Apple Services Price Hikes
The price changes in the U.S. are as follows:
- Apple TV+: $6.99 per month → $9.99 per month
- Apple Arcade: $4.99 per month → $6.99 per month
- Apple News+: $9.99 per month → $12.99 per month
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In the U.S., these are the first-ever price increases for Apple Arcade and Apple News+ since the services launched in November 2019, while Apple TV+ had its first price increase from $4.99 per month to $6.99 per month in October 2022.
This increase really shouldn’t come as a surprise: Disney+, Hulu, Netflix—almost every major streaming service has raised their prices over the last year. In some cases, this is to compensate for lost revenue from customers canceling cable packages where older more conventional networks and studios used to bring in money for selling their shows.
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This is the second price hike for Apple TV+, which debuted at a $4.99 monthly price (free for several months in many cases)—with a rather paltry library of content—before subsequently rising to $6.99 a year ago. Apple’s built up its TV+ content substantially since launch, and the company seems to be making the argument that all of that new material is worth more money.
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I do have to raise an eyebrow at the increased costs for both Apple Arcade and Apple News+. Neither of these services seem to have been blockbuster hits for the company, and perhaps Apple’s decided it’s not just going to make it up in volume.
Subscription pricing requires a form of calculus to find the sweet spot that generates the most money. Set the price too low and you’ll reduce piracy but leave money on the table. Set the price too high and you’ll generate less money because more users — ones who might otherwise have subscribed at a lower price — will choose to bootleg. (Some people, of course, will always choose to bootleg. There’s no point trying to find a price to appease them.)
But pricing isn’t the only factor in this equation. The experience is too. Bootlegging’s obvious appeal is the price: zero. But it’s always been a bit of a pain in the ass. Weird apps and sketchy sources. Steve Jobs emphasized this aspect of the iTunes Music Store when he introduced it: 99 cents was an appealing price, but not as appealing as free. But the overall experience of searching for and downloading music from iTunes was so much better than bootlegging that it made you happy to pay for the songs.
Apple still gets that part: their apps for consuming their services are generally very low on annoyances. You almost never have to sign back in because your previous sign-in expired.
That’s a pretty low bar. I contend that the overall Apple TV experience is just not good these days. It’s so frustrating to navigate and search, and it doesn’t handle state well. It’s nothing like the breath of fresh air that iTunes was. I don’t want to be a pirate, and I don’t want to run a Plex server, but it’s tempting to explore that world because the supposedly premium interface is so obnoxious.
And, as Gruber says, with Apple News+ you are paying for something that’s worse than the Web.
In the United States, the price of the Basic [Netflix] plan will increase from $9.99 to $11.99 per month, while the price of the Premium plan will increase from $19.99 to $22.99 per month. The ad-supported tier price will remain the same at $6.99 per month, as will the $15.49/month Standard plan.
Netflix no longer offers the Basic plan to new subscribers in the United States, but prices will presumably increase for existing subscribers.
Previously:
- Apple Is Finally Killing Off iTunes
- 6 TB and 12 TB iCloud+ Plans
- The Enshittification of All Things
- Setting the Bozo Bit on Apple
- The Apple Services Experience Is Not Good Enough
- An Unsolicited Streaming App Spec
Update (2023-10-30): Ernesto Van der Sar (via Hacker News):
Blocking pirate sites is widely believed to reduce the number of visits to the targeted domains. However, new research based on data provided by WIPO and funded by the Republic of Korea, suggests that’s not always the case. Roughly a quarter of all domains for which data was available received more visits after they were blocked.
Update (2023-12-12): Adam Chandler:
I’ve listed today’s published costs of what these services cost if you were to sign up for each one individually.
If I were paying for these streaming services every single month, the total cost is $175.49 or $2100 a year. This is more than any cable package I’ve ever had.
Update (2023-12-29): Joe Rosensteel:
Yesterday people seem to be completely shocked by the email they received from Amazon that Prime Video was going to include ads by default, unless subscribers paid an additional sum. This news was from months ago, and I mentioned it here on this blog too.
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The only move you have to protest Prime Video’s inclusion of ads, is to cancel Prime (you won’t do that) or to stop using Prime Video “to send a message” (they don’t care).
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People are still completely oblivious to why any of the subscription fees are going up. They were too low. They were financed by investors that prioritized growth, when investment money was basically free.
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Also, people seem to have this opinion that other companies don’t have ads, so Amazon is a second-rate streamer (whatever that means), but they all have ad-supported tiers, except Apple TV+, and that’s just a matter of time.
Update (2024-02-16): Todd Spangler (via Hacker News):
A lawsuit seeking class-action status accused Amazon of false advertising and deceptive practices because Prime Video now serves commercials by default.
They started the ads within the membership year of people who had signed up before there were ads.
