Apple’s global Senior Director of Music publishing, Elean Segal, has shot down any hope for Apple users who had hoped for a free ad-supported Apple Music tier.
As reported yesterday by Musically, Segal was answering questions posed by British members of parliament in the UK’s Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport committee.
Segal appeared before the committee alongside representatives from Spotify and Amazon, about the economics of streaming services. The trio of representatives was asked about their subscription prices and their thoughts about free tiers being offered by their services.
While Spotify and Amazon both offer free tiers of their music features, the music is broken up by ad offerings, and some in-app features are not available.
Segal says that a free tier for Apple Music would not generate enough revenue to “support a healthy overall ecosystem,” and that it “also really goes against our fundamental values on privacy.”
Apple has long promoted its “zero ads” experience, which had already indicated the company would not be offering an ad-supported tier of its service.
Apple’s pricing model is based on the number of listeners, as a single subscription will run a user $9.99 per month, while a family plan allowing up to six listeners is $14.99 per month. The service is also available as part of the Apple One subscription bundle.