Indeed. If we had all spent the time we used reading this thread working at a place like Starbucks instead, we would probably have earned enough to cover the costs of the apps and content that OP is looking to retain from the family plan while establishing their own independent plan.
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Is there seriously still no way to make my own purchases on a family plan?
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The amount of defenses people have is astonishing to what seems to be a very reasonable request.
To cut the story mega short: my mom and sibling are in my family. I run the family because I’m the techy one that ensures chaos does not ensue. For them, that means I provide storage to prevent storage issues, and family subscriptions to apps we all commonly use. For those twisting the definition of family, let’s pretend we’re all adults still living together. Not technically too crazy to imagine for some.
My mom has her farm game that I recently learned, she spends about $40/mo on. Meanwhile, I spend about $5-$10/mo on iAP purchases. There’s no reason we should’nt all be able to pay for these with our own money. From a UX experience, they should’nt HAVE to go buy a gift card and reload their balance independently. I don’t know why people defend this decision as if it‘a some outrageous request to make it another family setting to allow or force members of the family to pay for their own iAPs…
This could even be a mother, father and child. The kid turns 16 and has a job, and the parents feel the kid should pay for their own iAPs. A gift card should’nt be the only acceptable answer. come on…
To cut the story mega short: my mom and sibling are in my family. I run the family because I’m the techy one that ensures chaos does not ensue. For them, that means I provide storage to prevent storage issues, and family subscriptions to apps we all commonly use. For those twisting the definition of family, let’s pretend we’re all adults still living together. Not technically too crazy to imagine for some.
My mom has her farm game that I recently learned, she spends about $40/mo on. Meanwhile, I spend about $5-$10/mo on iAP purchases. There’s no reason we should’nt all be able to pay for these with our own money. From a UX experience, they should’nt HAVE to go buy a gift card and reload their balance independently. I don’t know why people defend this decision as if it‘a some outrageous request to make it another family setting to allow or force members of the family to pay for their own iAPs…
This could even be a mother, father and child. The kid turns 16 and has a job, and the parents feel the kid should pay for their own iAPs. A gift card should’nt be the only acceptable answer. come on…
Allowing a 16-year-old to make their own purchases within a family sharing setup might seem like a small change, but it opens the door to a slippery slope. If every family member could make independent purchases, it would be a short step to unrelated adults forming 'families' to share content and subscriptions, undermining the model's integrity. Furthermore, given Apple's inclusive approach, defining what constitutes a family is a delicate matter. To avoid having to draw these lines and to maintain the system's fairness, the current structure, with its limitations, is necessary. It ensures that family sharing remains focused on genuine family units, rather than becoming a loophole for cost-saving among unrelated individuals.
exactly. Family sharing is for families. And Apple allows the family to be up to 6 people; without restriction as to who those people are. But the benefit of shared purchases comes with the limitation of having one person to handle the finances of that "family." I see no problem with this arrangement and there is a workaround.
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Most subscriptions require you to pay more for the family option. Additionally, good luck finding a group of people that all see value from the same apps you do. I pay for fantastical and Infuse that I can think of off-hand. Good luck finding “a group of friends” that also see value in that enough to be tied down into a family to reap the benefits, even if they could also make their own purchases. That’s a lot of hassle for $30/yr.
The current model allows me to get all my friends on Apple One and just have them Venmo me every month just like their rent or any other shared millennial cost.
We can crack your entire theory by then saying what if Apple allowed non-shared iAPs to be paid for independently. Then each individual party are the only beneficiaries. They should be able to pay for those purchases independently.
My mom and my sibling are both literally my family. In my 3-person home example, they were also a family. The restriction of one person handling all finances is a limitation built by Apple. Just because there is a workaround doesn’t mean there should’nt be a simpler way…
I don’t see why you should have a personal car. There ARE other ways of getting around. You have two legs. And there’s Uber, or you could bike! I see no problem with this restriction since there is a workaround.
Then it would be better to put "household" in the name instead of "family".
But ... this wouldn't change anything in my specific (maybe special) case/scenario.
The purchase approval still works (it works for free apps too) and there is the possibility to disallow in-app purchases.
So this should not be a big problem, if setup correctly.
In the end, it really would be a nice feature for at least some of us.
Surprised so many still don’t get this.
Suppose you’ve got the type of “Father knows best” nuclear family this seems designed for. And one of the kids wants to buy Mother an ebook for her birthday. Just like happens with real books that go on the family bookshelf that anybody can read (though, of course, Mother is going to read it first, and may well be the only one who wants to read it).
Or an adult couple who get married and merge their paper and digital libraries. Both can keep buying paper books on their own, but suddenly only the organizer can buy digital books?
Think about that for a minute. You’re standing there in your favorite bookstore, but you have to call your spouse to buy it for you, and then pay your spouse back. Can you imagine how awkward that gets, again, for gifts?
Family sharing as it stands … is not as bad as everybody buying their own copies of everything, but just barely.
b&
Suppose you’ve got the type of “Father knows best” nuclear family this seems designed for. And one of the kids wants to buy Mother an ebook for her birthday. Just like happens with real books that go on the family bookshelf that anybody can read (though, of course, Mother is going to read it first, and may well be the only one who wants to read it).
Or an adult couple who get married and merge their paper and digital libraries. Both can keep buying paper books on their own, but suddenly only the organizer can buy digital books?
Think about that for a minute. You’re standing there in your favorite bookstore, but you have to call your spouse to buy it for you, and then pay your spouse back. Can you imagine how awkward that gets, again, for gifts?
Family sharing as it stands … is not as bad as everybody buying their own copies of everything, but just barely.
b&
I appreciate your perspective, but I'm not proposing a theory—rather, I'm explaining the rationale behind the current family sharing model. Your point about using Venmo to share Apple One costs are precisely the extra steps that Apple relies on to prevent widespread revenue erosion.
Apple's family sharing does allow individual family members to make their own purchases without the organizer's approval. These purchases can be shared with the family if the organizer has enabled purchase sharing, allowing for scenarios like buying a gift or adding to a shared digital library. The main limitation is that all purchases are billed to the organizer's payment method, which is a measure to streamline billing and prevent abuse of the sharing system.
While this setup might not be as flexible as having completely independent purchasing within a family group, it does strike a balance between shared access and maintaining the integrity of the family sharing model.
Well considering people can share households that are not family, like 4 unrelated people sharing rent on a place, that doesn't really apply.
Apple’s own marketing shows an organizer (appearing to be father), parent/gaurdian (appearing to be mother), adult (appearing to be a grandmother) and two kids. Which most families would be people over two households.
In a land full of free apps with iAPs, which have the ability to distinguish an in-app purchase between a user vs. a family, I struggle to see what abuse this is preventing. The amount of App Store purchases that would be missed due to family sharing (when considering this iAP protection feature that presently exists) would be a borderline rounding error even at a developer level.
Top Paid Apps is the very bottom of the “apps” explore page. You’d literally pass hundreds of apps before you even found a paid app. So on top of finding a paid app, you’d then have to find friends that also see value in your $6 app enough to join your family. On all my pages, I have two paid apps. The rest want my money through iAP, which again, can choose to provide that iAP to a family or not.
I’m not convinced this a “fraud safeguard” when Apple One is infinitely more attractive for abuse and significantly easier to abuse.
And so all these people are going to join your family because you have these $12 in apps someone has? Does anyone even here have a long enough list of currently working apps that are paid, that they’ve purchased, that they confidently feel they could find a friend that wants to hop on a family plan to avoid purchasing themselves? Feels like a stretch
Honestly, it seems like you might not fully grasp the scale of the App Store ecosystem. It's not just about a few $12 apps. For some perspective: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023...-trillion-in-the-app-store-ecosystem-in-2022/ it is not trivial.
What is your benefit for staying in the family? IMO, you have a choice: stay in the family with the restrictions or leave and be on your own. It sounds like you want to have the benefits of the family without the restrictions. Also, I believe family sharing was likely a compromise that Apple encouraged developers to offer. After all, it is the developer that is losing money on the family share arrangement.
I fully grasp the scale of the App Store. I’m saying the majority of purchases in today’s world, and likely since Family Sharing was introduced, is via in-app purchase. In app purchases can distinguish a purchase for an individual user vs a family purchase, and there’s often pricing to segment as such.
So when you consider that most transactions can differentiate and distinguish when it is made for a family vs for an individual user, there’s no reason to not allow every user to make their own purchases while being a part of a family.
To take care of my tech-illiterate family by paying for family purchases that make their problems go away, while still allowing them to buy their own iAPs for their silly game apps. I don’t think that’s too crazy of a request…nor do I feel this artificial limitation truly cost developers that much.
Family purchasing is an upsell tactic for developers. Person A may want their app for 1x, but maybe they’ll buy for 1.4x to offer it to their entire family. Meanwhile, the other family members may have zero interest in the app, so the developer cashes in an extra 40% that would have otherwise never been obtained. And if a developer doesn’t believe in that philosophy, as I stated, they can differentiate an individual purchase from a family purchase, and can opt to not offer family purchase options.
Everyone keeps arguing “why would I want to” when the question is “why is it not even an option?” @BenGoren had a number of reasonable reasons why this should be permitted. I think there’s an inconsequential amount of revenue lost by permitting such flexibility.
Seriously. Can anyone name 3 apps that they pay outright for, that’s currently installed on their phone, that they feel they could genuinely find other friends who would join their Apple family just to have access to? The proposition of the loss to Apple and developers I think is inconsequential.
I agree that this is a limitation or problem with family sharing. My household abandoned it becuase of this.
Essentially, it refuses to allow each member to continue to bill things to their own credit cards, essentially stripping individual financial management from all but the plan organizer. Great for managing kids spending, not so great when adults are not free to manage their own purchasing.
Essentially, it refuses to allow each member to continue to bill things to their own credit cards, essentially stripping individual financial management from all but the plan organizer. Great for managing kids spending, not so great when adults are not free to manage their own purchasing.
I know, I get that, but with "family" it's the other way around.
So regardless how it's named, it doesn't fit very well depending on the view of the individual.
It is what it is, either one is okay with it or not.
Ok so you are telling me Apple, when designing family sharing, didn’t bother about what family is in a common sense, but instead designs a system based on the business model that can maximise their profit while minimising their legal responsibility, then make up their version of “family” along the way?
Also, “overlord” is a devilish way to describe “one person fiscally and legally responsible for the purchases & licensing”. I just call ”overlord” because Apple’s design gives me that feeling. You may disagree.
If everybody is doing their own thing, why be a part of a family plan? I bought the Craft App. Both my wife and my daughter use it with no additional out of pocket expense. This is lost revenue to the developer. Same thing is somewhat true with books that we share. I bought it and others can read it with little traction; unlike with Kindle books.
Share storage so you don’t have to hear the complaints and questions from family members about all the negative externalities that come with 5GB of storage. Or to share Apple One, if you’re a subscriber. Or because you pay for an annual family subscription for the intent of sharing with family.
I think it fits perfectly, and it doesn't need expansion or redefinition. It's for families. Immediate families. Parents and their children. If this doesn't apply to someone, then IT doesn't apply to someone. Not everything has to apply to everyone, and the definitions do not need to be changed just because someone can't find a way to apply something to themselves.
Then why the hell are you in someone else's family?
Nevermind. A 30 year old wouldn't be having this problem.