Kettle potit states the reason is unclear. No law is forcing apple to charge for a Trial! Feel free to prove this if you have proof
And no law says you deserve free stuff.
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Apple Music's Three-Month Trial is No Longer Free in Australia, Spain, and Switzerland
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And no law says you deserve free stuff.
Or else it means that Apple is so focused on short time profits that they are no longer thinking strategically. I would absorb the cost of the trial in order to bring more users on board that will pay the monthly fee and buy accessories to improve their listening enjoyment.
However, as with most things come out of Apple lately, it is poorly thought out. Apple Watches as high-end fashion? Apple Stores where people go to have coffee and meet online dates?! Computers that only pros can afford although the machines themselves do not serve the pro market...
I don't remember apple giving people macs or idevices away for free ..... and Apple Music does not work on iPods....
Care to explain how Apple Music was ever free?
I remember constant pop up offers to join Apple Music for 3 months on my very expansive iPads/iPhones.... There is nothing free with Apple.
Maybe some of the labels changed their policies so they won't include their music if the trial is free, like how Spotify is missing a lot of music on its free tier. I doubt Apple cares about $.99.
I call out ignorance and inflammatory comments. I never start it. It's how I do. People who post indiscriminate, hateful, ignorant rhetoric are the dominant reason forums like this make the bile rise in our throats, and calling them out is a moral imperative.Although you may be entirely correct, you're statement that Apple is complying the law is no more or less correct than opposing statements stating they have other reasons. Both sides, yours and theirs, are engaging in unsubstantiated speculation. Nothing more. I also think it's law/regulation related. But you, and some others, are asserting opinion as fact. How about adding a 'I think' or 'my opinion' in that quote somewhere? At some point I'm sure Apple's reasoning will be revealed. 'Til then stop tripping over yourself to shoehorn justifications into your Apple world views. I promise it doesn't make anyone look clever either.
I also disagree with you that their ignorant, shoot-from-the-hip, indiscriminately anti-Apple comments are the same as the rational conclusion that, since a nominal fee is charged by Apple and others for music streaming, and that this fee only applies in select countries, it is reasonable to conclude that the laws in those countries dictate those nominal fees for whatever reason. If you equate these two thought processes, then I encourage you to read up on false equivalencies.
However, you're right that I didn't independently confirm that the legal landscapes in Spain, Australia, and Switzerland have triggered these nominal fees. In deference to that, I've edited my post. Thank you for your feedback.
Oh, well, in my opinion, you should do your work for free, not expecting your employer to pay for the things you do. The results of your work should be freely available to them.
If you like something enough to want to have it, you should be willing to pay for it, not expect other people to give it to you for free. And, more importantly, the person who makes something that other people want, should be allowed to decide how to sell the thing they made, not be required by others to sell it a certain way, like your first sentence suggests (and if their choice of sales method doesn't work, it's still their choice, and maybe they just don't get popular - still not an excuse for other people to step in and change their methods for them). Back in the day, I saw a lot of Grateful Dead concerts - they actually had a designated "tapers section" in the audience, just behind the soundboard (where the microphone stands wouldn't get in people's way), and they allowed people who bought "tapers tickets" to bring in their microphones and mic stands and tape recorders to record the show, and these tapes could be freely copied and passed around the DeadHead community, as long as nobody made money off it. Before the Internet, this was handled very carefully by the fans, with people mailing around postage-paid padded envelopes and blank cassettes for others to copy shows onto. But, this was the band's choice, not something for someone else to decide for them. They made a lot of money off touring. They also sold a lot of records.
What percentage of the world's musicians a) are filthy rich, and b) spend all their time laying on the couch? I'll give you a hint, it's a vanishingly small percentage (most are working hard to make ends meet). But it seems like you get righteously indignant at that minuscule lucky group, and then use that as a broad brush to smear every musician. And do you think those few who are rich and are laying on couches (on one of their yachts, let's say) got there by doing nothing? Or did perhaps most of them work very hard to get there? If being a professional musician is such an easy life, why aren't you a musician, laying on a couch and filthy rich?
I'm sure there are even a few who are filthy rich, who have only modest talent, who got there by recording one song that happened to go platinum and got them millions of dollars. You can't set out realistically to do that (you might hope for that, but you'd be one of millions with the same dream, 99.9% of whom won't get there). That makes them basically the equivalent of lottery winners. Would you argue that lottery winners should all give up their money and "get back to work"?
Huh? Did you even read the article? Or were you blinded by simple hatred of Apple? Their competitors in those countries are already charging that fee. Commonsense tells us there undoubtedly is some licensing reason to charge this as it is likely not worth the costs of processing the 99 cents for a month.
I understand where you're coming from, but the logic in these sentences is faulty: If you and I flip a coin and I call heads and you call tails, and the coin lands but neither of us has seen it yet... one of us is completely correct and one of us is completely wrong, even though we don't know which is which yet.
His statement that Apple is complying with the law is, indeed, very much either more correct, or less correct, than the opposing statements. We just don't know which yet. Both sides are engaging in speculation, but one side is right. My money is on the "complying with regulations" side rather than the "Apple is evil" side (having seen the eventual outcomes of similar situations in the past). Neither side is publicly known to be more correct, at this point, but one side is, indeed, more correct. So when you say, "your statement ... is no more or less correct than opposing statements", you're... incorrect.
Wow, these are some responses everyone! When I was a kid, I would have shart myself if I had instant access to most of the music that exists at any price, much less three months of access for less than a dollar. And I'm only in my early 30s.
The both of you are right in a lot of ways, seems like I should have been clearer in what I said.
Sure, many artists work hard, playing in clubs/bars other venues day after day, I was talking about the top 0.1 % which make 10/100's of millions.
There are artists which put their work for free on the internet and make their money on the stage, but yeah, those already made plenty of money.
Should have kept my mouth shut.
I read it and your post doesn't help. Just because a competitor decides to charge for a previous free trial does not mean causation.
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Nor are paid ones where you "rent" music. What is your point here though? Apple foots the bill on those three months for you so the artist doesn't lose no?
Remember, it was Taylor Swift who shamed Apple into paying Artists for those free three months - before then, there was nothing being paid to the Artists during the trial period
So what do you call it if someone isn't willing to pay $0.99 for a three month trial, that they would be about $30 for at full value? Let me see. It's less than a dollar. If it was more than a dollar you could call it dollar pinching, but it's less than a dollar, so it's penny pinching.
Same laugh as Nokia, Blackberry, and to an extent Motorola made before their Falls.
Hanging your whole business primarily on one single products' never-ending popularity is always dangerous
If you are not going to pay $0.99 for a three month trial, then you are not going to pay $9.99 for one month of service. If it was advertised as "free music", then it should be free. If it is advertised as a "trial", then there's no need that it should be free.
You have no explanation either other than blind hatred of just about anything Apple does. So of course to you it's just greed.Clearly cause Australia is part of Europe and decided to sit down wih Spain and Switzerland to create a law to force apple to make more money.... it's not Austria mate!
How often does apple start something other than the US when it comes to increasing prices - Always champ! Never seen the US pricing change
If you must know, it's part of https://www.spotify.com/au/ Spotify this week launched three months for 99 cents. So some douchebag in apple decided that they could make lots of money if they matched Spotify offer
for a man devoid of any explanation why this is happening, geez you can play critic well
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Spotify launched their summer 99 local currency for 3 months and apple is matching them. Very smart, will get them millions !!! The blind apple lovers using legal excuses on this thread to charge is actually more pathetic to be honest. My opinion is they are just matching Spotify .
I can explain the 99cent quite easily. 99cent (USA) and corresponding price elsewhere was always the lowest tier for sales on the app store. I have an app on the store, written for fun and to have source code to show to prospective clients. It's useful, it was a lot of work, therefore I charge 99 cents. If you are too penny-pinching to pay even that, you don't deserve it. Simple as that.
It might make sense for Apple to make Apple music completely free. Strike a deal with the record companies, and turn it into a giant advertisement campaign for music and for iOS devices. That might make sense; I bet there is someone at Apple who can do the numbers.
Insisting that this three months trial must be free doesn't make sense. It isn't a freebie, it's a trial. You give trials to people to try it out, with the idea that some percentage of the people trying will buy. I guess what Apple is trying out is this: Of all people paying nothing for a free trial, how many sign up? And of all people paying $0.99 for a free trial, how many sign up? The first group contains all those people who sign up because it is free. The second group is all those who are interested in music.
What the hell is Apple doing these days? Seriously, spotify could do literally nothing for 5 years and Apple music will somehow get worse over that same time period.
Somebody call a necromancer and get Steve back!
Somebody call a necromancer and get Steve back!
Sorry Carl, but your idea only stands against scrutiny if the situation is binary; as in only two outcomes. It entirely possible that both sides are wrong. There are multiple possibilities that could explain Apples change in policy.
Even if it was binary, there's only a 50/50 chance of regulatory compliance vs a chance for additional revenue. Just because you agree with one side (a side I think is right also) that doesn't make the chances of it actually being right any greater.
Indeed. A lot of companies (not talking music streaming, but in the grander scheme of things) will offer "buy this thing but only pay for it after 90 days if you really like it (otherwise give it back)", or "buy this thing and if you don't like it after 90 days, give it back to us and we'll give you your money back." Apple's offer is, instead, "try our service for 3 months, for either 0 or 99 cents (or local equivalent) each month, and if at the end of that you still like it, we'll charge you the regular price from then on (without back-charging you the regular price for the first three months)."
A lot of folks seem to translate this to "I have a god-given right to 3 months of free music and Failing/Crooked Apple is stealing that away from me! Unfair!!1!" Eh, Apple has the right to run their business however they want. They didn't make this change accidentally, there's some reason. Based on past history, I'm guessing they're adding the 99 cents/month initial charge - in some specific countries - on the advice of their lawyers, to comply with some sort of local regulations. That's a guess (informed by previous actions), the opposing viewpoint seems to offer mostly knee-jerk anti-Apple emotion.