p&#x2F;5291729&#x2F;highlight&#x2F;true" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;community.spotify.com&#x2F;t5&#x2F;Live-Ideas&#x2F;iOS-Implement-Na...</a>

It&#x27;s a bit ridiculous to see people – who I believe to be tech literate – argue how Apple allowing more access to the device is going to be the end of the world.<p>In my opinion, Apple could very well give a special entitlement to developers who want full system access, maybe even by requiring to register the UDID somewhere on Apple&#x27;s website for that entitlement to be valid, whatever. Any apps signed with that entitlement can do whatever they want for the given UDID.<p>Why they don&#x27;t do it is pretty clear. But sure, it must be because they care about us :)

No substance, same arguments repeated from both sides all the time. Seems like a stalemate.<p>I see to ways out for a company that feels it’s getting ripped of by Apple:<p>1. Don’t publish in App Store, do a web app or encourage your customers to get a different platform device. Not sure which one since Google Play Store AFAIK has the same rules.<p>2. Charge users +30% more when buying through IAP if same is offered any place else and eat this as a cost of doing business.<p>Apple owns the platform. Apple sets the rules.

“Over and over again @Apple gives itself every advantage while at the same time stifling innovation and hurting consumers.”<p>That’s funny Ek. Seems like Spotify gives itself every advantage while at the same time stifling innovation and hurting musicians.

He takes 30% for his platform, what&#x27;s the issue with Apple taking 30% for their own platform? Quit the platform if you want. If consumers value Spotify enough they will leave Apple for it (spoiler: They won&#x27;t)

For those debating privacy here, we are still waiting for the year of Linux on desktop what makes you think that a fully featured smartphone with true privacy control is possible? Good luck staying away from Google on Android, it is a matter of choosing the less evil, and in my opinion Google is worse than Apple. Not only their entire business model is ads, they also run hardware divisions to get more ads revenue. Sure, Apple will never pass on the opportunity for some extra ads revenue but might have less pressure from its board and stakeholder to squeeze every single penny given the argument that this would impact the main revenue stream. Google does not have this luxory

&gt;&quot;So how much longer will we look away from this threat to the future of the internet? How many more consumers will be denied choice? There&#x27;s been a lot of talk. Talk is helpful but we need action,&quot; Ek wrote.&quot;<p>This from a man who built a company that has forced most of the artists on its platform to give away their work for pennies. This man has no problem with the &quot;threat&quot; to their livelihoods. And who can forget this quote from him:<p>&quot;You Can’t Record Music Every Three Or Four Years And Think That’s Going To Be Enough&quot; [1]<p>He also has no problem propping up the the oligopoly that is &quot;record industry&quot; where only three record companies control 70 percent of the market.<p>And he has no problem with Spotify having exclusives on things like podcast that were once open to all.<p>Daniel Ek is a hypocrite and an ass. He is best ignored.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.stereogum.com&#x2F;2093393&#x2F;spotify-ceo-daniel-ek-streaming-income&#x2F;news&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.stereogum.com&#x2F;2093393&#x2F;spotify-ceo-daniel-ek-stre...</a>

Honestly tech folks need to accept that everyone except them likes what Apple does. There is literally no other phone than an iPhone that I&#x27;d be comfortable to give my non technical mother or my underage children. They would get scammed, hacked or exploited and the tech companies behind those &quot;you can do what you want with your phone&quot; devices would hold up their hands and say we can&#x27;t do anything about it, just like Instagram, Facebook or TikTok say now they can&#x27;t protect our children from seeing harmful content or self harm material. I am so tired and sick of some privileged rich CEOs who campaign so hard to make the Apple ecosystem as toxic as their own platforms so they can get even richer. If you don&#x27;t want to pay Apple 30% then don&#x27;t put your stuff in the App Store. You don&#x27;t like what Apple does, then don&#x27;t do business with them. Stop whining. Consumers love Apple, young folks feel comfortable to install an online banking app on their grandparents iPhones and parents feel comfortable to give their teenagers an iPhone. I feel like every time some rich AF CEO complains about Apple&#x27;s 30% Apple should increase it by 1% until they all shut their mouth.

Brought to you by the same company that delivered us amazing innovations like the “exclusive podcast”.

I am constantly amazed how Apple continuously keeps getting defended online, even on HN, one would assume that you got paid for it, not that someone is spending their free time defending them.<p>I always love reading the arguments in the comments. &quot;Apple&#x27;s platform, Apple&#x27;s rules&quot;.<p>I just want to know what would those same comments say if it was Microsoft who came out and said that any app on Windows 11 must pay a 30% &quot;tax&quot; and that you have no freedom to install the apps you wish.<p>It doesn&#x27;t matter if you like the current status of the Apple platform, if it breaks the law, it must be stopped, the same way Microsoft was stopped 20 years ago.

I’m super surprised that people here are taking these corporations’ cries about “freedom” and “choice” at face value. This isn’t about the security checks of the App Store. It’s about the 30% cut, but not <i>just</i> the vig. It also about the privacy protections.<p>Zuck is now complaining about the app store[0]. Why? They can’t track users on iOS. That’s it. They want the freedom to exploit you.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stocks.apple.com&#x2F;A0-hW1tGKRs6TFkPCyFVJ8w" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;stocks.apple.com&#x2F;A0-hW1tGKRs6TFkPCyFVJ8w</a>

Spotify is 100% right about Apple&#x27;s fees being extortionate. On the other hand, Elon is such a loathsome human being that I can&#x27;t respect anyone signal-boosting him. Stop giving him attention, he is absolutely addicted to it.

When tesla open up their touchscreen to 3rd party apps then musk can throw stones.

Hmm, plenty of &quot;thoughts and prayers&quot; as I browse on my OpenBSD laptop, listening to DRM-free music I bought on Bandcamp... I used to be a Spotify subscriber, and I used to buy Apple products... both companies have treated me (and the rest of their customers) worse and worse over time, and I take my money elsewhere.

I’d be more sympathetic to this if the Spotify interface wasn’t just so terrible on all platforms. There’s not much innovation at Spotify, except perhaps in the legal department.

Given that there is tremendous code sharing of Apple&#x27;s OS+AppStore software on the laptop and phone, I have not understood how both hardware products are not subject to the same rules. Phones are basically micro-laptops and should have similar platform expectations, legally.

The sheer audacity of these (tech) CEOs is always mind blowing. They really have absolutely no sense of shame and morality.<p>&gt; &quot;So how much longer will we look away from this threat to the future of the internet? How many more consumers will be denied choice?&quot;<p>The future of the internet? Really? Spotify is as much of treat to &quot;the future of the internet&quot; than any other of these very profitable tech corps...

The argument that users should have the option to control their own phone (which perhaps only a small fraction of users would select) seems pretty reasonable, but what if it less about Apple execs being control freaks, and more about support costs. I can certainly imagine that if even less than 1% of Apple users exercised the option to escape from Apple control, that small fraction could have support costs that quickly matched the support costs of the 99% that stayed in the garden. So perhaps Apple could a more-unlocked iPhone that enabled more user control, but cost 2 - 3X as much as the &quot;locked&quot; version. My guess is that even with a 50% surcharge, which would be unlikely to cover additional costs, it probably would not sell.

In the windows world I download the installer for whatever software I need, click next-&gt;next-&gt;next (or choose where I want my stuff in my filesystem, add it to the path, opt in or out of stuff) and it works out of the box. No stores. (Well there is one, but I guess no one uses that)<p>In the linux world, I mostly look for package managers, or if not, its mostly just .&#x2F;configure -&gt; make -&gt; make install (or choose my own defaults at configure stage). (There are some app stores like canonical, but I guess no one uses that)<p>Haven&#x27;t used modern apple computers much, but I suppose its a mix of dragging and dropping dmg files, installers and package mangers (brew) or compile it yourself stuff.<p>Why do any phones not do installation like this? Its simple and you get what you want?

Musk now says that Tim Cook and Apple never threatened Twitter.<p>Has Musk again violated SEC rules (market manipulation)?

You&#x27;re free to buy an Android device if Apple devices don&#x27;t suit your needs.<p>And if you don&#x27;t want to pay the fee required to sell in this specific appstore, make it a website.<p>After all, you don&#x27;t get to sell your Etsy products in the shelves of local supermarkets for free either.

The problem here is that there are competing wrongs.<p>1) apple taking 30% of everything is just plain greed.<p>2) Musk is being a prick.<p>It&#x27;s possible to have a subscription on the iphone and not pay 30%. It requires extra steps.<p>The other issue is that musk almost certainly wants to do dodgy stuff with the payment processor because he&#x27;s been stung hard by chargebacks from the Blue cockup.<p>The best outcome for me personally is that apple boots them off the store, musk takes them to court and goes bankrupt in the process. By whichtime Apple (and google) will be balls deep in an anti-trust suit for the appstore&#x2F;advertising power grab. (bonus points for the EU nailing them for hoovering up personal data like 2013 facebook)

Shouldn&#x27;t this provide even more motivation for companies like Spotify to invest in a high quality Progressive Web App that can be installed to phones, bypassing the app store entirely?

He makes a good case.<p>Apple and Google have an oligarchy in mobile and Google has a monopoly in search.<p>The amount of self-dealing is overwhelming. Google consistently prefers their own experiences to those of other companies.<p>Apple does as well, in addition they lock out apps from the platform.<p>This is 100% an anti-competitive situation the fact there is no competition in a situation that should not otherwise have natural monopolies is the primary evidence of this.<p>I suggest that Google needs to be broken up and that it cannot defer search results to it&#x27;s other lines of businesses.<p>Apple must not be able to compete with services offered in the App Store, or, the App Store needs to be a separate business.<p>Alternative app stores must be allowed on mobile platforms.<p>While I&#x27;m on the anti-trust bandwagon - the money that AWS pours into Amazon retail, and their subsequent tax advantages are a form of economic dumping. Amazon is washing through retail with &#x27;tech money&#x27; putting a lot of competition out of business, after which they will raise prices. A strong argument could be made for breaking up AWS from Amazon Retail.<p>Finally, throw in some basic privacy rules and &#x27;right to repair&#x27; etc. and then you have some semblance of basic governance.<p>That there is no discussion about this whatsoever tells you who has power.<p>Traditional media (even ostensibly Left Wing) outlets won&#x27;t spend much time talking about it ... because money.<p>If a &#x27;Great Leader&#x27; emerged and did those things, I think we would look back upon it as a &#x27;total no brainer&#x27; in hindsight. Much like whenever we provide Ukraine some new gear after months of fretting about &#x27;upsetting Putin&#x27;, we never regret it at all, ergo the question begs asking: why not sooner?<p>This discussion needs to be had on a national scale, and though I&#x27;m generally not a huge fan of the EU, this is one area they could actually be useful.

I will never understand the argument that &quot;consumers are making the wrong choice and I want the government to force companies to take that choice away from them. It hurts my business. Force them to make different choices, specifically these choices which help me make money. That&#x27;s freedom!&quot;

This coming from a company that decimates its long-standing developer ecosystem at every available opportunity under the guise of security and licensing restrictions.<p>At least Apple lets people build apps for its platform in a relatively open way whilst also allowing for monetisation. Reap what you sow.

If Apple stopped taking 30%, does anybody believe Spotify will lower their prices by even 10%?

As an aside, it occurs to me that if I did have an iPhone, in-so much as Apple is able to realistically control, I&#x27;m not allowed to watch porn or download torrents on my own damn device. Obviously that&#x27;s not broadly true because of the web and esoteric workarounds, but because the one true app store is the only one, and Apple is the arbiter of what goes in there, I would have Ned Flanders staring in my window at all times. The main difference on Android for these specific cases, is that the Play store doesn&#x27;t ban torrent clients, and I can install any apk I want. The OS enforces a certain amount of security granularity, and I hope that improves, but I&#x27;m not subject to Google&#x27;s opinion if I don&#x27;t want to be. Does this not seem ridiculous to people who go with iOS?<p>Edit: To be clear, I&#x27;m not complaining about my real constraints, because I&#x27;ve already and always voted with my wallet and not bought an iPhone. They&#x27;re very nice hardware though.

Like … did everybody forget what the App Store&#x2F;Play Store used to look like with little to no moderations. It’s not something you want to go back to. Take my 30% and keep the ecosystem clean. People like Elon Musk are just real life versions of malware who want to dictate the narrative to further satisfy their own personal superiority complex. Like, yawn… give me a break.

With iStuff and generally Apple things, I keep getting the feeling that I don&#x27;t actually own and control the device, I <i>rent</i> it, and it is <i>Apple</i> who ultimately controls it.

Is it possible to subscribe Spotify via iOS app? I can&#x27;t find that option. It says &quot;You can&#x27;t upgrade to Premium in the app. We know, it&#x27;s not ideal.&quot;

There isn&#x27;t a good guy here, they are all just blaming each other and trying to take the moral high ground in order to make more profits for themselves.

Allow me to play the world&#x27;s smallest Violin, its like not Spotify is going to use that increased cash flow to actually pay the artist a meaningful cut of the reveune

If ever there was a valid application of monopoly abuse laws, it is Apple&#x27;s extortion for no value provided. Saying that as a blue blooded iFan who owns one of nearly every Apple product and service out there including the Apple Cloth. It is disgusting what Apple is doing. And it makes no sense that it is getting away with it. And if Google is doing the same, well then both need to be set right.

Looking forward to the Digital Markets Act.<p>Sucks that things only change when it affects big companies&#x27; profits, though.

Go to war? How? I don’t see what leverage Musk would have over Apple.

Pay your artists something meaningful on your own platform first!

Tesla phone by 2025 running a custom android version.

Internet companies should boycott the App Store and pull their apps at the same time.

I&#x27;m just here demoting the upvote&#x2F;comment ratio.

The price of a new iPhone 14 Pro Max[1] or 12.9&quot; iPad Pro[2] is ~45% component&#x2F;part costs, on top of which there is all of Apple&#x27;s R&amp;D costs including the cost of developing iOS and integrating it with new hardware, amongst many other costs to Apple of bringing a new product to market.<p>I couldn&#x27;t find public information for Apple or Google on the amount spent on R&amp;D for iOS and Android, hence I&#x27;m not sure what the cost to Apple is of maintaining iOS and all the APIs that application developers can use to build their applications. There are some attempts on the Internet of people attempting to estimate iOS&#x2F;Android R&amp;D costs from LinkedIn data, open jobs data, other public records of revenue from app stores, etc but nothing much I can see being of use to generating a useful estimate.<p>It appears that in 2021, Apple received somewhere between USD$10-25 billion[3] (likely on the high end of this range) from app store sales (after paying developers) which for the 235 million iPhones[4], 58 million iPads[5] and 29 million macOS devices[6] sold in 2021 equates to about USD$77 per device sold. I&#x27;ll just assume watches and TV app store sales don&#x27;t make much of a difference so USD$77 may be slightly on the high side of an estimate.<p>Apple could perhaps increase the price of all their iPhone, iPad and MacBook models by USD$77 and do away with collecting revenue through the app store, but would consumers still buy these devices at the higher price points?<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;webcache.googleusercontent.com&#x2F;search?q=cache:AwEUXo1KpJQJ:https:&#x2F;&#x2F;asia.nikkei.com&#x2F;Business&#x2F;Technology&#x2F;iPhone-14-teardown-reveals-parts-20-costlier-than-previous-model" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;webcache.googleusercontent.com&#x2F;search?q=cache:AwEUXo...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;webcache.googleusercontent.com&#x2F;search?q=cache:vDm8GLlEiKsJ:https:&#x2F;&#x2F;asia.nikkei.com&#x2F;Business&#x2F;Technology&#x2F;iPad-Pro-teardown-shows-sharp-increase-in-Taiwan-parts" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;webcache.googleusercontent.com&#x2F;search?q=cache:vDm8GL...</a><p>[3] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cnbc.com&#x2F;2022&#x2F;01&#x2F;10&#x2F;apple-implies-it-generated-record-revenue-from-app-store-during-2021-.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cnbc.com&#x2F;2022&#x2F;01&#x2F;10&#x2F;apple-implies-it-generated-r...</a><p>[4] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.idc.com&#x2F;getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS48830822" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.idc.com&#x2F;getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS48830822</a><p>[5] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.idc.com&#x2F;getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS48826122" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.idc.com&#x2F;getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS48826122</a><p>[6] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.canalys.com&#x2F;newsroom&#x2F;global-pc-market-Q4-2021" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.canalys.com&#x2F;newsroom&#x2F;global-pc-market-Q4-2021</a>

if i build a store and allow companies to sell to my customers...i get to dictate the price. if you don&#x27;t like it then innovate and build your own store or develop a direct relationship with the customer. spotify should team up with elon to build a competitor to apple just like epic decided to compete against steam. this is how free market capitalism works...if they decide apple is doing something monopolistic then the federal courts give spotify an avenue to pursue that. build your case and sue apple

Pure and simple jealously about not being able to leech people using Apple devices.<p>Nobody wants to remove the fences protecting sheep more than the wolves.

&gt; Tim Sweeney, the CEO of &quot;Fortnite&quot; maker Epic Games, tweeted on Wednesday that fighting Apple&#x27;s &quot;monopoly&quot; was &quot;an American issue transcending party politics&quot;.<p>Forget fixing healthcare, reducing gun crime or the opioid epidemic. This is the real issue.

The kind of dark pattern bullshit and anti-usability mess Spotify has become I would rather see Spotify die. Not to mention the “Spotify only” podcasts.<p>While we are at it we should point out Spotify has no clear ways to export your listening history, playlists etc that you can easily recreate on other portals.<p>It’s not a fight for equality. It’s an attempt by Spotify to be more equal than others.

&gt; <i>&quot;So how much longer will we look away from this threat to the future of the internet? How many more consumers will be denied choice? There&#x27;s been a lot of talk. Talk is helpful but we need action</i><p>Jesus, laying it on a bit thick, don&#x27;t you think? Spotify, Twitter, Facebook, Epic, Apple and their asshat CEOs could all disappear tomorrow and the future of the Internet would not suffer one single iota.<p>&gt; <i>Musk is expected to talk with European Commissioner Thierry Breton via videocall on Wednesday afternoon, though the agenda was unknown.</i><p>And why is an EU Commissioner having one-on-ones with Musk? Last time I heard of this it was another Commissioner talking with Ashton Kutcher about his pet project of saving the children by eradicating online privacy.