iCloud+ Storage Prices Increased in 10 Countries This Year

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Once prices go up they never come down

Deflation is just as real as Inflation. Recall what happened to many prices during Covid when the flow of consumer cash significantly locked up. Remember things like 2 Whoppers for $5, 2 Singles for $5, etc? Recall the day that oil went to -$3X/barrel (yes minus). There were MANY examples of things getting cheaper.

If people as a group stop buying something, price starts working its way DOWN, hunting for a level to get them buying again.

What makes your statement seem true is for about a generation- maybe two- consumers seem to have forgotten that the value of money is what they make it. If they will trade more of it for the "same", Sellers will very happily take more money for the "same."

• Seller's job is to get as much money as they can for what they are selling.
• Buyer's job is to get as much VALUE for as little as possible.

We buyers have been doing a terrible job of our part of that for several decades. Turn off the "rolling over and paying anything" and/or the mentality of financing it as long as it can fit with 'my' monthly payments and deflation can readily occur as easily as inflation.

We think it is only a one way track because we make it one. But if we valued our money MORE than the products & services pitched for it (many of which are not need, but want), magically the latter would start becoming less expensive. Instead, we seem to readily gripe about ever-rising prices... but then pay higher prices for the "same." Sellers won't work prices down as long as the crowd keeps doing that.

 

[Rob07003]

What we really need are competitive alternatives to iCloud+

 

[Rob07003]

This is a particularly evil increment. I need more than 200GB but nowhere close to 2TB.

Oh well since I pay for it - I'm just dumping a lot of stuff there for convenience because I have the space, but it stinks there's not a mid-tier step. Then again, knowing Apple they would add-in a 1TB tier for 'just' $8.99.

The blatant greed of this has maddened me for years. I can’t understand why it’s never raised as an issue.

 

[HMWausau]

If your time and labor is valued at $0, a NAS solution with proper backup might come close to the price of iCloud, but not with the convenience. The NAS solution doesn't keep multiple devices in sync. iCloud does that pretty close to seamlessly. I've got multiple machines in multiple locations, and it's great knowing that ALL of my files are instantly available on each machine. (ok, limited by bandwidth if I add a huge number of files at a time)

NAS solutions can be great for those that know what they are doing, but without exception are going to be significantly more labor intensive and potentially less secure for many reasons. Reality is, the majority of people struggle with even turning iCloud backup on. Configuring and maintaining another solution simply isn't in the cards. Paying someone to set it up for them would cost many many times more than using iCloud ever will.

Using BOTH iCloud and a NAS solution as a secondary backup is really one of the best solutions if you're really concerned about your data.

 

[TJFDenver]

5gb … it’s lawsuit time

 

[Abazigal]

Sign.

iCloud pricing changed due to exchange rate fluctuations. Apple does this sort of "rectification" all the time because their earnings is in US dollar. There is no nefarious scheme here.

Why is this news again, and it seems that "5gb iCloud is criminal" is the new "8gb ram isn't enough for anything" argument.

 

[dzhiurgis]

They would make so much more money by selling in smaller increments after 2TB.

Right now I need to keep my entire family under 2.2TB which such a PITA.

 

[dzhiurgis]

If your time and labor is valued at $0, a NAS solution with proper backup might come close to the price of iCloud, but not with the convenience. The NAS solution doesn't keep multiple devices in sync. iCloud does that pretty close to seamlessly. I've got multiple machines in multiple locations, and it's great knowing that ALL of my files are instantly available on each machine. (ok, limited by bandwidth if I add a huge number of files at a time)

NAS solutions can be great for those that know what they are doing, but without exception are going to be significantly more labor intensive and potentially less secure for many reasons. Reality is, the majority of people struggle with even turning iCloud backup on. Configuring and maintaining another solution simply isn't in the cards. Paying someone to set it up for them would cost many many times more than using iCloud ever will.

Using BOTH iCloud and a NAS solution as a secondary backup is really one of the best solutions if you're really concerned about your data.

iCloud is not a backup. Which reminds me to connect my HDD to a router for a makeshift NAS.

Also, if Apple wouldn't be a monopoly you'd be able to transparently replace photos app with any third party app.

 

[John_Blackthorne]

I hope nobody gets mad and stalks an Apple executive...

 

[macos9rules]

If I could start again, I wouldn’t use my iCloud email address, and would avoid using iCloud storage to avoid being trapped in Apple’s expensive cloud subscription service.

 

[cjsuk]

If I could start again, I wouldn’t use my iCloud email address, and would avoid using iCloud storage to avoid being trapped in Apple’s expensive cloud subscription service.

I will be surprised if you find an alternative with a comparable cost and feature set.

I really don’t get all this whining though. People will spend hours saving $10 a month.

 

[iHorseHead]

I will be surprised if you find an alternative with a comparable cost and feature set.

I really don’t get all this whining though. People will spend hours saving $10 a month.

How aren't Google and OneDrive alternatives? Or even Surfshark?

 

[macfacts]

Come on everyone. Changing things takes time! It took them 18 years to allow us to place icons anywhere we wanted. Its gonna take at least another 5-10 years before they invent the technology for us to get 10GB of iCloud for free!

Apple doesn't have to invent anything, just allow competition.

 

[Mr. Heckles]

I don’t get how it goes up. My email provider bumped my storage from 40GB to 50GB (maybe it was 30GB to 50GB) and I’m not paying anymore. Storage itself has gone down in prices over the years too.

iCloud can never be bought/owned- only forever rented... and the landlord could raise the rent at any time while controlling "our" media.

All online storage is. Very few one time charge ones.

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

This allows Apple to show higher profitability in the services segment, storage gets cheaper and prices go up. iCloud Storage is probably the only Apple service (other than App Store of course) that is actually profitable.

Great that they rely on overcharging their customers to obtain "profitability".

 

[Shirasaki]

This is a particularly evil increment. I need more than 200GB but nowhere close to 2TB.

Oh well since I pay for it - I'm just dumping a lot of stuff there for convenience because I have the space, but it stinks there's not a mid-tier step. Then again, knowing Apple they would add-in a 1TB tier for 'just' $8.99.

Even worse for me, I run out of 2TB but next tier is 6TB, which would take a while for me to get there. Would be nice to have 3TB or 4TB in between.

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

I will be surprised if you find an alternative with a comparable cost and feature set.

I really don’t get all this whining though. People will spend hours saving $10 a month.

People (not me) also spend $60 for a $20 bottle of grocery store wine at a restaurant. The difference is I can ignore the restaurant and go to the grocery store to get the wine. iCloud is only available at Apple.

Saving $10 per month is $120 per year. For people that keep it for years and years, it adds up.

 

[Shirasaki]

Great that they rely on overcharging their customers to obtain "profitability".

Worst part is the silent majority will just pay without even thinking, meaning apple can and likely will take a slow burn approach to slowly raise the storage price.

 

[Shirasaki]

iCloud can never be bought/owned- only forever rented... and the landlord could raise the rent at any time while controlling "our" media.

NAS has no forever rent, no "trusting strangers", etc... and NAS can deliver many benefits not offered by iCloud.

If only Apple is forced to open their backup solution to local NAS, meaning users who don’t want to backup to iCloud could backup to a local network drive and restore in the same fashion as iCloud users. Would be even nicer if iCloud Photo Library could be managed on a network drive we own instead on Apple servers.

 

[brofkand]

Great that they rely on overcharging their customers to obtain "profitability".

iCloud Storage probably has higher retention than Apple Music, once people have their data in iCloud they have no idea how to get it out and no way to use some iOS features (like cloud backup) without it. You're basically stuck paying that 99 cents or more forever once you get used to it.

Apple's other services all have realistic competition.

 

[Siliconguy]

If only Apple is forced to open their backup solution to local NAS, meaning users who don’t want to backup to iCloud could backup to a local network drive and restore in the same fashion as iCloud users. Would be even nicer if iCloud Photo Library could be managed on a network drive we own instead on Apple servers.

I back up my iPad to a Mac mini. Does that not work with iPhones?

iCloud made a mess out of the iPad, my laptop, and the mini, so I logged them all completely out of iCloud and never used it again.

 

[Shirasaki]

I back up my iPad to a Mac mini. Does that not work with iPhones?

iCloud made a mess out of the iPad, my laptop, and the mini, so I logged them all completely out of iCloud and never used it again.

Local backup only works if you have used only one account and also backs up apps separately. iCloud backup works great for multiple account users, something local backup simply cannot do.

 

[svish]

Glad to see that there is no change in pricing in my region. But would like to see Apple offer a new tier of storage somewhere between 200GB and 2 TB. 500 GB and 1TB options will be nice.

 

[cjsuk]

People (not me) also spend $60 for a $20 bottle of grocery store wine at a restaurant. The difference is I can ignore the restaurant and go to the grocery store to get the wine. iCloud is only available at Apple.

Saving $10 per month is $120 per year. For people that keep it for years and years, it adds up.

There are functional alternatives to iCloud. You don't have to use any of their services at all if you don't want to. You can bring your own bottle to the Apple restaurant or buy one from the restaurant.

 

[cjsuk]

If only Apple is forced to open their backup solution to local NAS, meaning users who don’t want to backup to iCloud could backup to a local network drive and restore in the same fashion as iCloud users. Would be even nicer if iCloud Photo Library could be managed on a network drive we own instead on Apple servers.

You can do that already. I rdiff-backup my stuff to an external disk once every 6 months which is kept off site. That is on top of time machine weekly snapshots.

As for iCloud Photo Library, it doesn't need to be connected to iCloud and can be backed up fine. Just do not run it on a NAS because network filesystems have poor locking and transactional semantics. iCloud photo sync works above the files system level. It's just a SQLite database and a bunch of files in a container, nothing particularly clever.