6 members in family is too restrictive, needs to be expanded

hrpanjwani wrote:

I would argue that something does need to change. Imagine Apple negotiates with various content owners and makes a family plan that is customisable with a sliding scale that adjusts the number or family members and price in some sort of proportional relationship.

"Various" content owners? I think you mean "Every" content owner, otherwise you would end up with a half-baked Family plan where some content, maybe even some Music Artists would not agree and their content would not be sharable beyond 6. The agreement of 6 members in a Family Plan also applies to the Family Sharing seen on Android devices for consistency.

The option to pay for additional members is an interesting one, how much are you willing to pay for 4 additional members? And me as a Developer or a Music Artist, or Book Author, how much more should they be reimbursed for their content that once allowed for a single purchase to be shared across 6 member without any additional income and could now see a single purchase shared across 10 members. Should that Family Plan pay twice the price for any shared content? Not out of the realm of possibility, just not sure what that would look like and if users would be satisfied.

What I have seen work for large households, even those using the Family Sharing on Android devices, is having each parent, or a person in the family over 18, maintain 2 different Family Sharing plans. That way the content creators are represented fairly if that does require a purchase on both plans. You are still free to share other content, such as a Family Calendar, Photos, or content in iCloud between members of each Family Group.

Anyways, the feedback link to let Apple know how you feel is the way to go. I would choose your device and under Feedback Type, choose Feature Request, then explain your desire to expand Family Sharing to 10 members. There really is no need for a debate and the practice of limiting members of any service is standard with 6 actually being generous without any additional charge. Compare that to streaming services that allows individual members. Most have a very limited number of individual users and have seen none over 6, while there are significant price increases for some like Netflix that would allow 6 on their most expensive plan, but nothing over 6.

If you have feedback for Apple, visit Apple.com/feedback.

Even in 1960 the average size of a family in the USA was under 4, and now it is closer to 3 (https://www.nbcnews.com/health/parenting/how-modern-us-family-size-changing-charts-map-rcna65421). Even the largest families in the world tend to 6 at most (https://popdiv.dfs.un.org/household/#/countries/) but there's not many of those. Most families are still nuclear.

It likely isn't just Apple that is part of this decision, it is also the content owners. Understandably they would want to draw a limit at some point, and that appears to be at 6 copies. They could probably increase it but then how much more are you willing to pay for that? In addition, everybody, even single users, would have to pay that amount, thereby making Apple's offerings non-competitive in pricing. You can bet single people would complain loudly if Apple adjusted pricing based on a 40% larger family, and the content owners would complain about your proposed 40% drop in revenues. As you can see, this involves a balance of factors.