I don't think you understand that over at Apple, not paying the 30% is not being on iPhone..period. Not being on the play store is not being on Android for 90% of customers. This is why both are facing major antitrust cases.
That is simply not true.
You can easily set account creation and payment on your website for "reader apps" if you're not willing to share 30/15% with Apple. (and Spotify & Netflix qualify as reader apps). Apple even allows you to put a link to your website for account creation right in the app (they didn't allow that in the past).
Many companies (like Google) move Apple's subscription fee to end users, so don't feel too pity about them. Just compare YouTube premium cost as an in-app purchase and on the website. €15.99 vs €11.99 here in Ireland.
Google had a choice not to offer the YouTube subscription as IAP and just link people to the website. But the conversion rate for IAP is way higher compared to the website link, so they just punish their users, who pay €4 extra every month.
Reader apps are an extremely specific clause, mostly related to their Ebook price fixing lawsuit. Zero of the apps in discussion here are reader apps.
I should also note, that up until recently, Apple specifically had clauses that you couldn't have the link to the website bit AND they had a 'you can't pass the price onto customers' rule.
Reader apps is quite wide category. It includes pretty much all types of content - ebooks, videos, audio etc. Spotify and Netflix falls under it afaik.
I have no idea what world you think you live in..but Apple has pretty clearly defined it mostly as Email and Ebook reading. Zero music or video services have ever gotten an exception. Spotify and Netflix have different exceptions called 'backroom deals' that allow them to have an unfair advantage over smaller players.
Aaah, okay, I was under the impression that you could actually be present on the Play Store as a subscription service and just handle your own payments and that would be perfectly acceptable.
But that makes the deal even weirder, Spotify doesn't have a choice, yet they have a completely insane deal.
