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Apple TV Plus is getting a price hike – and other Apple subscriptions are, too
- crazygringo 3y agoApple TV+: - Nov 2019 introduction: $4.99 - Oct 2022 hike: $6.99 - Now: $9.99 That's not just inflation. That's a helluva rise, to double in just four years. It makes me wonder whether it's more due to being priced below cost initially, or whether it's more about costs having doubled with Apple TV+ putting out so much new content now. I mean, Apple TV+ has definitely been growing much larger and faster than I ever would have expected, in terms of content.
- arberx 3y agoNo it's greed.
- olyjohn 3y agoExactly... It's a big fat bait and switch. Don't tell me they didn't know what all the costs of this was going to be. They get deals by committing to prices for a number of years. They know the costs of IP, production, cloud streaming, etc. They didn't build this whole thing going into it blind. The only other thing that I think it could be... they don't have as many subscribers as they planned. People fucking sick of 69,420 streaming services with no content. People sick of getting milked by subscriptions.
- crazygringo 3y ago> Don't tell me they didn't know what all the costs of this was going to be. They... didn't. You think, back in 2017 when they were planning the service, they knew how much programming they'd producing six years in the future and at what price point? Corporations aren't nearly as smart as you think they are. Budgets are changed on a year-by-year basis according to how consumer behavior is different from what they predicted, and how the competition and overall market is different as well from what they predicted. > They get deals by committing to prices for a number of years. No idea what you're talking about. What deals? Committing to what prices? Apple TV+ isn't purchasing existing shows. They're making Apple TV originals. The budget for each season of a TV show is set shortly after that show gets ordered/renewed for a first/subsequent season, and it changes based on how successful the show is. They're not "going into it blind", but predictions for anything -- viewership, costs, competitor prices -- are very often off by a factor of 2 within a year or two in the corporate world. Apple isn't made of oracles, just regular business analysts.
- cydonian_monk 3y agoI suspect this is for a few reasons, and somewhat agree with your conjectures. One of the reasons being the platform's popularity and quality of work, which has allowed them to attract higher quality talent (which in turn costs more). Another reason is anticipation of an increase in royalties/residuals as a result of the end of the writer's strike and the eventual conclusion of the SAG-AFTRA strike. And finally because the Apple TV platform now has considerable more content than it did at launch, and can command a higher price.
- Isthatablackgsd 3y agoI felt their library catalog is lackluster compared to other streaming services. The contents I want to watch are usually buy, rent or with supplemental subscription. They have a reasonable tv shows selections but most of them seems to be Apple Original. Their movie catalog is very lacking, not sure if it is a specific genre (Horror) seems non-existent or require to buy, rent or other subs instead of including with Apple TV+.
- criddell 3y agoThe beauty of their streaming service is that it's incredibly simple to pause your subscription. We do it all the time. When something shows up that we want to watch, we subscribe with one click. When we finish it, we unsubscribe with one click.
- Isthatablackgsd 3y agoI agree with you. My comment is an response to their price hike. Usually when it comes to price hike, there are justification for it. My point is that Apple don't have a justification to increase their subscription pricing because they don't includes many things in the catalog without paying extra. The sub includes Apple Originals which is not wrong with that, it feels they should include more than their original contents to get a better deal out of their subscription.
- blairbeckwith 3y agoThat is exactly what Apple TV+ is – Apple Originals, basically exclusively, and why it has historically been priced cheaper than other streaming services. They have explicitly not been trying to build up a catalog of non-owned movies and shows. The movies and shows you say are available to buy and rent are not in fact a part of the Apple TV+ service, but are browsable in to the Apple TV app.
- api 3y agoIf you like the stuff on it, it's actually pretty cheap compared to what media used to cost. I would rather see prices go up than see For All Mankind get cancelled. :)
- Zelphyr 3y agoI felt from the start that a $4.99 price point right out of the gate from Apple was going to get increased sooner rather than later. Honestly, I'm surprised it has taken them this long and will probably be going even higher.
- ceejayoz 3y agoI wonder how many people actually pay for Apple TV by itself. We get a family Apple One plan (https://www.apple.com/apple-one/); https://www.apple.com/apple-one/); $25/month gets all of us extra iCloud storage (which we'd need anyways), Music (which we want anyways, and would be $17/month for a family plan). The TV side of things is essentially free.
- ksec 3y agoThat is exactly the point, as I have been saying since 2019. Or probably before even Apple TV was introduce. iCloud Storage and Apple Music has a fixed cost per unit model. i.e It cost Apple X for every GB you stored, and X for every song you listened to. Low margin business that requires volume. Apple TV is capital intensive and has a paid once for making content and it is basically free for as long as Apple owns it. By Bundling together they get you to subscribe more than one service ( Storage and Music ), and Apple TV acts as bundled extra that makes you feel getting very decent value. That is Apple essentially spending money ( Mostly services money from Google's default search engine ) on digital / media asset to be bundled into their subscription model to hopefully create a moat. It makes a lot of sense from a Business and Financial perspective. But I still dislike Apple going to media business.
- bradfa 3y agoDoesn't feel that different than how YouTubeTV prices have steadily risen since it's introduction. It's now $72.99/month. In 2017 it was $35/month.
- dogma1138 3y agoApple is putting out new content but they have essentially no external content library and the quality of Apple TV+ shows is a hit and miss.
- ReptileMan 3y agoAnd torrents get more users.
- prepend 3y agoStill the same price. But with even more features and content.
- isykt 3y agoAre there any numbers available for this? I am skeptical for two reasons: (1) Torrenting is a hassle compared to the streaming services. (2) Millenials are the only generation tech savvy enough to do that en masse and honestly who has the time?
- ceejayoz 3y agoThere are non-torrent streaming piracy options like TheFlixer. (I have no idea how they pay for bandwidth.)
- ReptileMan 3y agoAnd streaming services are hassle compared to streaming services. I just canceled my Netflix premium - it got tiring with the whole homescreen and traveling codes business
- pizzalife 3y agoI subscribed just to watch "Invasion" but I realized too late it's a bad show. Not paying another month. Not been impressed with Apple TV at all. Foundation is alright, but probably just because it's based on books by Isaac Asimov.
- cflewis 3y agoSeverance is excellent. As is For All Mankind.
- pizzalife 3y agoI found Severance to be pretty meandering and I didn't like the acting. I'll give it another try.
- darknavi 3y agoThe lore building in it is really enjoyable to me. It almost reminds of me Tales from the Loop, which is extremely slow but all about world building.
- Hyzer 3y agoI almost stopped watching because the middle episodes (of the first season) were just wheel spinning. But the last 3 episodes surprised me, they really redeemed the season in a big way.
- sbierwagen 3y agoA victim of the medium. Prestige TV almost always has too little writing to cover too many episodes. At least with episodic TV you could skip the filler episodes, but when long-form linear TV drips out plot revelations every ten minutes you have to sit through the whole thing.
- entropicdrifter 3y agoIt's a slow burn but a solid mystery/drama. The end of the season has some edge-of-your-seat moments that wouldn't hit nearly as hard without all of the smaller moments from the middle of the season
- TehCorwiz 3y agoThat's funny because I just canceled my subscription over their treatment of Jon Stewart.
- NickC25 3y agoand honestly there's been little coverage of it...which is terrifying. I get why Apple did what they did, but it's kinda disturbing. But then again, Tim Cook is practically a member of the CCP, and got his marching orders when the CCP learned that Stewart was going to make an episode that was critical of them. Stewart should go the independent route - he'd instantly be the top content creator in the news/opinion space.
- bamazizi 3y agoFirst cable tv prices sky rocketed with a lot of ads and cord cutting became a thing. Now streaming services are raising pricing and subscription fatigue has started the cord 2.0 cutting. I've gone from about 12 subscriptions (Netflix, Crave, Disney+, Apple Tv+, Fubo, Dazn, PrimeVideo, TSN, SportsNet, Funimation, CrunchyRoll, YouTube Premium) down to 6 and thinking of cutting another 3 and only keeping Netflix for kids, Prime (well because of Amazon Prime) and YouTube for me.
- wongarsu 3y agoAt least so far most streaming subscriptions are easy to cancel, so you can rotate through the different services depending on what you want to watch. Only a matter of time until services try to prevent that by locking you into yearly or longer contracts.
- anjel 3y agoNot so fast... Amazon announces Prime Video is Adding Commercials For All Subscribers (iv 2024) https://cordcuttersnews.com/amazons-prime-video-is-adding-commercials-on-all-subscribers-here-is-everything-you-need-to-know-answering-your-questions/ https://cordcuttersnews.com/amazons-prime-video-is-adding-co...
- adocomplete 3y agoI'm probably out. I have the $32/mo Apple Family sub, but with literally every service going up 20-30% over the last year, I just don't see the point. I used to spend about $60-80/mo on various streaming services, now it's closer to $150 and content quality has not improved, if anything it's significantly worsened.
- ceejayoz 3y agoThey've successfully kneecapped Netflix, so now they get to restore the cable TV status quo.
- entropicdrifter 3y agoAt this point I'd say it's more the situation that the industry has consolidated into few enough companies (WB/HBO/Discovery, Disney, Paramount, Comcast(NBC/Universal), Netflix, and Apple) that they're able to easily price fix. The problem is that just 6 companies own the rights to basically the entirety of American film culture outside of some tiny niches. This is worse than going back to cable. We're almost all the way back to the Old Hollywood studio system, where different studios had different theaters they owned and almost nobody else was allowed to show their studio's films.
- HDThoreaun 3y agoI always got the feeling that the main purpose of the apple streaming service was creating content for their soon to be released VR headset. It's mostly original content unlike other services that mix in tons of farmed out stuff and there's a pretty big emphasis on sports with the MLS deal and almost getting the pac 12 deal. I'm interested in seeing what they co me up with when they start making VR native stuff shot using the cameras they use for sporting events. Not super surprising that they're raising the price in the lead up to the headset release I think.
- prepend 3y agoI don’t understand why cloud storage prices are going up as costs should be deflationary as disks and bandwidth get cheaper. IP costs more, but that sucks. I liked the apple one bundle at $20, but at $26 it’s pretty stupid.
- ezfe 3y agoCloud storage costs aren't going up, the 2TB plan has been $9.99 its entire lifetime.
- wongarsu 3y agoIt's probably due to the other things in the bundle. icloud+ (so just the storage) seems to have kept the same prices since 2018, and the 50GB and 200GB tier haven't changed price since 2016. Both the change in 2016 and 2018 were price drops. I don't know why the price never dropped after 2018, but at least the highest icloud+ tier it's in line with what other providers charge for cloud storage. It just doesn't get that much cheaper than $5/TB.
- crazygringo 3y agoNo, consumer cloud subscriptions don't tend to decrease in price. Instead, they add capacity over time at the same price point. E.g. in 2017 Apple changed its $9.99/mo plan from 1 TB to 2 TB. And by the way it's still at that $9.99 price. It hasn't gone up, at least not in the US. Compared with inflation, it actually has gotten cheaper in real terms.
- totaldude87 3y ago$9.99 for apple plus vs Netflix ad plan for $8? The value proposition doesnt fit, may be Apple will start doing the starbucks model and have a bundle that will cost less (than today ) , ex Apple Plus + News = $15 sort of thing what if they do a "pay $75" a month for iPhone and Services all included
- apetresc 3y agoThey have that already, it's called Apple One: https://www.apple.com/apple-one/ https://www.apple.com/apple-one/ It's how I get Apple TV+.
- lattalayta 3y agoThe have something similar currently available https://www.apple.com/apple-one/ https://www.apple.com/apple-one/
- PeterStuer 3y agoAlready canceled it last pricehike. Still using the device for watching Youtube (premium).
- tr3ntg 3y agoThis makes Apple One entirely not worth it. But I'm pretty biased - I opted out of even the current pricing after being disappointed with Apple Music and Apple TV. I don't want to rant about bad software, but they really need to stick to budget pricing so long as they deliver a budget experience. The iOS and TV apps for Music and TV+ feel... low quality. Sluggish, buggy, etc. I would expect more from a company that is in control of the entire stack at play - an Apple device, running an Apple-made app, backed by Apple-managed servers... Anyway, very happy I didn't become attached to Apple One during the trial period.
- isykt 3y agoIs Apple preparing for a loss of their Google search default revenue?
- LanceMan 3y agoI don't mind a reasonable price hike of maybe 5%, but 43% price hike is absurd. Won't be renewing AppleTV anytime soon and if I do will be month to month. Most services are forcing me to do rotational streaming.
- methou 3y agoI find it’s difficult to cancel an apple one trial. I have a 6mo Apple Music trial came with the device purchase, then “upgraded” into the Apple One trial which I just activated. Finding out that’s a bad deal to me I wanted to cancel the Apple trial and it says the subscription will be ended immediately instead of the usual claim “until the end of current billing cycle” But after I have determined to cancel this no matter what, the result is surprising: Your subscription is expiring soon. Your Apple One subscription expires on November 20. This is dark.