r/apple is not which I find very disappointing

Using other instant as lemmy.ml is down.

These are all good points. Upon inspection the price is actually very reasonable. Some other 2TB comparisons:

• Dropbox: £7.99/month but £13.99/month if you want to share the data
• Google drive: £7.99/month
• Standard storage at AWS (for accounts with 500TB+ of usage) $0.021/GB/month ($42/month)

iCloud storage also has other perks such as 10 days of recording for unlimited home secure cameras. So the previous £6.99 was unusually cheap, £8.99/month is now more inline with market rate and at the rate at which apple increases the iCloud storage price it will probably stay at £8.99 for a long time.