FOSS enthusiasts, what SaaS do you currently pay for?

Mine is 100% ChatGPT at the moment

SaaS = Software as a Service (e.g. MullvadVPN)

You're viewing a single thread.

53 comments

Mullvad is the only one, though it's in large part due to me not being in a situation where I have any important software needs in my personal life, meaning I can get away with just free options and cracked versions whenever I need something.
- I really want to switch to Mullvad but it's difficult for me to justify 5€ a month when other VPN services regularly have specials offering US$2 a month if I prepay 2 years
  
  If you just want to change your IP, there is no reason to use Mullvad. If you care about your privacy Mullvad is great. You can pay in xmr or even in cash by mail.
  
  I get that, but I also want to be able to support services like Mullvad, since they're just an honest, scandal-free service. But at the same time, the only functionality I need is pretending I'm not in America to certain websites
- I don't think a VPN counts as SaaS, it's something that costs the company money constantly to run, SaaS is more like the Adobe apps, which are not a service at all and it doesn't cost them money for me to not uninstall it.
  
  At that rate it just sounds like you're trying to categorically redefine SaaS to just be the crappy ones, while excluding anything with a reason to be a service
  
  If it's an internet service that should be one, it's not SaaS. I'm not redefining it, that's just the definition. SaaS is just software, but as a (subscription) service.
  
  Just because a service is hosted in the cloud does not mean it is SaaS. The service has to replace a software solution, or be replaceable with a software.
  A VPN client is software. A VPN server is software. I can run a VPN client or a VPN server on my own hardware.
  But any VPN server I install is going to use my own network connection. Not an anonymizing proxy. No piece of software I could run can replace the anonymizing service that a VPN provider offers. The anonymization feature of a commercial VPN provider is not SaaS.
  Gmail (especially as part of the Google Apps suite allowing Google to handle the email for your own domain) could be considered SaaS. I could install my own email servers to handle email traffic in and out of my domain(s), but I'd rather pay for the convenience of not having to maintain my own email server software. Gmail, then, is a good example of SaaS.

53 comments