PS: I am making no predictions, claims, or releasing a proverbial feline from its rucksack here 
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Never said they were. And I donāt, but thanks for letting me know.
Go and look at the top 10 holdings in the S&P500 and get back to me. At one point in 2021 the FAANG stocks were worth more than the entire Russell 2000, or close. This is just one example. I have a customer that is going to deploy software that has a commercial list price of $142M per year. You know what theyāll end up paying? About $12M/year for the license cost. Iāve seen hardware average 65%-70% discounts in the enterprise. This isnāt fallacy; these are the FACTSā¦. These companies arenāt charities. And I never said āApp Store software marginsā; I said āsoftware marginsāā¦
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Yes. I run them both. Timing is automatic and best if you primarily work on Mac. I want to be able to talk intelligently about both of them.
Weāll have to agree to disagree.
No software organisation gives 90% discounts. Few, if any make enough profit to give those levels of discount, to anyone.
No-one mentioned Hardware companies, but since you have they make even less profit than software companies. Apple is on the high end and they work at approx 30% profit.
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Yeah, wasnāt clear on the hardware comment. My point is that there is so much margin in the space that manufacturers that donāt actually produce the hardware can still start at over 60% off list price and still turn a profit.
You can disagree all you want. These are the facts. Iāve seen companies reclassify āsoftwareā just so they could turn it into a subscription. If youāre just making stuff up based on your assumptions, itās all good. But donāt accuse someone else of making fallacious comments when you clearly donāt understand how the sausage is made.
Edit: Iāve seen this at large enterprises and startups across a number of verticals. And yes, I know āwhat it takes to maintain software in the 2020āsā. These economics donāt work for everyone, but for many it does. Youāve taken the blue pill my friendā¦
I have worked in IT and compliance for 25 years and Iāve never seen the āfactsā you claim, and I doubt that anyone else I know who works in creating software would recognise the situations you describe as facts. Iām not making assumptions, Iāve managed IT departments including software development departments and worked in companies which produce software including SaaS.
As I said, weāll have to agree to disagree. I have nothing further to say on the matter.
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Edit: Just because you donāt know something as fact, that means itās not true? How does that even make sense? I donāt have an axe to grind here. Some of this data is public in the States; all you have to do is look it up.
Thereās a difference between being a helicopter mechanic and a helicopter pilot. Working in IT and managing the business of IT are two completely different domains. Iāve done both. There is no grey area here; youāre completely wrong. Stop taking it personal. Itās all good.
Yes, the music app could definitely use some work. But I donāt care for much of what passes for entertainment these days so I end up watching YouTube much of the time. Especially now that the writers are on strike and weāve said goodbye to Ted Lasso.
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Iām an old guy so my taste in music isnāt exactly mainstream. The recommendations from Apple Music and YouTube normally miss the mark for me by quite a bit. But both services allow me to customize my playlists and upload any tracks that arenāt available so either work well for me. And since I pay for ad-free YT I donāt need AM.
Ted Lasso was unique. A great cast of characters and a story arc that made learning about them enjoyable, at least for me. And it was the only reason that I subscribed to AppleTV+ a couple of months each year.
I stopped watching WWDC live years ago. Never liked the opening BS or a couple of other sections so Iād wait for the recorded version and fast forward to the interesting parts.
Yes, āApple has always . . . had style in the way that they do thingsā which is probably what attracted both of us to the brand.
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I donāt know if itās available everywhere, but thereās an 8,99 subscription without music.
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My beef with YouTube Premium is that I pay $23/month for my wife and I. Thereās a single tier and a family tier but no couples tier like some services has. When the price jump is that high, a middle tier would be great. Right now, itās just barely cheaper than paying for two separate plans.
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Not available in the U.S., most unfortunately. I pay for Apple One Premier ā itās cheaper than the individual services Iād want, I can share it with family, and Iām quite content with Apple Music.
So Iāve no need of nor interest in YouTube music. But Iām trialing YouTube Premium anyway, because I watch a lot of YouTube and find downloading videos using yt-dl or similar tedious. (I know I could automate that and drop things in Plex, but then I lose out on the extra information about the video, the links, and the comments, all of which are actually sometimes useful.)
If there were a Premium option de-coupled from YouTube Music, Iād be on it in an instant.
Iām in Belgium but, just in case, I can only find it in the app store, not on the YouTube site.
Thanks for the heads up! I just checked.
Unfortunately, not only is there no unbundled option, YouTube Premium is actually more expensive via in-app purchase in the U.S. app store than it is directly from YouTube.
Sigh.
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Our primary use cases for YT Premium are:
- 99% of the video links one encounters are for YT - itās ubiquitous and unescapable
- The ad-free experience is almost worth the $ by itself
- Fast, easy downloads for listening while mobile (in a country w/ expensive data plans)
- Background listening while mobile (mainly for podcasts/interviews)
- Since we already have it, we use it for music as well. The interface is barely tolerable, especially w/ every search result resulting in 90% junk āmuzakā style 10-hour repeating video.