Apple wants more of your money, please. The multinational that already rakes in more revenue than any tech company in the world kicked off its week by announcing it has raised its subscription-service prices for Apple TV+, Apple Music, and Apple One, effective immediately. It raised the standard monthly rates for Apple TV+ by $2, Apple Music by $1, and Apple One by $2. That puts Apple TV+ at $6.99 per month, Apple Music at $10.99 per month, and Apple One (which bundles the two and a handful of other services) at $16.95 per month.
Apple naturally assured its customers that asking them to pay more was the right thing to do: “We introduced Apple TV+ at a very low price†three years ago, it said in a statement. And it’s better for notoriously underpaid musicians: “The change to Apple Music is due to an increase in licensing costs, and in turn, artists and songwriters will earn more for the streaming of their music.†(A Wall Street Journal report revealed last year that Apple paid artists a penny per stream, which, to be fair, was reportedly about double what Spotify was coughing up.) But the change comes as streaming services across the board hike prices and slash budgets any which way they can. Apple may not primarily be a streaming company (its device-purchase freebies remain intact), but it’s still caught up in the same industry headwinds, and it tends to pay bigger bucks for its prestige content than its streaming competitors do, and that means dealing with the prestige problems that come with it. Will this mean better green-screen stadiums for the Ted Lasso budget? Only time can tell.