I’ve had an Apple Music subscription for years and use it A LOT. I tried some alternatives (Tidal, Sirius, and maybe one other?) and wasn’t super happy with the options.
Is there a service that people recommend that is good, like $10/month or less, maybe gives better pay to artists? I’d like to spend on a better company if possible too. If Apple has enough money to buy gold trinkets for elected officials they probably don’t need more from me.
I mean, if you were happy with the service at 10.99, is one dollar that much of a deal breaker?
If you didn’t already know, the subscription comes with Apple Music Classical for free. Maybe look at that as a mandatory $1 add-on.
It kinda is. Lame of me maybe, but it’s not like Apple is paying out more to the artists or making the experience better. Just shaking us down for more money. Idk how many people use AM, but it’s gotta add up.
I do like the positivity of your silver lining though!
For what it’s worth Apple Music has much higher payouts than other platforms like Spotify, Pandora or YouTube Music. Like 4x higher. I dont know if 0.8 cents is a fair price for compensation, but it doesn’t seem terrible… if you listen to an hour of music per day that’s maybe 15 cents to artists per day? That doesn’t sound like a ton but that’s about $4.50 per month to artists. Meanwhile according to the BBC artists get like 13% of CD sales so at $20 that would be a $2.60 cut. Meaning unless you were buying 2+ albums a month streaming on apple music gives as much money to artists as buying physical media.
I think thats my takeaway from the streaming era - its a lot less money per listen, but people are listening a lot more.
Maybe not specific to this price increase, but the service does in fact improve over time. They were the first to add lossless music (no cost increase at the time IIRC), the first to add atmos, and then they added Classical for free.
You should take a look at Apple Music Classical, it’s really good and actually the only reason I subscribe to Apple Music in the first place. Classical is what I pay for, the pop music is bonus.
Well, a few years ago it was $9.99, and in a few years it’ll be $12.99. That extra dollar indeed is a problem.
That’s just inflation though, at a normal 3% a year you should expect a dollar increase every 3 years. And inflation has been running higher than that.