I feel like everyone is putting pressure on me, or at least my wallet. Every single one of the top streaming services I use is raising their prices, and while I usually grimace and accept it, last night I was like, “No.”
In case you missed it, Apple is also a streaming company. Its Apple TV Plus service currently offers some of the best series and movies among all streamers. The kidnapping was a hoot. The coda was an emotional triumph. Shrinking is some of Harrison Ford’s best work, and The Morning Show is soapy but gripping.
A year ago, when Apple raised the price from $4.99 to $6.99, I took note but also appreciated that it was still a bargain compared to Max or Netflix. Then this year Apple raised the price again to $9.99/£8.99. It bothered me, but I figured I’d probably pay this extra cost too.
However, it is not that simple. You see, I am an Apple One customer and have been since its launch in October 2020.
Apple One, a comprehensive subscription plan that saves money for all its services, was a natural extension of Apple’s multi-year push into the services business. She’s been adding them as charms to a Pandora bracelet for years, and now we have six:
Since I used at least half of these services, I appreciated Apple’s effort to bundle them together and maybe save me some money. To be honest, I signed up for the Apple One Premier tier because, at the time, I was facing a storage shortage (we share iCloud storage with my entire iPhone-owning best family) and I realized I kept paying more and further. more for space, while still paying for the Apple Music family plan separately (I initially had a free Apple TV Plus account thanks to a newly purchased iPhone).
There were obvious efficiencies with Apple One, plus you could use all those other Apple services.
Three years later, I rarely use anything other than storage and Apple TV Plus, and with the latter, usage is intermittent as there aren’t always good things to watch or I’m knee-deep in a months-long binge. on another platform (Peaky Blinders, anyone?).
By the way, I’ve been thinking about the cost of all this because I’m in the middle of a post-cable breakup that was brought on by the realization that everything was costing too much, so I didn’t even look at it.
I want to be clear: the price of the Apple One bundle for all of these services is still a good deal, especially if you use them all. If you paid for each of them individually (at the 2TB storage tier), it would cost you $66.94 / £64.94.
Receive the Bad News
When I started paying for the Apple One Premier tier in 2020, it was $29.95. That was a great price for all those services. When it jumped to $32.95 a couple of years later, I still thought it was a good deal. Yesterday I received an email telling me that the pole vault would cost $37.95 / £36.95.
The letter was brief and direct. Apple thanked me for signing up, described the increase, and told me it would be automatic unless I canceled at least one day before the official price increase on December 9.
I must have looked at that email for 10 minutes trying to decide what to do. Since 2020, the Apple One has seen a price increase of about 27%, and I’m starting to wonder if Apple is now actively testing its customers’ economic pain threshold.
Surely Apple CEO Tim Cook has taken a look around and realized that everyone gets away with it. Netflix is imposing significant price increases on its customers and growing its subscriber base in the process. Amazon charges $139 / £95 a year for Amazon Prime (still a great deal in my books) but has been increasing the subscription price almost annually.
Apple needs to realize that with services it has a business with the rare combination of price insensitivity and almost guaranteed annuities because people rarely opt out of something. The price increase does not seem to have any drawbacks.
However, if I am a microcosm, then the actions I took next should give Apple and Cook pause.
In the 10 minutes, I pondered my next move, I took a hard look at which of all those Apple services I use on a daily or at least weekly basis. If I had to do it by weekly percentages, it would look like this:
- iCloud storage: 100% (used by my entire family)
- Apple TV+: 25%
- Apple Arcade: 0%
- Apple News: 15%
- Apple Fitness+: 0%
- Apple Music: 20%
These rough estimates made my next step very clear, and I have to thank Apple for making it so easy to unsubscribe from each service individually. It is a rare circumstance where the provider makes the options obvious and painless.
I unchecked all services except iCloud and Apple TV Plus, and the only reason I kept the streaming service on is because I know we plan to watch Chemistry Lessons next week.
In the future, there’s a good chance I’ll unsubscribe from Apple TV Plus and resubscribe when there’s something I want to watch. By the way, this is my new plan for all streaming services. That’s why I’m not currently subscribed to Max.
I’m not mad at Apple for trying to make a few extra bucks, but I think the casual way it told me I’d pay $60 more a year was pretty cheeky. Of course, I won’t be paying that and now, with this little exercise, I’ll be saving almost $20 a month.
I’m unlikely to miss those services (maybe Apple Music’s voluminous access to all of Taylor Swift’s music, a little) but I know I won’t miss another $5 a month from my wallet. That is enough for me.
Keynote USA News
Besides Apple News, You can get AirPods/”>Airpods | Apple TV | Vision | Mac | iPhone | iPad/”>iPods News. So, Follow @Keynote USA News on Twitter and Google News
