Apple Increases Apple Music Subscription Price for Students in Several Countries

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Ancient Apple (endorsement): "Rip, Mix, Burn."

No longer need to burn much in 2022 but if one returns to Rip(ping) CDs (and buying select songs from DRM-free sources like iTunes Store), one OWNS a music collection they like instead of renting access to one. Pile up enough music you like and the variety is pretty rich. Enjoy your "free" music that will never cost you more.

"But I'm poor, I have no money to buy"

Perfectly-legal USED CD market is robust and discs can cost as little as <$1. For example,

• any given pawn shop may have up to thousands of used CDs available for a dollar or two (if they play, the quality of the sound is as good as a brand new version of the same disc). If one has a bunch of CDs you'd like to buy, haggle- they'll deal for volume sales.
• Garage sales inevitably have discs for less than a couple of dollars each. Find a bunch and haggle and they'll probably deal too.
• Ebay/Craigslist will often have large collections of discs for less than a dollar or two. Etc.

Take the $5-$15/month one pays to rent access to all music and you might be able to buy- thus OWN- about 3-12 discs each month. Do that for a year and you have 36-144 discs at about 6-10 songs each = about 216-1152 individual songs you OWN (no price hikes on those EVER... nor being stripped of access when you no longer wish to pay the monthly toll).

"But I can't wait to build up enough songs to be happy with NOT having access to all songs"

Focus on "greatest hits" collections. Those will pile up a lot of very popular songs quickly. In 6 months that way, one might pile up 100-500 hit songs on only a $5-$15 budget. Choosing "greatest hits" you like probably makes most of them songs you would like to hear more often than once. Make that budget $25 or $35 and speed up the collection build much faster.

The whole "cloud" proposition (in all applications of it) is basically trading ownership/control to total strangers to then hold/control assets FOR you... and you then pay a monthly fee to access it: data, video, music, etc. Look backwards a bit. How did this all work before "cloud" concepts? Your "big storage" was a drive inside of a computer you 100% controlled. Your music collection was purchased- not rented- and stored on that drive. You "mixed" songs together in playlists and synched them to iPods, iPads, iPhones so they could go wherever you go. And your ongoing cost in all of that access was... $0. Apple fully endorsed this themselves before "services." And the functionality to make owning work is still completely in place.

There's nothing stopping anyone for doing what lots of renters (of all things) often decide to do sooner or later: OWN instead of rent. Owning- and controlling what you own yourself- means no possible rate hikes, no inflationary effects, no chip shortage effects, etc. You become your own complete "supply chain" and all links in the distribution chain is fully within your 100% control.

As you see apparent fellow consumers in this thread rationalizing the price hike for <reason/execuse> they offer, if you feel the same about their <reason/excuse> in this ownership model, pull money out of your left pocket as music user and put it in your right pocket as music landlord. Raise the fee you bill left pocket all your "greedy" landlord pocket wants over time. Then get in a PocketRumors forum and celebrate/gush/praise right pocket touting "record services revenue" every time it releases results.

Else, we can whine all we want but rental pricing of anything just about only finds any rationale to rise over time. So expect higher prices in the future if you want to keep trusting for-profit entities to control assets you enjoy. What you just about NEVER see is price CUTS. There's almost always obvious reason(s) for increases but then- whenever whatever is used to rationalize the hike subsides- pricing generally doesn't fall back down. Welcome to the new floor (price) and expect that floor to rise further in the future.

If you RIP a music collection, you'll have the same quality of that RIP for up to forever and it will never cost you a nickel more.​

If you choose to keep renting (anything in the "cloud"), you are at the mercy of your asset landlords demanding a little more from time to time for whatever reason they choose to spin... curiously then reporting "record profits" thereafter so apparently <excuse> fully passes through to you (and then some) so they can somehow make extra to achieve those records.

 

[erikkfi]

If they contacted subscribers about a rate increase, did they really do this silently?

 

[jlc1978]

I saved a fortune by just going back to buying my music through iTunes. That is once I repaired my library after leaving Apple Music completely obliterated it and carpet bombed half my previously purchased albums. Streaming is great for finding new content but anyone holding their purse strings tightly would be better served just buying an album from time-to-time. As per Netflix and the like, streaming services are a mug’s game unless you have money to burn and like renting stuff that you‘ll lose access to if you stop paying.

A lot depends on your usage pattern. I have bought a lot of DVDs over the years; and find I often do not watch most of tehm more than once. For the costs of a couple of disks each month, I get access to a much larger catalogue, new shows and can watc anywhere, versus dragging disks or burning thm and putting them on a drive.

Songs, OTOH, I prefer to buy since I rarely listen to new stuff, and my library has 99% of what I want to hear.

YMMV, of course.

OK, but when each track played is worth a fraction of a penny, $10 is a lot and I doubt anyone is playing that much music to use up their full monthly amount that it needs other people’s monthly payments

I wonder if some artists demand a fixed minimum each quarter in order to host their music, so a streaming service would have to have a minimum number of users to meet their contractual payments; whether or not anyone listens to it.

 

[Jim Lahey]

Ancient Apple (endorsement): "Rip, Mix, Burn."

No longer need to burn much in 2022 but if one returns to Rip(ping) CDs (and buying select songs from DRM-free sources like iTunes Store), one OWNS a music collection they like instead of renting access to one. Pile up enough music you like and the variety is pretty rich. Enjoy your "free" music that will never cost you more.

"But I'm poor, I have no money to buy"

Perfectly-legal USED CD market is robust and discs can cost as little as <$1. For example,

• any given pawn shop may have up to thousands of used CDs available for a dollar or two (if they play, the quality of the sound is as good as a brand new version of the same disc). If one has a bunch of CDs you'd like to buy, haggle- they'll deal for volume sales.
• Garage sales inevitably have discs for less than a couple of dollars each. Find a bunch and haggle and they'll probably deal too.
• Ebay/Craigslist will often have large collections of discs for less than a dollar or two. Etc.

Take the $5-$15/month one pays to rent access to all music and you might be able to buy- thus OWN- about 3-12 discs each month. Do that for a year and you have 36-144 discs at about 6-10 songs each = about 216-1152 individual songs you OWN (no price hikes on those EVER... nor being stripped of access when you no longer wish to pay the monthly toll).

"But I can't wait to build up enough songs to be happy with NOT having access to all songs"

Focus on "greatest hits" collections. Those will pile up a lot of very popular songs quickly. In 6 months that way, one might pile up 100-500 hit songs on only a $5-$15 budget. Choosing "greatest hits" you like probably makes most of them songs you would like to hear more often than once. Make that budget $25 or $35 and speed up the collection build much faster.

The whole "cloud" proposition (in all applications of it) is basically trading ownership/control to total strangers to then hold/control assets FOR you... and you then pay a monthly fee to access it: data, video, music, etc. Look backwards a bit. How did this all work before "cloud" concepts? Your "big storage" was a drive inside of a computer you 100% controlled. Your music collection was purchased- not rented- and stored on that drive. You "mixed" songs together in playlists and synched them to iPods, iPads, iPhones so they could go wherever you go. And your ongoing cost in all of that access was... $0. Apple fully endorsed this themselves before "services." And the functionality to make owning work is still completely in place.

There's nothing stopping anyone for doing what lots of renters (of all things) often decide to do sooner or later: OWN instead of rent. Owning- and controlling what you own yourself- means no possible rate hikes, no inflationary effects, no chip shortage effects, etc. You become your own complete "supply chain" and all links in the distribution chain is fully within your 100% control.

Else, we can whine all we want but rental pricing of anything just about only finds any rationale to rise over time. So expect higher prices in the future if you want to keep trusting for-profit entities to control assets you enjoy. What you just about NEVER see is price CUTS. There's almost always obvious reason(s) for increases but then- whenever whatever is used to rationalize the hike subsides- pricing generally doesn't fall back down. Welcome to the new floor (price) and expect that floor to rise further in the future.

If you RIP your music collection, you'll have the same quality of that RIP for up to forever and it will never cost you a nickel more.

If you choose to keep renting (anything in the "cloud"), you are at the mercy of your asset landlords demanding a little more from time to time for whatever reason they choose to spin... curiously then reporting "record profits" thereafter so apparently <excuse> fully passes through to you (and then some) so they can somehow make extra to achieve those records.

Bingo. And the longer it goes on the less inclined you’ll ever be to cancel the rental agreement, because the longer you rent the more you’ve wasted if you ever stop. Subscription streaming has its place but, in the end, Apple push it over and above iTunes because they know you’ll spend more money on it.

 

[PC_tech]

The increase is not an increase at all. If is a decrease in a massive discount on an already massive discount. 9.99-> 4.99 regular student discount price -> 1.49 Student discount in these countries. Moving to 1.99 is still really low being a 60% discount off the student price which is already a 50% discount off the regular price.

The price is going up for them? It’s an increase 🙄 Jesus, literally anything to defend Apple 🙄

 

[CapitalIdea]

Currency fluctuations. That’s what happens when the markets go for a ride due to a war and other crises.

 

[ikramerica]

They charge the heaviest users the least.

$10 a month is not a lot for unlimited music. I bought at least 1 CD a month as a student, so even if on sale, at least $120 a year, and that was grmmfgt years ago…

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Currency fluctuations. That’s what happens when the markets go for a ride due to a war and other crises.

Funny thing about those "fluctuations" though. When the war (or any other excuse to raise prices) is over, will they fluctuate back down to where they were before?

 

[surfzen21]

Maybe all that extra revenue will go to the artists. 😉

 

[jlc1978]

Funny thing about those "fluctuations" though. When the war (or any other excuse to raise prices) is over, will they fluctuate back down to where they were before?

Price increases tend to be more sticky than decreases. Once they find enough consumers will pay more there is no reason, other than competitor action, to drop prices.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Right, and therein lies pretty much the answer to all price hike management... not the FED pinching interest rates, not supply chains coming back in line, not "opening up" the economy again, blah-blah-blah.

The simplest way to HALT- even REVERSE- price increases is the masses deciding the cash is worth MORE than whatever is being offered for sale/rent. Consumers en masse choosing the MONEY instead of "I'll just pay" (for) the <stuff/services/wants> will very quickly HALT price hikes because- in the end- the sellers want the cash much, much more than any buyer should want just about ANY product/service (of course there are basic need exceptions).

For a decade or two, "I'll just pay" or more correctly "I'll whine- maybe loudly- but just pay" has facilitated easy "record sales" by simply raising prices. Conceptually, in building about anything new, efficiencies come into play to drive DOWN actual costs over time. The genius in the last decade or two is sellers getting to fairly easily do both: lower their costs through efficiency gains/exporting jobs to cheaper labor regions/etc AND raise prices. Consumers may whine but then tend to "I'll just pay", rewarding the sellers with record results, record bonuses, etc.

Sooner or later, consumers must decide the money is worth more. Else, "I'll just pay" will only erode away the value of the cash more and more and more. I suspect the vast majority of "inflation" is actually this and the solution is actually super simple to HALT it and even reverse price hikes.

More simply: a decade or two of (poor) consumerism seems to have driven nearly all consumers to forget their ultimate power in all business transactions: "just say no."

If many whine- loudly- but then just pays up, nobody who could do anything about pricing even hears the whine. Instead they celebrate "another record quarter" and enjoy their bonuses for genius moves in driving up revenue.

 

[boss.king]

If you RIP a music collection, you'll have the same quality of that RIP for up to forever and it will never cost you a nickel more.​

Except for the cost of storage, which, if you’re buying Apple products (as people on Macrumors presumably are), adds up pretty quickly.

This strategy also means you'll basically never have current music.

 

[Adam089]

Pathetic. It should be free for students.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Except for the cost of storage, which, if you’re buying Apple products (as people on Macrumors presumably are), adds up pretty quickly.

This strategy also means you'll basically never have current music.

HaHa. Storage is needed for any computing anyway. So use a portion of the storage purchased for anything one does with their computer to store relatively small music files in some of the space. Or maybe you mean iDevice storage? If so, as someone preferring to own, I do tend to buy a tier or two higher than baseline storage for synching lots of favorite playlists and some ripped videos when I'll be traveling. But if I was that pinched, I could very easily build lots of playlists on the computer and then sync a few at a time based on my impending plans. With laptops tending to be the "main" computer more and more, it's probably going along with me on any big trip too, so I have all songs and all playlist to adjust what is on my iDevice at any given time too.

If my collection was gigantic- and it is not- a HUGE volume of songs can be stored on a cheap external drive. With 5TB for $100 these days, would nearly all music any one person could ever have time to hear not fit in 5TB? If someone says NO, double the storage for not really much more.

As to current music, BUY the singles you discover and like as desired. For not quite as important singles, wait just a while and pick that tier up on used "Now that's what I call Music" greatest hits CDs and similar.

If one really wants heavy new music discovery, stream free Pandora with a custom channel catering to specific tastes. I actually do this for new music discovery often. When I hear a single I love, I add it to an iTunes wish list, explore more from the same artist (if they are new to me) in iTunes and then buy it (or their album) if I want it in my collection.

"Top 40" hit lists have been around for my entire life. In any given top 40, there may be be upwards of 3 to maybe 8 songs I personally like enough to think I'll want to hear them many times in the future. Top 40 lists are not 100% changing weekly, so spread that over a month and maybe that would net out to a top 80 list and 6-16 songs. So if I budget $1.29 against ALL of those, I need to set aside about $8 to about $21 to be fairly aggressively buying fresh new top hits that I like EVERY month.

YES, that can cost more than renting access to all of them... but then I OWN the songs. So 20 or 30 years from now, I can still play them vs. only being able to play them if I'm still renting from the service 20 or 30 years from now.

Funny thing happens in the ownership model: when you have a few thousand favorites in your own collection, shuffling playlists of many songs you like keeps them all pretty fresh to listener ears. The burn for "more, more, more" fades. Thus, I find buying a "10%-15% off" iTunes Store gift card each Christmas for about $85-$90 (for $100 in credits) yields enough budget to last the next year of adding songs I really like to the collection that I can't find on some (generally used) CDs I pick up here and there during the year. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything.

However, I certainly could imagine feeling that way if my listening joy was heavily tied to brand new music freshness as much as possible. If I really felt some need for the whole "top 40" being available to me every week, I might rationalize just paying up for relatively "cheap" streaming... if I didn't get enough of that from "top hits" channels for free from Pandora, free Sonos hits channel (since I own a few speakers from them), MusicChoice top hits channels since I get basic cable for free*, YouTube free music hits/New This Week channel/etc, or, least-desirable but also free, FM radio.

Again, if I hear a great one I judge as "long-termer" from any of those sources, I can buy it for up to $1.29 and own it for the rest of my days, not let it and other songs in a rented collection own me because should I stop paying at any time, I lose access to ALL of them.

 

[4jasontv]

In the US, Apple changed its Apple TV+ promotion with Apple Music for Students. Apple TV+ was free as long as you had Apple Music Student, but now it's only free for three months.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Mentioned so far is inflation and also paying artists more. This brings up a question I’ve had for a while:

Say I have a monthly subscription to  Music of $10 but I didn’t listen to any music that month. Where does the $10 go? If I do use  Music that month, how much do I need to use for that $10 to be worth it? How is that money divided up? Even if I don’t use it?

Right to Apple coffers probably…maybe some to record companies..

“None” to artists I’d imagine

 

[iGeneo]

”silently”…. Via email

Clickbaity

 

[Student of Life]

Ancient Apple (endorsement): "Rip, Mix, Burn."

No longer need to burn much in 2022 but if one returns to Rip(ping) CDs (and buying select songs from DRM-free sources like iTunes Store), one OWNS a music collection they like instead of renting access to one. Pile up enough music you like and the variety is pretty rich. Enjoy your "free" music that will never cost you more.

"But I'm poor, I have no money to buy"

Perfectly-legal USED CD market is robust and discs can cost as little as <$1. For example,

• any given pawn shop may have up to thousands of used CDs available for a dollar or two (if they play, the quality of the sound is as good as a brand new version of the same disc). If one has a bunch of CDs you'd like to buy, haggle- they'll deal for volume sales.
• Garage sales inevitably have discs for less than a couple of dollars each. Find a bunch and haggle and they'll probably deal too.
• Ebay/Craigslist will often have large collections of discs for less than a dollar or two. Etc.

Take the $5-$15/month one pays to rent access to all music and you might be able to buy- thus OWN- about 3-12 discs each month. Do that for a year and you have 36-144 discs at about 6-10 songs each = about 216-1152 individual songs you OWN (no price hikes on those EVER... nor being stripped of access when you no longer wish to pay the monthly toll).

"But I can't wait to build up enough songs to be happy with NOT having access to all songs"

Focus on "greatest hits" collections. Those will pile up a lot of very popular songs quickly. In 6 months that way, one might pile up 100-500 hit songs on only a $5-$15 budget. Choosing "greatest hits" you like probably makes most of them songs you would like to hear more often than once. Make that budget $25 or $35 and speed up the collection build much faster.

The whole "cloud" proposition (in all applications of it) is basically trading ownership/control to total strangers to then hold/control assets FOR you... and you then pay a monthly fee to access it: data, video, music, etc. Look backwards a bit. How did this all work before "cloud" concepts? Your "big storage" was a drive inside of a computer you 100% controlled. Your music collection was purchased- not rented- and stored on that drive. You "mixed" songs together in playlists and synched them to iPods, iPads, iPhones so they could go wherever you go. And your ongoing cost in all of that access was... $0. Apple fully endorsed this themselves before "services." And the functionality to make owning work is still completely in place.

There's nothing stopping anyone for doing what lots of renters (of all things) often decide to do sooner or later: OWN instead of rent. Owning- and controlling what you own yourself- means no possible rate hikes, no inflationary effects, no chip shortage effects, etc. You become your own complete "supply chain" and all links in the distribution chain is fully within your 100% control.

As you see apparent fellow consumers in this thread rationalizing the price hike for <reason/execuse> they offer, if you feel the same about their <reason/excuse> in this ownership model, pull money out of your left pocket as music user and put it in your right pocket as music landlord. Raise the fee you bill left pocket all your "greedy" landlord pocket wants over time. Then get in a PocketRumors forum and celebrate/gush/praise right pocket touting "record services revenue" every time it releases results.

Else, we can whine all we want but rental pricing of anything just about only finds any rationale to rise over time. So expect higher prices in the future if you want to keep trusting for-profit entities to control assets you enjoy. What you just about NEVER see is price CUTS. There's almost always obvious reason(s) for increases but then- whenever whatever is used to rationalize the hike subsides- pricing generally doesn't fall back down. Welcome to the new floor (price) and expect that floor to rise further in the future.

If you RIP a music collection, you'll have the same quality of that RIP for up to forever and it will never cost you a nickel more.​

If you choose to keep renting (anything in the "cloud"), you are at the mercy of your asset landlords demanding a little more from time to time for whatever reason they choose to spin... curiously then reporting "record profits" thereafter so apparently <excuse> fully passes through to you (and then some) so they can somehow make extra to achieve those records.

I agree with everything but the home ownership part. You are not factoring insurance rates jumping every year, then you have wear and tear on the house, AC breaking, plumbing leaks and the eventual roof repair every 15 to 20 years. At the going rate now a roof repair which is not covered by insurance will cost you at least 30K + also municipal taxes always go up. But you do get to keep your house, and thats huge down the road.

 

[IzzyMandelbaum]

Apple has silently increased the price of its Apple Music subscription for college students in several countries, with the company emailing students informing them their subscription would be slightly increasing in price moving forward.

The price change is not widespread and, based on MacRumors' findings, will impact Apple Music student subscribers in but not limited to Australia, the Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, New Zealand, India, South Africa, Indonesia, Israel, and Kenya.

"Thank you for subscribing to Apple Music. We wanted to let you know about an upcoming change to this subscription," reads an email from Apple to Apple Music student subscribers. "Apple is raising the price of this subscription from USD 1.49 per month to USD 1.99 per month," an email from Apple read to a customer in South Africa.

Apple offers students a discounted price of Apple Music compared to the company's regular individual plan. In the United States, Apple Music is offered for $4.99 per month for college students, compared to the standard $9.99 per month offer. Customers can also get Apple Music bundled with Apple One, which offers several Apple services starting at $14.95 per month.

Article Link: Apple Increases Apple Music Subscription Price for Students in Several Countries

The increase is to cover the upcoming Monkey Pox tracking app.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

I agree with everything but the home ownership part. You are not factoring insurance rates jumping every year, then you have wear and tear on the house, AC breaking, plumbing leaks and the eventual roof repair every 15 to 20 years. At the going rate now a roof repair which is not covered by insurance will cost you at least 30K + also municipal taxes always go up. But you do get to keep your house, and thats huge down the road.

Did I mention home ownership in that post?

However, even with home ownership vs. renting as an analogy, owning means you do pay for all you mention. Renters don't get off that hook though... the costs for the landlord to own and maintain the home the renter rents is built into the ever-increasing rents. A renter does not in any way "stick it to the landlord" by NOT having to pay for a new roof or if the AC breaks. In fact, the renter paying a rent large enough to cover such things may get NO benefit of a new AC unit install because they've moved before it must be replaced with a portion of their rent money set aside to pay for it.

The renter (sort of) win is moving in right after big upgrades/improvements have been made. Now they get to enjoy those new goodies while paying only a tiny fraction of buying the same kind of place with those upgrades/improvements. The prior renters of that home- the ones who PAID for those goodies in their rents- are now long gone and not getting 1 second to enjoy what they paid to improve the place.

As the new renter, he/she has a portion of the (now higher) rents they pay being set aside for any needed repairs and/or additional improvements. In time, he/she may move on before another improvement- paid for by their rent money- is made. Now they don't get 1 second to enjoy the new goodie... but the owner- the landlord- will enjoy leveraging it to command even more rent from the next renter... and begins the cycle again.

 

[AndreaCicca]

They also increased it recently in Turkey from 7.99₺ to 9.99₺

Turkey has a problem with Inflation

 

[turbineseaplane]

If you RIP a music collection, you'll have the same quality of that RIP for up to forever and it will never cost you a nickel more.​

Hear hear!

I've never stopped building out my personal music library that started all the way back in the late 90's. Over the years I've upgraded file quality also.

My music collection is an immensely valuable personal asset, that is almost like a diary over time of where I was, what I was doing and what I was into, etc.

I use some streaming for enjoyment/discovery, but I always end up buying my own copies to add to my library if songs meet a certain "bar".

Not all music is just ephemeral background noise to me.

Streaming could never be my "only" music source

 

[Bawstun]

A slight 33% increase, obviously tied to actual inflation rates

This. The Apple defenders in here are absurd or out of touch with reality.

 

[Bawstun]

Tried a free trial of Apple Music and caught myself opening Spotify more often.

It is far and away the better app. Apple Music has never come close.

 

[turbineseaplane]

This. The Apple defenders in here are absurd or out of touch with reality.

By "in here" -- one could really mean "anywhere on the forum" these days.
It's so bizarre to see so many defend essentially anything and everything Apple does.