It’s true that nothing in life is free — and even if it’s close to being free, Apple will eventually covet it and charge higher prices anyway.

That is essentially the fate that befell online music service Lala. After being bought by Apple last December, the streaming music site announced at the end of last month that it would discontinue all service on May 31. Although Lala will no longer accept new accounts, current users will be able to access their accounts through the end of May.

Lala provided online music storage for users, unlimited streaming for 10 cents per song, downloadable full-length songs at 89 cents per track (or 79 cents if you had already paid the streaming fee), the ability to communicate and share music with other users, and an ad-free experience.

While I’m sure Lala’s incredibly low pricing appeals to the broke college student in all of us, Lala’s real strength lay in its cloud computing. Lala basically replicated the music collection stored on a user’s computer to their site so that users could access their music from different devices via the inter-webs without worrying about manually transferring, syncing and uploading music to multiple devices.

When Apple purchased Lala last winter, they released very little information about their long-term plans for the site. Many speculated that iTunes would begin using cloud computing to provide more music services at lower prices.

Yet in the weeks following Lala’s announcement that it will shut down, there has been no word of changes to iTunes’ services or prices. Although, according to Lala.com, in appreciation of users’ support — and probably as a result of Apple’s attempt to encourage crossover from Lala to iTunes — previous Lala users will be given iTunes store credit for an amount equivalent to their purchases from Lala.

Apple’s acquisition of Lala and expected its foray into cloud computing demonstrates its understanding of the multi-device, omnipresent access world we now live in. We carry our lives in our pockets and on several different devices at the same time, expecting the ability to access all of our data from wherever we may be and to put in as little effort as possible to make sure all our devices are up to date with our fast-paced lives. While portable music players have indicated that people value the ability to take music with them, access to one’s entire music collection from any location with Internet has not been possible on this large a scale before.

While I think few users will convert since Lala has shut down before Apple has developed a similar iTunes service, it’s clear that iTunes is looking to dominate the digital music market permanently. Much like Apple products have been dominating my columns of late. Apparently Apple is the new Lady Gaga.