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And with attitudes like yours, Apple will continue giving people less and charging more (for everything).
I'm not paying for iCloud. It's not my attitude, it's Apple's (and many more companies around the world). I was just stating about people complain but they will buy it anyway.
 
When I was younger and naive I thought these services could only get cheaper while we as consumers would received more.
Now I'm an old man and recognize the capitalistic trap I fell into and just pay coz I'm so deeply entrenched 🥰

LETS GOOOOOO!
Prices shouldn't go down, in fact, an increase like this is normal. The problem is capacity. They need to gradually increase prices due to inflation but they also need to increase capacity at the same time. It should be 100/400/4000
 
I was surprised at how low you indicate the MS Office subscription is so I looked it up. I don't see that low of a price. $20/year?

What I see is this:
Microsoft 365 Personal: $69.99/yr
Microsoft 365 Business Basic; $6 per user per month. I don't know if there is a minimum number of user for this plan, but say that only 1 user is required, that would be $72/yr

Where are you getting the $20/yr price? If that's the price, it is a great deal.
Yep I pay a bit more than that for my personal on the Mac (through Apple Store ) $90 per year (I do all my few software subscription through that means)
 
At that price, Dropbox looks like a better buy.
Heck I just bought an 8TB bus-powered SSD for about 350usd, which will last a lot longer than the $'s worth of icloud. ...and it travels with me & doesn't rely on having access to someones network to access the internet for long periods of time or make you wait to up & download huge files, and you can hand it to someone to share files just as quickly, etc etc etc

You got the cloud? more like you got clowned lol
 
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@Shirasaki do you routinely give away free products in your line of work? Perhaps you'd like to fund my storage costs?

Their profit margin is dictated by you. The consumer. People like you routinely buy their products and are happy to accept the premium cost. If you didn't do this, they wouldn't charge so much. But you do buy their products, so the only responsible group are the consumers themselves.
I can tell you. If somehow every Apple customer magically stops buying their devices for a full year, Apple would be fine. There has been reports of Apple trying to cut the cost on chip manufacturing, and now Apple storage subscription Price hike. Yes, I would not give away free services at my own cost, but I would not keep a high profit margin when fewer people can enjoy the product/service If I insist on high price.

Apple is so big that customers decision barely matters unless our action reaches a critical mass. Let’s say, 90% of customers saying no To Apple. Early on you can say yes, customer accepted the price, but if laser 128‘s popularity in 1980s to 1990s is of any indicator, general public will care nothing about how Apple think, and just happily but products that work for them.

Theres always more that meets the eye. Remember that.
 
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I'm not paying for iCloud. It's not my attitude, it's Apple's (and many more companies around the world). I was just stating about people complain but they will buy it anyway.
Exactly. Any time any company raises prices the forums go crazy with outrage and predictions of failure after everyone leaves the service. Never happens.
 
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Right here. Part of Microsoft 365 Basic, a new tier that debuted this year. $20 a year and you got access to Office on the web as well as 100 gb of OneDrive storage.

Office on the web? That’s… eh… ok…
 
1. Sounds like inflation as this isn’t in the US.
2. If you don’t like the pricing don’t use it.
3. Dropbox offers unlimited storage at a fairly reasonable price. You can store your Photos library there too.
 
Right here. Part of Microsoft 365 Basic, a new tier that debuted this year. $20 a year and you got access to Office on the web as well as 100 gb of OneDrive storage.

I just found for me years ago it was easier to get the 365 via apple than Microsoft. I had so many problems getting my apple products (mac at time only) to work well with their “subscriptions” but then was never a fan of Microsoft just needed excell primarily (do not like numbers and could not export working spreadsheets i had in excell for budget and such ).
So also use Word more than pages (more by habit and that I had a word account on my office windows computer ).

So that route is $90 a year and for me 100 GB would never work as I am already at 120 GB of storage on my 200GB plan (mostly photos see below — the evil of iphones with cool cameras LOL)

IMG_7251.jpeg
 
If Apple is going to increase the prices. Apple needs to offer more iCloud storage.
You mean more at a higher price or more at the same price?
We need more than 2TB for iCloud storage. It’s simply not enough. Why isn’t Apple offering more iCloud storage?
I would love to have more an option of more space on iCloud, I would also love an option for higher speed access to it. I have about 60TB on Dropbox, for which I pay about $900 a year. The problem with iCloud and Dropbox storage is that accessing it is very slow (due to throttling by the services). Wasabi and iDrive e2 both get me the full speed on my connection, but cost about $50 per TB per year.
 
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I could say that this price hike represents an increase in costs, but I suppose that would not be true.

Here in Brazil, Apple offers 2 TB iCloud+ for BRL 49.90 a month. Microsoft offers Microsoft 365, with 1 TB storage, plus all Office apps, for BRL 36 per month (with a discount for the yearly plan). The family plan allows six people to use it for BRL 45 per month. Google offers Google One with 2 TB online storage for BRL 35 per month (also with a discount for the yearly plan).

Which extras do you get with iCloud+? The ability to get locked into Apple's ecosystem?

Are those companies subsidizing online storage? Has it become too expensive for some reason? I simply do not understand. How does it make sense?
 
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Not really how the math works.

  1. You're assuming every single customer uses up his or her free 5GB. This is most likely not the case.
  2. Not sure how you got $573M. It should be $57.3M ($0.0675×850M).
  3. Apple has 2B active devices in early 2023. Considering most people have multiple Apple devices and a lot of us even have multiple Apple IDs, e.g., for work/school and for personal use, the actual number of users must be considerably lower than 2B and a lot of Apple IDs probably have very little iCloud usage.
Given #1, the cost of iCloud storage's free tier must necessarily be lower than $57.3M, which is a pittance for the world's richest company. You need to learn basic arithmetic before you start lecturing people about "real maths".

Apple is milking its users on RAMs and cloud storage. Given how integrated iCloud is to Apple's ecosystem, 5GB is really a travesty and the amount Apple is charging for the paid tiers is downright shameful.
You are quite right. I through the numbers in the calculator and accidentally added an extra zero. $57.3M is still not a small sum for any business.

However, the goal of this is an investment to MAKE you upgrade to the next tier. If people are not upgrading their tiers, they'll drop the amount available to push users to upgrade. Some will leave, and they know this, but ultimately, it's a strategy to make you upgrade. Apple is not a charity after all.

Regarding the number of devices. That was not my metric. I was looking for Apple ID's. I quickly Googled the question and it came up with 850m in 2018. Active devices, as you rightly put it, are very different.

At the end of the day, there is no "travesty". We, the consumer, chose this path and Apple is, once again, not a charity.

I certainly don't mean it in a bad way, but if you aren't satisfied, choose another product that does meet your requirements and goals.

Interestingly, I did a little research on ChatGPT. It does provide context to the cost and ultimately, the "free" element isn't very free at all.

The exact cost to Apple for maintaining an Apple ID account is not publicly disclosed information, and it can be quite complex to estimate due to several factors.

These factors can include:

1. Infrastructure: This covers servers, data centres, network systems, and power. Apple invests heavily in its infrastructure to ensure the smooth operation of its services.

2. Software development: This includes costs associated with designing, creating, testing, and maintaining the software that manages Apple IDs and associated services.

3. Security: Apple places a high priority on protecting user data and privacy, which involves substantial investments in encryption, secure servers, and other security measures.

4. Customer service: Any time a user needs assistance with their Apple ID, whether it's resetting a password, dealing with a potential security issue, or something else, customer service costs are incurred.

5. Compliance and regulatory costs: These are the costs related to adhering to legal and regulatory requirements in the various countries where Apple operates.

Each of these factors contributes to the total cost to Apple for each Apple ID. However, these costs would likely be distributed across the large user base and offset by revenues from services and other sources. The exact per-user cost to Apple is likely a closely guarded business secret.
 
I just want Apple One in The Netherlands with 2TB, but since we don't get Apple Fitness+ here for some reason only knows to the Gods and Apple, it's limited to 200GB.
The lack of the full Apple One package in (many) European countries but still charging the exact same (plus minus taxes) to what countries with the full package pay is peak "streamline everything, only cater to the mainstream, no options for niche needs"-Apple.

Surely, every one of the services included in Apple One costs Apple an amount to produce, and when Apple can't/won't provide one or more services in a given country, surely they can deduct that value from the Apple One pricing?

Also, why does Apple (seemingly) not have the rights for its own Fitness+ content to stream anywhere in the World but it does have the rights to all of the TV+ content that it has produced?

And if it's not a rights issue what kind of issue could it then be? Apple doesn't produce new Fitness+ content for every country where it's available, so why are only some countries getting it while others aren't? We all speak enough English to follow a workout with subtitles for those who can't.

Why no Fitness+ in every country where Apple sells its products and services?

Is it just a matter of server costs and Apple expecting consumers to just get it any way despite the much lower value compared to what "full package"-countries get?
 
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I'm not paying for iCloud. It's not my attitude, it's Apple's (and many more companies around the world). I was just stating about people complain but they will buy it anyway.
A few years ago, I got tired of dealing with the "out of space" messages and got a subscription for the family. How are you able to manage your Apple device with only 5GB? Do you use an iCloud email and the Message app?
 
At that price, Dropbox looks like a better buy.
Heck I just bought an 8TB bus-powered SSD for about 350usd, which will last a lot longer than the $'s worth of icloud. ...and it travels with me & doesn't rely on having access to someones network to access the internet for long periods of time or make you wait to up & download huge files, and you can hand it to someone to share files just as quickly, etc etc etc

You got the cloud? more like you got clowned lol
But Dropbox won't back up your Apple devices. It won't provide you with seamless media storage. It can't be distributed across your family with ease, and so much more. It's great for business tasks such as file sharing, but otherwise it's pretty limited....
 
If I could go back in time, I would never use my iCloud email. Offering only 5 GB is a trick to make us pay for storage.
And offering base model MacBooks with 8GB memory and measly 256GB SSD is a trick to make you pay (dearly) for upgrades. Imagine how much it would cost for Apple to offer a base 128GB iPad instead of 64GB? A couple bucks. But then you wouldn't need to pay Apple $150 to upgrade to the next possible level of 256GB because 64GB is too little. Customer manipulation to the extreme.
 
If I could go back in time, I would never use my iCloud email. Offering only 5 GB is a trick to make us pay for storage.
So stop using iCloud email. Get Proton or Gmail or something else. Forward your incoming mail on iCloud to your new provider and inform the people and companies who you deal with of the change. Takes some time but quite easily done.
 
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