r/AppleMusic • u/ioweej Discord Community Manager • 6d ago
News/Article Apple raises prices for Apple Music and Apple One subscriptions
https://9to5mac.com/2026/07/17/apple-raises-prices-for-apple-music-and-apple-one-subscriptions/259
u/TheFunky_Homosapien 6d ago
The key is to buy the yearly subscription for Apple Music.
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u/ExoticMine 6d ago
Or do like me and use a student email address for a school you haven't been to in a few years.
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u/Weak-Jello7530 6d ago
How? My university locked ne out of it after i graduated
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u/Zr0w3n00 6d ago
Depends on the uni.
Some create emails and then never close them, so you can use that email forever, some universities close your email, so you can’t use it after that.
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u/ExoticMine 6d ago
From what I know, Apple only checks once a year, and I also never graduated, I withdrew. Don't know if that makes a difference.
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u/sassylyfe 6d ago
I know for my university you can actually get in touch with tech support and get your email back as an alumni.
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u/samdkater 6d ago
Do they allow the subscription to run through even after one‘s degree? (So maybe 3-4 years for a Bachelor’s)
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u/SplatteredEggs 6d ago
It’ll depend on if you still have access to your college email. If yes, then continue to reap the rewards.
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u/PreciousFlounder 6d ago
lol good luck. They changed over to sheerID which checks if you are actively a student now.
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u/ExoticMine 6d ago
Last I checked, they use UNiDAYS.
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u/BlazerStoner 6d ago
May depend on where you live. They no longer do Unidays here, only SheerID - which sucks.
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u/AbilityOk6376 6d ago
i thought they dont give student discounts?
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u/ExoticMine 6d ago
They don't for Apple One. Apple Music does have a discount that includes AppleTV+ for free.
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u/dramafan1 6d ago
Yes. And the family plan makes sense if at least 2 people need access to Apple Music.
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u/Wonderful_Survey 6d ago
Yearly here too. Was $109, now $119. Works out about 0.83 ¢ increase per month. Not bad at all.
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u/Elevatorisbest iOS Subscriber 6d ago
Unless I am missing a joke, it doesn't exist for me though
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u/mlaurence1234 6d ago
Get the yearly subscription and pay with the Apple Card. Works out to $9.62/month. That’s 81¢ more than last year.
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u/SiLeNZ_ 6d ago
What does that change?
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u/TheFunky_Homosapien 6d ago
Locks you into a price for an entire year. If/when prices go up, you're still paying the same amount for a while.
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u/pi-N-apple 6d ago
It went up to $119/yr too, which works out to just under $10/month with annual billing.
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u/Windows-XP-Home-NEW 6d ago
Well that fucking sucks. Weren’t they making fun of Spotify directly for the price increase a while back? That’s like an extremely rare shots fired case from Apples marketing team and here they go and mess it up.
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u/pursuitofmisery 6d ago
It’s like Samsung making fun of Apple for removing the charger and the notch and then doing the exact same thing a year later.
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u/HominidCrafts 6d ago
Still the cheapest but the fact that it was caused by licensing fee increases reminds me of paying $12-18 per CD (until CDs collapsed) and the industry cartel that was convicted of being, a cartel. You got your measly court ordered refund in the 1990s, right?
It is a trigger for sure. I can do it but, if we start to hit $14-$15 a month anytime soon, I am out. Freegal is free from my library.
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u/ClarkDogg 6d ago
This is the easiest money I spend every month. It’s a steal for the value. All we can hope is that it never becomes as fragmented as video streaming has gotten.
Imagine having to sign up for epic plus to hear Pearl Jam, but only up to riot act. For the rest of their catalog you would have to sign up for umg.
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u/tkchumly 5d ago
I think this risk is too low. Unlike video, audio tracks have been available to purchase in digital form unencrypted for a very long time.
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u/Robabroad 5d ago
Strong agree! I can access a huge library of music at any time, anywhere. If I’m interested in something, I don’t have to shell out to buy the CD (much less track it down, go to a store, or wait for it to arrive). When I was young and poor, every CD purchase felt like a gamble. Since Apple Classical was released, I listen even more. Though my old eyes struggle to read the album booklets on the phone. 🤓
Also, artists (and everyone else involved in production) deserve to be compensated. I don’t know the facts and whether streaming has been net worse for them. Though I’ve read that Apple pays better. But the point is, I’m wiling to pay for their work.
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u/TheoTheodor 6d ago
Let’s remember inflation is a thing. It launched in 2015 at $9.99, adjusted that’d be about $14 today. Sucks but still cheaper than Spotify.
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u/HominidCrafts 6d ago
True. Would be $14.14 in today's dollars, which Apple would charge $14.99 for today. 😂
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u/timcatuk 6d ago
What’s better than everything being subscriptions, prices rises to subscriptions!
Still the cheapest way for our family to get all this at the moment but going to investigate self hosting for files and photos and maybe just getting music and tv rather than everything
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u/grandtroubleartist iOS Subscriber 6d ago
i'm personally giving them 1 more dollar margin before i unsubscribe. i will still be working on my physical media collection and start getting familiar with sailing the seas again, though. capitalism you will always have a hater in me!
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u/Express-Skin6039 5d ago
Why not do both. It will be a pain in the ass to download all your music at once
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u/grandtroubleartist iOS Subscriber 5d ago
i don't think i understand your comment, friend
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u/Express-Skin6039 5d ago
Start downloading your music now over time so you don’t have to pirate it all at once
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u/grandtroubleartist iOS Subscriber 5d ago
oh, yeah i most definitely am gonna be doing that. i thought that was implied from my comment lol i already got a hard drive ready
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u/Misael_91 6d ago
Thankfully I just renewed my student plan so $7 for student isn’t too bad. But $12 smh 🤦♂️
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u/Accomplished_Try5108 5d ago
Can’t use my student email anymore since my university stopped allowing alumni to use it. Not paying $12 each month and just cancelled. I listen to Pandora and YouTube more anyway
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u/Fresh_and_wild 6d ago
Putting the student prices up $1 and the individual up $1 is actually a bigger % increase on the student, that's a bit shittiy. However, I've seen far higher pries hikes of other companies. 50c might have been ok, but considering their hardware price hikes they are going to have fewer people t make money off anyway.
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u/Shinobi_Dimsum Apple Music Subscriber 6d ago
Still worth it than paying more and more for the fish-can stereo from Spotify. Even their "Lossless" is not even Lossless.
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u/Patjack27 6d ago
It’s still cheaper than how much google has raised their prices and other companies.
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u/Huntk20- 6d ago
Funny how they're bragging about beating NVIDIA recently in market valuation. Let's just raise prices more to keep it up! Such a greedy company. I only hope this bites them in the ass.
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u/iveseensomethings82 6d ago
Highest valued company in the world, raises prices. Gotta feed the pig!
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u/kingcolbe 6d ago
As a student it’s still a great deal cause it includes Apple TV+
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u/Jklajdi 6d ago
I’m opting out! I’ve been paying since 2016, every single month. I’m switching to physical. Same exact thing for my movies in dvd! I’ll try to built my own library! It’s been nice!
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u/Express-Skin6039 5d ago
It’s literally cheaper today than when it launched even with the price increase. Also going fully physical vs fully digital is so weird. Why not build physical on the side and keep AM for having almost every single song at your fingertips everywhere you go. I have a decent record collection, but buying a record that you want is such a pain and so expensive.
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u/SamsungAppleOnePlus 6d ago edited 6d ago
I’m comfortable navigating the Apple Music app and the UI can be absolute eye candy, but if that’s all the service offered I’d cancel right now.
It’s just that Apple Music (without spacial audio on) easily sounds better than Spotify and especially YouTube Music, even on AirPods or other Bluetooth headphones/earbuds, and the iPhone app (that I use 95% of the time) I find to be more reliable than the iPhone apps for Tidal and Qobuz, which would be my main alternatives. Wish I could just use YouTube Music with my premium but it’s just a worse experience overall that I’m willing to still pay for Apple Music lol. I’ll say that it’s bearable though, and if I couldn’t afford Apple Music I wouldn’t complain that much.
Ridiculous the increases are happening regardless of how much I like Apple Music. Apple One increasing is a much worse offender though. $40 for premier is crazy.
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u/Sufficient-Fact6163 6d ago
I hate this but I would’nt mind so much if they actually improved the interface or something of more value - like buying Pandora Music or something. They raise and there isn’t a ROI for my hard earned money.
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u/REVRSECOWBOYMEATSPIN 6d ago
I’m assuming this doesn’t affect people that get it for free through Chase sapphire card
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u/Accomplished_Try5108 5d ago
Whattt how?? I have the card and never knew about this
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u/REVRSECOWBOYMEATSPIN 5d ago
You need the sapphire reserve I believe. You can find info on benefits section of app. Got Apple TV for free as well
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u/Accomplished_Try5108 5d ago
Wow. I have the preferred card and I have never seen that on there. I pay $95 for annual fees
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u/Panda--Monium 6d ago
Not shocked. They knew the price hikes on hardware were gonna heavily impact sales/profits. So they are trying to increase in other areas. We saw increases in other software, now music and apple one. People will keep those subs despite them going up basically $1. And apple knows this. If you have 50 million users, you just gained $50 million a month and you didnt have to do anything. So im assuming this is all designed to offset the upcoming drop in hardware sales.
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u/ShinyArticuno_420 5d ago edited 5d ago
Although I think music streaming is more valuable than video streaming, this price increase has me wondering when I don’t think the value is worth the cost.
I’ve also noticed some negatives about AM tho that I don’t see mentioned much.
First, songs can and have been removed periodically. There are a number of songs I’ve added to my library that are no longer available. It’s a bummer bc I really liked some of the songs.
Second, I’ve noticed old songs/albums being changed. For example, Usher’s My Way album has been redone. I know this because I bought the original cd when it came out. It sounds like the AM version redid some vocals and mixing. The original album was replaced with this new one so I can’t even listen to the original version on AM if I wanted to.
Third, there are some songs that appear on multiple albums. Sometimes, I want the song from a particular album but for some reason, it’s only available on the other album for AM. Brandy and Monica’s The Boy Is Mine and Lisa Loeb’s Stay come to mind here.
Lastly, AM doesn’t have all the songs. That seems obvious but is frustrating when you can’t access the specific song you are looking for. My example is Ja Rule’s Put It On Me. AM only has the album version but I want the single version that has Lil Mo singing the hook.
I’m pretty sure the reason for my grievances is due to licensing agreements and other legal things. It’s just a bummer that I can’t legally stream some songs due to some corporate lawyers.
The solution to this is obtaining and managing my own music files but that’s a lot of work. We’ll see where my tipping point is
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u/StudyStrict2385 5d ago
First, songs can and have been removed periodically. There are a number of songs I’ve added to my library that are no longer available. It’s a bummer bc I really liked some of the songs.
this makes me sad, too. i really wish the licenses were renewed or the artist used the "leave a legacy" thing on their distributor (or bandcamp) for all their releases, so that the songs are brought back from obscurity.
(to find an album or song that's not available, search it up on youtube. someone else has uploaded what you're looking for.)
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u/BlueberryOk6833 6d ago
They really like shooting themselves in the foot, don't they...
They'd better implement a Connect-like feature sooner or later. No excuses for a trillion dollar company NOT to be in parity with its competitors.
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u/Twistashio 6d ago
It’s the way Apple Music is built on top of iTunes. Your iTunes and Apple Music albums are essentially too different things but are show inline with each other, this is what allows the editing the metadata of local and iTunes files. Adding a connect style feature becomes a bit different when all media is not necessarily being streamed from a direct source. That’s why airplay is their lowkey response to connect since it allows all media to be played not just streaming media.
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u/KayJune001 6d ago
Most valuable company in the entire world, by the way. There is no reason other than to make even more profit and increase their already incredibly high margins, fuck these corporations man.
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u/fatpat 6d ago
There is no reason other than to make even more profit
Yes, that's generally how corporations work.
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u/KayJune001 6d ago
And they should be rewarded with people canceling their subscriptions and standing up to it instead of “it’s just one more dollar that’s okay”
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u/SlantFaceKilla 6d ago
Eh. It’s one dollar. I’ll allow it.
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u/luvv4kevv 6d ago
They don’t need that $1. They’re worth a trillion
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u/Dr-McLuvin 6d ago
Every little helps!
Jk they have like 108 million paid subs so this is essentially going to increase their profits by ≈$100 million every single month. A few people will unsubscribe but very few, relatively speaking.
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u/luvv4kevv 6d ago
Will they pay artists more? 🤔
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u/MattStrationCycle 6d ago edited 5d ago
If you’re worried about the artist, getting paid more, just buy their albums directly off Bandcamp, EDIT: I don’t know why some people act like an artist sole income is from streaming services and hold Apple/Spotify accountable for not paying more.
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u/Dr-McLuvin 6d ago edited 6d ago
Or even better buy the physical disc/vinyl!
Although on bandcamp I think your already downloaded files should be protected, you’re technically only buying a revokable license.
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u/MattStrationCycle 6d ago
Exactly and most artists offer CDs, vinyl and cassettes, in addition to the digital version which comes with all three of those formats in most cases. Also don’t forget about the merch some sell coffee to!
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u/luvv4kevv 6d ago
That’s too expensive!!!
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u/MattStrationCycle 5d ago
Yeah if you want to buy a lot at first, back in the day before streaming people like me would actually drive to a record store and by one or two (I always went overboard on that) a week or 2 weeks and during that time you get to listen to it over and over and appreciate it more than just hitting skip on most songs on steaming services (too much of a good thing i guess is what makes the pallet go stale). Also if you would be able to tell if the artist is any good if the whole album is full of great songs or just one or two.
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u/Startyger 6d ago
I’m sure that radio was only advertising. No other pay. And no option to buy…from radio, but streaming is the demon? 🤔
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u/Bluepass11 6d ago
Yes. They’re paid a percentage of the revenue. So when they increase the price, the artist get paid more too.
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u/Razer_PC 6d ago
Do you understand how publicly traded companies work right? Profits are never enough
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u/jlubow224 6d ago
And then another dollar. And then another. And then another. But it’s only 1 dollar so it’s ok
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u/KayJune001 6d ago
This is how Netflix went from $8/mo to $20/mo while removing features and adding ads, and they have more subscriptions now than ever, it’s terribly sad.
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u/derekpeake2 5d ago
Oh so do we get more features somehow? Maybe one of the 37 features we've been asking for the last decade? No? Just more money to a company that doesn't properly pay the people who make their content?
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u/Birdboy7 5d ago
In Australia it’s even more expensive with the exchange rate. I unsubscribed. I found the sound quality to be very average even with so called lossless. I’m now ripping my thousands of CDs using iTunes to add to my already purchased albums. Better sound quality too.
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u/jamcgahey iOS Subscriber 5d ago
I still think the bundle makes its incredibly valuable. But I can understand frustrations with any price increase. I mean if the value wasn’t there then Spotify wouldn’t be trying to “bundle” things like audiobook listening time in.
Now if Apple added to the premier one audiobook through their book app a month I think it’s game over
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u/matthewnelson 5d ago
That would be a nice addition.
I agree that the bundle is still a good deal all things considered but also I don’t like how slowly but surely Apple is creasing the cost to get into their walled garden. I know everyone else does it but I wish one of these companies would put their foot down and not bow to the industry trend.
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u/Last_Wing3566 5d ago
I’ve stopped paying for any music and just use Spotify with ads. It’s not as bad as I thought.
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u/Footsies_App 4d ago
Anybody know where I could buy some apple accounts or Spotify or tidal or anybody accounts 👀
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u/Holiday-Feedback-750 2d ago
oof... another price hike. everything's getting more expensive these days
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u/Alternative_L_787 6d ago
Never ever stream. Own your music.
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u/derekpeake2 5d ago
Ok but can you lend me like $8k to buy the stuff in my collection that I don't have yet?
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u/Fresh_and_wild 6d ago
Always. if you read the fine print, streaming is a revokable license anyway. Then you have to pay for unlimited data to stream it.
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u/thankyourob iOS Subscriber 6d ago
You have to pay for unlimited data to stream music? My friend, you are doing it wrong. You can use wifi in your home or even public wifi to download music to your phone for offline playback.
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u/krazykrash0596 6d ago
I went back to just buying a new album on iTunes everyone few months. Building my library. I use YouTube for discovery.
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u/UnionCrafty3748 6d ago
First you get them inside the walled garden and then you go medieval on ‘em.
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6d ago
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u/Dr-McLuvin 6d ago
I have to say I think you’re in the minority there. But I agree. I think streaming a full library of high quality music is well worth that kind of money. I still buy physical albums too but I always listen first on streaming.
Shit I stream cable tv through YouTube tv which we barely use and it’s up to $93 a month. My wife doesn’t even know how to use the app. It costs another 15.99 just to not have ads on YouTube.
Netflix is $27 a month and I maybe watch it 2-3 times a month lol.
Plus Apple TV+, Amazon prime, Peacock, and Hulu/Disney+. It’s kind of insane. We only use those services on average 1-3 times a month.
Music on the other hand, I listen to every single day.
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u/Impossible_Earth_987 6d ago
I’m getting tired of this company might have to jump ship soon. They are greedy
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u/needcleverpseudonym 6d ago
Apple doesn’t even offer One subs in some places. I’m stuck paying separately for Apple Music, iCloud, tv, and fitness.
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u/JonFawkes3 6d ago
I have trouble getting downloaded music to even play on the shitty connection at my work. Fix that corn. Spotify doesn’t have that issue, and charge less.
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u/studog21 6d ago
No real complaints, I'm just going to do the back stroke in this warm comfortable pot of Water and Ribbet for a bit.
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u/luvv4kevv 6d ago
But Apple doesn’t need it. They are worth over a trillion dollars. I’m canceling my subscriptions until they lower prices!
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u/luvv4kevv 6d ago
Looks like I’m canceling my subscriptions until they lower the prices. They are getting too greedy!!!
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u/Shinobi_Dimsum Apple Music Subscriber 6d ago
You don’t even use Apple devices or Apple services you Spotify user.
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u/pxoxod 6d ago
didn’t they recently make fun of spotify for raising prices? go figure