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Comment by humaniania | Hacker News Reader

If that's the case, then how/why does Apply only charge $1/mo for their base iCloud plan?

Apple needs your payment information so you can buy apps. Since apple is a payment platform they want to make sure everyone gives them their payment information.

But people are typically very apprehensive of paying for apps (even though they may spend the same amount or more on eg coffee every day). And if apple get you to set up Apple Pay then surely you’re also able to pay for apps easily.

Maybe they just want people to be used to getting a monthly invoice from them. Or to used to paying for cloud storage (and so willing to increase the limit if needed). But then the $1 tier is pretty generous so maybe they want you to store a load of data in their cloud so you’ll continue to buy their products.

Maybe they want everyone to be able to back up their iPhone and avoid antitrust but really, really don't want to upgrade their free tier, which is atrociously stingy given how expensive their devices are and that no alternatives to iCloud are permitted.

I'd say it's because it's just a feature to Apple that incentivizes owning Macs and iPhones. For Dropbox it's their whole business -- they can't afford to subsidize the cost.

I'd bet that Apple sees it as a loss leader for something else.

Presumably it is worth a lot to keep the credit card details up to date.

That then allows for impulse purchases (movies, apps, etc), and validates that the user is not fake. One whale can pay for a lot of users.

They let you buy 99 cent apps too. Clearly they have better deals worked out with the processors.

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