If anything their trick is in how they describe the storage tiers on their website[1]:

> $0.99/mo for 50GB: Storage for thousands of photos, videos, and files.

> $2.99/mo for 200GB: Great for family sharing or larger media libraries.

> $9.99/mo for 2TB: Plenty of space for all the family’s photos, videos, and files.

Other than the $0.99 tier, these storage numbers are comically low for the uses cases Apple describes in plain English. But that's par for the course with Apple... An arm, a leg, and your firstborn for storage and RAM upgrades. As in hardware, so in SaaS cloud storage, I guess.

[1]: https://www.apple.com/icloud/

I did professional photography on the side for the better part of a decade before needing to go above 2TB. You don't have to hoard.

I agree on photos, but when I hear "larger media library" I assume we're talking video content, both family videos taken on phones and commercial media (TV and Movies). Maybe I'm misreading but either 200GB or 2TB are both very small for a whole family's collection of video media.

Are you thinking of their television shows or movies or something? That's not really a use case here.

Honestly, most families do not maintain a digital collection of media. And I say that as someone who does. Most families just have a netflix or prime or apple tv subscription, maybe cable. If there's a collection, it's probably DVD or Blu-Ray still.

Does any significant slice of the population store TV shows and movies on their phones or laptops?

> There's no trick as far as I can tell.

I think that is the trick.

99 cents is so innocuous, that people set up billing to allow it. People who set up their apple id without a credit card will probably attach a card to their account to get the 99 cent storage "deal".

At that point, upgrading to the next tier is inevitable as phones have been steadily increasing in storage capacity.

I think it would be nicer if your icloud storage capacity matched your primary device.

I think that nearly everyone who has an iPhone (at least who didn't get their phone deeply discounted second-hand) has a payment method set up with Apple. I don't remember the numbers from when I had to know ~5 years ago, but it was in excess of 95% in the US.

"with this one trick, you can get everyone to register a credit card!"

:)

There's no winning then, is there?

If a company doesn't offer a super cheap tier, then people complain it's too expensive and they're paying for space they don't need.

If Apple does offer a super cheap tier, there are complaints it's some kind of trick.

The $0.99 tier has been great for my needs. If you have a 64 GB phone you never need more. If you have a larger phone you quite frequently don't need more -- a lot of my phone storage goes to song, podcast, and video downloads. That stuff doesn't need to be backed up, and isn't by default.