1y ago

And now Bezos is trying to insert ads everywhere

292 comments

Tbh, the worst part is when you pay for it and still get ads anyway. Feels like double dipping, but it's obviously going to happen because wall street doesn't like when line only goes up a little.
- Yeah that’s totally galling. Shrinkflation for online services.
  You know some shiny-suited corporate asshole got a huge bonus for coming up with that though.
  
  Enshrinklification of the internet
- Welcome to cable TV in the late 80s...
- Yeah it's crazy. We have TV plan with some 100 channels bundled up with internet, and sometimes rarely when I watch TV I'm just baffled by the fact a paid service still is full of ads
  
  We let it happen. You either put your foot down at the first instance of this thing or you lose any ability to do it because it eventually gets so big you can't stop it without some whole new technology. But there's always going to be people who say "how else are people going to pay for websites if not advertising" I say not my fucking problem. Just like robbing my free time with bullshit ads wasn't their problem.
  
  Given my entertainment options, I found a small developer that sells an app for a couple bucks that allows me to pull streams through my phone and transcode it and chromecast it to my projector. Juijitsu Kaisen never looked so good.
- the problem is that making the line go up even a little gets exponentially harder with time. because the graph not going up at any given point in time is so unimaginably horrible to them, they keep having to think of new insidious ways of satisfying it
  
  I actually find myself wondering lately "what's so bad about stable (+/- 5%/annum) profits for some stretches of time." Sure you're not eating up market share, but a couple million in the pocket every year really isn't that bad...
  I... May not be cut out for capitalism...

Pirate everything. Pirate streams, torrents, whatever.
Pirate. Everything.
*unless it's an independent artist of some sort. then, just buy some merch from them or something.
- While listening to Spotify using a custom APK, which enables premium features: I support this message!
  
  As do I (while also listening to a modded Spotify apk).
- In fact you should even pirate piracy. Next time steal someone else's torrent and seed that instead!
  Note: Yes, I do realise ;)

The price of playing skyrim for every minute of my life until I die
With game pass: Over $9000.00
Just buying the game: $59.99
- 59,99 on every platform the game gets released on because Todd won't stop
  
  If you bought Skyrim on Steam before 2016, you got all PC versions for free up to now.
- Me but with Factorio and even more hours
  
  2000 hours gang, where y'all at?
- Gamepass is a great deal if it has 4 or more games a year come out that you want to play, and that's if you pay full price instead of buying cards, etc.
  
  What if I play all my games on a 3 year delay and buy all 4 games for $15 with DLC included?
  
  I keep hearing how great Gamepass is but I really fail to see how unless you just began gaming like one year ago. Every once in awhile I look to see what’s on there and it’s just old games I’ve played before.
  
  Until MS ramps up the prices because the current pricing is unsustainable
- I paid $10
- The price per minute I've paid for playing Skyrim + Skyrim SE + Skyrim Anniversary Edition, all DLCs included: Less than 0.01 USD/minute

Remember when you didn't have to pay for a subscription to play console games online?
- It's infuriating.
  I mainly play on PC where thankfully I don't have to worry about that.
  But I also have a Nintendo switch, and get this shit... they don't even let you back up your save games online. we're talking about fucking kilobytes of data per game that they're too stingy to provide.
  You can't even back up game saves to the microSD!
  If your switch breaks, is stolen, or you just get a new one, you lose your game saves unless you pay for Nintendo online.
  
  They are not stingy, it's all part of a plan to keep you locked in.
- No I don't. Gold was there pretty much from the get go. Without would be better, but what you asked I don't recall existing.
  
  Playstation 2 and 3.

Everyone is saying Piracy but I say Public LIbraries, which often have CDs/DVDs/BDs/games now (depending on your locale). They're taxpayer funded, so you might as well get your money's worth, and they keep track of how often stuff gets borrowed which determines future financial support.
(And if you are tech-savvy enough to be on Lemmy, you probably know how to make a ... permanent copy ... for yourself to keep)
- Libraries are great. Just think about it, if libraries as a concept hasn't already exist, there is absolutely zero chance it will be invented in our time due to our overly restricting copyright law.
  
  And also due to a rightward shift in the Overton window. A place where people just get to borrow books for free? That's socialism. And it will completely kill the entire books industry
  
  Which is exactly why big corporations are lobbying hard to get public library stripped of funds by any means necessary. I mean you can even 3D print spare parts in many libraries for free by now! The super rich cannot have that.
- Or save the time and gas money and download it.
  I mean shit, I don't even have a DVD burner in any of my computers. Haven't for a decade and a half. You expect me to grab my external drive to burn a copy? I can download anything on my gigabit connection in 5 minutes.
  
  Why would you need gas money to go to a library?

Brothers, sisters, others, it's time we return to the old ways. To the high seas. We steal from those who own, but do not pay to own, the content they distribute. We will share this media amongst ourselves until they learn that we were willing to pay with dollars, but not with time.
- we shall pirate on the beaches, we shall pirate on the landing grounds, we shall pirate in the fields and in the streets, we shall pirate in the hills; we shall never surrender
  
  We shall pirate in the alleys, in the fields, in the chats and we shall never surrender to the greedy hands of Sony, Nintendo and alike
- I miss good old fashioned LAN parties of the 90s and early 00s
- YAAR!

I like to bootleg the major studios and patreon the indie artists that are giving their shit away for free.
- Yes! I'm right there with you.
- Where do you stand on indie artists that are using Patreon to act like major studios, e.g. nothing is free and their work is limited release and deleted after the month?
  
  I find it harder to be upset about what an artist does with their work because they're the sole creator and didn't exploit anyone to make it. The limited release stuff doesn't sound great but none of the artists I follow do that, I certainly wouldn't support them if they did. If they're planning to never release the art ever again then I think there's a fair argument to be made for piracy, although if you're just waiting for the month to turn over to look at it guilt free, well, I think you're just trying to justify it to yourself.
  
  I've never seen an indie artist on Patreon that delete shit or used any kind of DRM. At least no artist that I've been inspired to support.
  I try to never steal from people, only corporations.

Never pay any of this services BTW, I have no regrets and I never feel that I miss something.
- Concur. I pay for the following subscription services:
  My internet connection.
  My cell phone plan.
  That's all. Everyone else can go fuck themselves. If I can't buy it outright, I don't need it. If it's digital, it's on the Pirate Bay. Prime is bullshit anyway. I don't need a predatory gym membership; Putting an elliptical machine in my own house cost me all of $200 and it's mine forever. I don't pay for Dropbox or OneDrive or whatever; I have a massive hard drive in my PC and I can access remotely it via my VPN. Etc.
- Same. I would never pay them for their shitty little services. Imagine paying monthly for dropbox, sporify etc for years... That's so much money.
  
  Eh Spotify gets a whole family unlimited for 17 euro, it's pretty convenient compared to going finding and uploading to my device or purchasing individually.
- people worship amazon then get mad when they make changes, a business is gonna business

I don't hate subscription based services if they're priced fairly and make sense.
Paying monthly for a service that then starts giving you less, adds more premium plans, introduces ads, etc. is garbage.
Paying for a game, then having to pay a monthly fee to play (WoW, for example), is garbage.
Paying for software, but then having to pay monthly to use the software, is garbage.
Paying for software, but then having to pay monthly to be allowed to contact support (Blue Iris), is garbage.
But paying for things like Spotify, where you get access to pretty much all songs as they release, have no limit on how much you listen to, and it has a fair student pricing or family pricing, that's fine. Way better than paying per song.
I mean shit, if I paid for every song I have in my library on Spotify, I'd owe $1430. My Spotify is $17 per month, spit between 4 people, so I pay $4.25. I can either pay for every song in my library and not add any more, or pay for Spotify for 28 years and continue growing my library..
- WoW and other MMOs are not just games with slapped on subscription costs. It is a very specific subtype of games which have much higher maintenance cost than an arena shooter. There is a reason these games get shutdown when certain financial thresholds get passed beyond let's do something more profitable.
- Honestly, this.
  The economics of the world are such that people need to be paid for the content they produce. Having a direct relationship between me as the consumer and them as the producer is the way we don't get shit like all of the ad-based spyware that surrounds shit like Facebook. It won't completely prevent it, but it gives a good business plan for it not to happen.
  I'd vastly prefer something that didn't require some megacorp as evil as Amazon. But.. this could actually make as much sense as is possible with our current economic system.
- Spotify is the only subscription I still pay for. That's it. Everything else is whack
- deleted
- Nah, fuck subscriptions. If I can't buy it once and own it, then it's a scam on consumers. Change my view.
  
  I did. Look at my Spotify example. It's literally more expensive to own the songs than to pay for Spotify.
  Unless you only want like 30 songs.

There was a prophetic podcast episode from the series Plain English a while back that I constantly think about.
In that episode the author describes how the internet is going through a revolution.
Basically 20 years ago, the internet was all about gaining numbers. Companies could operate at a loss if they got people signed up. Facebook, Google, YouTube, Uber, Deliveroo, etc. they were all about getting you in their mailing list or consumer list and who cares what happens then.
Now there’s an issue because that model is not profitable. In order to continue, all the internet is moving towards subscription.
In a sense, I don’t think of that as intrinsically bad. Patreon is a good example. The internet is now filled up with so much shit that people are willing to pay to filter it. So with Patreon, you pay a fee to support an artist to produce the content you want. That itself isn’t a bad idea.
Now that being said, a lot of “bad things” do emerge. The fact that you can no longer buy software like Adobe and it’s all subscription based. That’s shit. But that also inspired software alternatives like Affinity Designer.
- I present to thee enshittification.
- The fact that you can no longer buy software like Adobe and it’s all subscription based
  100% the biggest factor in me deciding to buy Magix Vegas (formerly Sony Vegas) video editing software was because they still sold lifetime codes. Have I gotten $400 worth of value out of it? Fuck no. But I can use it whenever I want for as long as I want without worrying about whether or not I can afford it for the month.
  
  The you have companies like Filmora who tried to turn lifetime licenses into subscription ones...
  
  Davinci Resolve is another great value editing program.

It’s not that I don’t want to pay for the service, it’s just that I hate the automatic recurring withdrawals, even if I can cancel monthly.
I would probably use more subscriptions if I could just pay like three month of access in advance - basically like these gift cards work.
- It's not that i don't want to pay, it's just that their "service" isn't serving me and thus not worth the money.
  Give me my cd's back lol. Let me own what i purchase.
  
  I use an iPod that I've modded 128gb into. It's great. All the convenience of my own high quality music library, without having hundreds of CDs around.
- Aren't most of these services offering 6-12 months plans that are cheaper on average?
  
  Not all of them. Spotify doesn't, they know that people will just pay monthly, they don't have any reason to offer a discount

This isn't a shitpost, this is truth brilliantly represented 🙏

Image Transcription:
A crazy trollface stick figure hides behind a crudely drawn square, holding a shotgun and saying "I HATE SUBSCRIPTION BASED SERVICES I HATE SUBSCRIPTION BASED SERVICES I HATE SUBSCRIPTION BASED SERVICES" as an army of harp darps wearing blue helmets with various logos on them come through a crudely drawn door.
Around the harp darps are various statements they are making as they move into the room. At the front left, below a harp darp wearing the Adobe logo, is the text "You can afford it, come on". To the right of the Adobe harp darp is one wearing the Dropbox logo. Behind the Adobe harp darps is one wearing the Netflix logo, and behind the Dropbox harp darp is one wearing the Spotify logo. Between the front four harp darps is the text "Just $15 bro". To the upper right of the Spotify harp darp is the text "Limited Ads dude". Behind the Spotify harp darp is one wearing a Twitter (now X) Verified blue tick, with the text above its head reading "It's less than a cup of coffee bro...come on". To the right of the Twitter Verified harp darp is one with the Nintendo Switch Online logo. To the upper right of the Nintendo Switch Online harp darp is the text "It's just a small monthly payment dude", and to the bottom right of the same harp darp is the text "You use it all the time Anyway bro". Behind and to the left of the Twitter Verified harp darp is one wearing an Amazon Prime logo, standing outside the door.
[I am a human, if I’ve made a mistake please let me know. Please consider providing alt-text for ease of use. Thank you. 💜 We have a community! If you wish for us to transcribe something, want to help improve ease of use here on Lemmy, or just want to hang out with us, join us at !lemmy_scribes@lemmy.world!]
- Good human.
  No, fantastic human!
  
  Thank you, fellow human 🤖
- Is this AI on steroids?🤔
  
  It's what capital wishes it could be: an indispensable person

Good thing from the current situation is it being the end of times for these services. Constant need for income increase to appease share holders means infinite growth, which is impossible. But individual doesn't see that, they just want more. So progress of any software towards service model is pretty straight forward.
First they start splitting software into smaller versions and selling both for slightly higher price combined than when they were single piece. Then they start releasing more frequent versions but that has limited impact. So they start introducing forward incompatibilities. Only new software will support both old and new versions of the document, forcing buyers to buy latest. When that reaches its optimal maximum they decide to switch to yearly subscription and force everyone to use those by same ways as they forced them to use newer versions.
Subscription based model is limited. It has no progression other than increase in price and it's only a matter of testing how much people are willing to pay. Sometimes even go above reasonable price but then go with "exclusive" content as if to justify higher price. This of course works for a while, but exclusive content costs money and is harder to produce consistently at high quality...
And after that, there's no progression. It's a battle royale among service provides but they can't back out because of share holders and can't revert to other business models. So some of them will stretch themselves thin and burst others will keep on living from that vapor until a new contender comes.
- Yep, absolutely. My family still has spotify and netflix subscriptions, but i already canceled prime before the previous price hike. I'd have already canceled netflix if it was my decision and the only service i still see value in is spotify.
  
  Unfortunately, I believe that feeling will change if you look into how Spotify actually harms the artists by forcing them to use their product even though they make slim to none profit. The more you know.

..but capitalism is so good, things only get better!!! The market is too regulated, is the problem
- It is very regulated. Remove copyright protections and things will change instantly.

The only subscription service that I pay for is tidal for music (pays artists more than Spotify, same cost) and that's only because maintaining a local library of music is too much of a pain for me right now. I may slowly build a local music library of only music I like, but I love listening to new artists so the $10 per month is worth the convenience.
YouTube? Ublock origin
Movie/tv streaming? Self hosted media library, plus some random services that are provided through my phone bill at no cost
File storage? Stored with my movies and TV on some hdds in raid
Amazon? Its not hard to find other retailers (or direct providers) with better prices and no subscription needed. Sometimes have to pay for shipping and it's slower, but worth it
- Passing along advice someone else posted on lemmy. If you have an android TV box, look at Stremio + Torrentio. Game changer!
- I do go for YouTube premium but that’s my primary source of entertainment nowadays and it does result in more money in my favorite content creators’ pockets (apparently more than ad-based revenue according to some sources at least). Plus YouTube music is included in that and is actually quite good.
- Most music steaming services have garbage selection for dubstep anyways, so local library is the only way to go.
  I pity that iOS users don't have a good option for downloading music off YouTube though.
  
  Can you make any suggestions? I think I'm into dubstep but I have a hard time finding new artists
  
  I pity that iOS users don’t have a good option for downloading music off YouTube though.
  This looks good, not sure if you can customize the linked iOS shortcut to download music though: https://projectlounge.pw/ytdl
- I've tried Tidal a couple of times and it never felt like it was hitting the mark. The HiFi is a solid feature though.
  
  Yeah had the same feeling about tidal as well. Settled for Apple Music since they offer hifi and a nice interface. Spotify still has the best playlists but it’s getting feature bloat and the quality isn’t up to par
  
  The best deal you will get is Apple Music. Especially if you are a classical music fan it is unbeatable. But another HiFi one that isn’t apple, is qobuz, although the song selection isn’t as wide as spotify or tidal or apple music. But they do pay artists a lot more and they have a webstore for purchasing FLAC and MP3s if that’s what you like.
  
  I haven't had any issues with it, the quality isn't as good as self hosted flac files (unless you want to pay for the highest tier, I assume) but it's at least as good as Spotify imo. Big selling point initially was Plex integration though
- If you have at least 6tb of storage space and good internet, the RedTopia torrent is more than enough to fill out a personal music library. That + SoulSeek for whatever new stuff shows up in my feed is everything I could ever need. Streamed anywhere onto my phone through Plex or PlexAmp
  
  The RedTopia torrent?

What will we do with a drunken sailor? What will we do with a drunken sailor? What will we do with a drunken sailor? Early in the morning!
- Do you want us to run aground woman?

You know, what you can not find on EBay you can find on PBay. Or whatever warez site you prefer.
- Mandatory "don't use piratebay" comment
  
  I haven't been into the pirating scene for a few years, last time I was active pirate bay was the best. why not use it anymore?
  
  What's wrong with pirate bay? I've been using it for years with no problems

Yes. Fucking yes. I'm so tired of it all. I just want to own things again.

We wouldn't be ever hearing any of that if SOME PEOPLE weren't actually paying for them

If it is subscription, then wen you lost your stream of income, you lost everything.
That including your house, if you live in subcription house.
- Isnt that called rent
  
  Mortgage too

Arrr.
- Lois Griffin speaking to crowd.jpg
  Subscribe...
  to a usenet server.
  
  What's a good service provider for this? Most ISPs don't provide usenet access anymore, and I've heard the free service providers are wack.

Cancelled prime yesterday, felt great.
Last service standing is HBO and I'm thinking to cancel that shit too.
- Do it.

I just got charged $165 a couple days ago from two yearly subscriptions I totally forgot I had. We need a better solution. The banks should just implement the usage of Virtual Cards like Privacy.com does. It'd be so much more convent for people to cancel subscriptions, if they're allowed to have multiple different virtual cards that they can easily toggle on or off.
Why don't the banks do this?
- We need a better solution
  Sorry to sound harsh, but....self control?
  I have a subscription for a VPN. I've been sitting here for a couple of minutes trying to think of others. I suppose my internet etc is a subscription
  I can't think of anything else
  
  I just have a subscription for music and cloud storage, that's it. I don't understand how some people have all of the subscriptions
- Why don't the banks do this?
  They get a cut of every transaction, and the more debt you accrue, the more money the bank makes if you carry a balance. They are financially disincentivized from protecting you from your spending.
- The banks are in on it.
- No one wants this other than user. Banks, just like everyone else, are in a business of making your wallet lighter.
  
  Yep. Once they got you signed up for a bank account, the last thing they want is you thinking about money.
- Why don't the banks do this?
  Both of my banks allow unlimited virtual card creation. I think it just depends on where you live.
- Most subscriptions can be canceled with a few clicks, usually right after buying it without loosing the paid for time. If you cant manage your subscriptions, that sounds like a problem you should address yourself instead.
  Your suggested solution of simply turning off the credit card the subscription is linked to doesn't cancel said subscription, it just results in a breach of contract from your side. That only works cause most companies can't be asked to deal with you, otherwise the subscriptions would continue and the incurring cost would sooner or later be sent to a collecting agency, with additional charges for late payments.
- You are right. The fact that cashless transactions are built on a pull model, where a shop/service is charging you instead of you being the one who sends the money, is absolutely fucking insane. I recently lost a few hundred bucks just because the shop used the wrong currency to charge me, leading to a double conversion at the absolutely shittiest rates, and by the time I got to someone in charge, the transaction was already cleared and set in stone. With a sane system this never would've happened.
  In my home country they actually recently started to adopt such a model. Instead of you giving the card# to everyone, they instead show a QR code with all the necessary payment details: BIC, SWIFT, IBAN, the rest of scary numbers, order number and the invoice. You just open the bank app on your phone, point it at the code, review the sum and any possible fees, press confirm, and the moment the transaction is cleared the page just reloads automatically with order confirmed. I believe there's also a special URL schema for when you don't have a PC, but I haven't tried it yet so can't tell for sure. With this approach, subscriptions are much easier to manage, because it's the bank's job to send the money, so they can list all recurring payments on a special page where you could just cancel one. Also helps with scummy services that stop providing service the moment the subscription is canceled - they won't even know you did until the the next day the payment is due.
  EDIT: There is indeed a custom URL schema, and lots of cool stuff like offline payments without plastic. But some of it is still clunky, including subscriptions, which only a few banks support and most services are opting to use their own billing systems for now.

Lmao literally the only "subscription" I have is my phone bill, which I pay yearly. Also maybe you'd consider my insurance a subscription? Sounds very dystopian.
Edit: is rent a subscription? Regularly refilled prescriptions? Where is the line? I have fallen into a quandry.
- Do you pay on a recurring cycle? Can you function in society without it? If yes to both: subscription.
  You need a phone, utilities, rent/mortgage, insurance (if we're being realistic) so I wouldn't call them subscriptions.
- Everything is a subscription. It's the dystopia we have created.
- moved my house phone to a Gvoice account. gets mostly spam anyway. voicemails transcribe to email. bye att

If it's free, you're the product
- Unless you pirate.
  Or buy it in a one time payment.
  In fact, you're pretty much the product in every one of these examples, even if you pay
- But also when you pay, you can still be a product.
- We used to pay a one time fee for software and we paid for big updates. I miss those days

I stopped watching network television because of ads, then I stopped watching free streaming because of too many ads (Pluto TV, Crackle), I get a basic subscription to Paramount through Walmart and I stopped watching that because of the ads. I have an Amazon prime subscription because I get it for one half off but I rarely use prime video an if they start showing ads, I won't use it at all.

I basically canceled almost all my subscriptions and pirate stuff. Except music, since I build a CD collection and buy the rest online which is still cheaper than a streaming service and I can keep the music as long as I want without having to fear that songs will get removed from the service.
- For music piracy if you're needin' try soulseek. I understand collecting physical items though, I do it with records, comics, and VHS tapes, just figured I'd spread the word just in case.

Only subscriptions I pay for is Plex, Drunkenslug, and Newshosting
- why not jellyfin?
  
  For me, Plex has a better ecosystem of apps and a far better sync or "downloads" as they call it now. The sync is a killer feature for someone who travels a lot.
  
  Probably one of its many shortcomings.
  
  Good question. Im really not interested in the setup and support that Jellyfin needs to match Plex's ease of use. The fact that I can download Plex on my desktop, direct it to scan some folders in my hard drive, and play those files on my PS5 or phone 10 minutes later without ever having to do any kind of serious work myself makes the $5/month more than worth it
  
  I run both similarity on the same box with the same source library but still prefer Plex for many reasons. One is that the nicer findroid app doesn't seem to support Chromecast, which is how I watch all media 99% of the time. Also the JF UI is a bit rough between laggy menu interactions and views sometimes having transparent backgrounds causing you to see the previous view underneath while transitioning between screens. I also don't like that the continue watching in the default UI uses landscape cards for each title that take up way too much space, and neither the default app or findroid has a recommended tab for individual library folders (like how in Plex I can go to movies and see recently released, added, top in genre x, top by director y). I think that would really draw me to use JF more. As it is it feels like I just have to resort to browsing the alphabetical list which I hate doing with thousands of library items.
- Plex lifetime goes on sale fairly often, just a heads up
  
  It does, but monthly subscriptions give Plex much more monetary support. Maybe one day when I really need to tighten my budget I'll buy the one-and-done option, but for now $5 a month is negligible for how much I use the service
  
  It’s on sale right now

I finally dropped Spotify, I still maintain a YouTube Premium subscription, only because I'm grandfathered into their old Google Music plan. I'm finally looking to setup my own Nextcloud and Jellyfin server on a NAS because Google cloud storage starts to get pricey when HDD are so cheap. I do still pay Means TV because if I'm still paying for a streaming service, at least it's a co-op.
- I have YT Premium because I watch 95% of my YouTube through Apple TV, which doesn't support ad blockers. I discovered that I can "visit" Argentina and sub to YT Premium for about £3 a month. I'm happy enough with that.
- You ios or Android user?

People like us just don't see it, they are want us on subscription plans for every service that exists. Starting from movies and series, which you don't own anything, and once you signup you agreed with their terms, they do what ever they want, to phone where your storage space will max out, and you have to pay monthly, to upload all your videos and photos in the cloud/server.
- Greed. The ultimate human trait.
  
  Greed isn't the ultimate human trait. Cooperation and curiosity are. We never would have built societies without either. We never would have advanced to the point we have without both. Everyone has greed in them, just like everyone has the opportunity to be angry or sad. But the notion that it is the ultimate human trait or somehow stronger than other characteristics is truly capitalist propaganda meant to justify their immoral hoarding of our wealth.
  After all, if greed is the most natural and strongest human attribute... well, the do-nothing takers at the tippy top of the food chain can just continue to suck our blood and deprive us of our agency since it is natural.
  There is a reason we don't live in libertarian hellscapes. It is because greed is not the ultimate human trait.

Saved this image as: I WILL NEVER PAY FOR GODDAMN NETFLIX.png

Bezos is no longer relevant to Amazon making changes.
- Umm yes, he's the executive chair of the board https://ir.aboutamazon.com/officers-and-directors/default.aspx
- It shows how ineffective Jassy is that hardly anyone outside of tech knows he's been the CEO for 2 years.

The last thing I paid for as a subscription service was Curiosity Stream a year ago. I've stopped watching movies and documentaries since and I don't miss it.
- You don't like Curiousity Stream?
  
  It was ok. It didn't offer as much content as I thought, it had a lot more in-house content that felt low budget, and I found it hard to find a topic that was truly enticing despite the variety. The service is fine and it was great as background noise while working, but it wasn't enough for me. I would still recommend it.

I think that Spotify (or any other music streaming service) are the only ones still worth it. I don't have to sign up for Spotify and Tidal and YouTube Music since any of them has whatever I need.
If that were to change, then I'll be subscription-free.
Also, I like paying for Spotify since it's the only European big-tech.
- I'm gradually getting to the point where I'll drop Spotify. Shoving ads for podcasts in my face every time I launch the app was bad enough, but now their app has become such a bloated mess that it bugs out whenever my phone is switching between wifi and mobile data. I have more than 1k songs downloaded just so I don't have to deal with that, and now I have to deal with it because it's more important to them to show ads and promotions than it is for their app to do what it's designed to do.
  And before anyone says "tHoSe ArEn'T aDs," showing me recommended artists and podcasts against my will is absolutely a form of advertising. Do you think they're showing me new releases from Joe down the street? These are paid promotions, aka ads.
  
  I switched to Tidal from Spotify, never looked back.
  
  Ads on podcasts are 100% at the discretion of the podcasts themselves. Not spotify.
- If that were to change, then I'll be subscription-free.
  At this point you will also be music-free since you do not own any of it, and that is what keeps people locked into these services even as the companies jerk them around.
  
  Or do both?
  The real value in Spotify is the music discovery. That's driven by data that very few are in a position to collect. Of all the big tech companies, Spotify is the only one I can think of that uses the data they collect from the users to give the users a uniquely better experience. Even YouTube is littered with promoted ads and videos. If you're avoiding ads anyway, it's a win win for the user to pay for Spotify premium.
  Then you can do what you will with all the playlists you make.
  
  Just pirate it.

Learn to torrent and throw Plex or Jellyfin onto your computer then you have your own Spotify and Netflix
- Plex doesn't offer everything Spotify can though.
  
  Use the Plexamp app

I always get annoyed when reading ads like "it's free with xy subscription".

You are under no obligation to consume media. Even if you want to the library is free. Vote with your dollar; feel like a service is ripping you off, cancel it.
- I don't think this level of snark is exactly called for in his instance --- it's not some fundamental right to consume Netflix content. If I want to, I pay their price, simple as that.
  People often talk about media consumption the way the left (rightfully so!) talk about housing or healthcare --- as a fundamental human right.
  
  I don’t agree that free circus is “improving society”, but i guess my priorities are not everyones.

Fuck you Spotify! I download my mp3 just like cool kids did 20 years ago, and it suits me just fine!

Tried to cancel my paramount plus account. "You purchased the year subscription. In 6 months, you will not be billed." Two months later: "Oh, Lower Decks is cool. I should keep this subscription."
- Dude, just pirate it like everyone else
  A vpn subscription is probably cheaper and I think mullvad is pay per use
  
  "Everyone else" is absolutely not correct. Realistically barely a fraction of people know how to do it and even less bother.

IDK, I can pay like 30$ for 5-6 months of XGP and play games worth 5x what I paid
- I will tell you a trick now that may blow your mind. Xbox live gold, upgrades at a 1:1 ratio to xbox game pass ultimate. If you stack 3 years (thats the max) of xbox live gold for maybe $50 a year. And then buy 1 single month of xbox game pass ultimate once you have loaded up all your live gold. It will automatically convert all of that gold into gp ultimate. So you end up paying like $165 for 37 months of game pass ultimate.
  
  Pretty sure they changed that so it doesn’t work anymore
  
  I'm using it, though MS changed/will soon change the ratio to 3:2 (XG : XGPU)
- $30 for 6 months is very reasonable if you enjoy what you are playing.

Wait, Spotify? Don't you mean "a pile of garbage"?
I have to be honest, I hate this thing even with the paid plan. Everything sounds so compressed.
- blame the loudness wars, not the streaming service. they don't alter audio files, the only exception being loudness normalisation between songs.
  
  It's either that or my opinion is the least valid out of them all.

"Muh stonk price."

There's ads in Dropbox?
- Is not only about ads, is about subscription services too.

He should just dump Amazon Video simply because it is so bad. The days of good programming with them died in 2016-2017.
- You should check out The Expanse.
  
  Honestly, I didn't like it. 😕 Probably because I get super annoyed when space opera horror is described as "hard sf".
  Also they messed with the drunkard cop's personality in ways that I thought undermined the character.
  I would like to see Severance at some point though.

estimate shipping charges eh, prime about even still. not a video user usually. one of few subs actually worth it for me. cable cutting scrooge I am
- Exactly. I buy Prime for the shipping. Being able to watch Wheel of Time without downloading it is a nice benefit.

I don't get the Dropbox one here. Are you expecting 1TB cloud storage for free?
But yeah, if really want those then pCloud offers a 2 TB life time plan.
- Are you expecting 1TB cloud storage for free?
  Your point stands, but let me point out that when gmail started their "9GB free" thing way back when, that was an unfathomable amount of storage for some of us. And gmail's not the only service that's offered huge amounts of free storage over the years. So yeah, I think it's probable that a bunch of us have been primed to expect free storage.
  edit: Also given how cheap cloud storage is from ie MS Azure...
  Depending on storage type you pay $10-$18/mo once you're using a full TB. If you use less, you pay proportionally less. Dropbox's 2TB for $10 is a comparatively better deal if you use it all, but if you use 1TB or less it's not. Which, now that I'm looking at it, probably means their business model is counting on a lot of underutilized storage caps from their subscribers.
  
  Nay i demand a decent minimum amount of free online storage. These jackasses have taken away SD cards from mobile for a reason. They overcharge a memory upgrade on laptops tablets and mobile phones on purpose. They choke companies into ditching local servers and moving to the cloud. Why? sUBsCriPtIOn BaSEd CLoud stORAgE. Shove it Microsoft Google and Amazon.
  
  The gym approach to software subscription, have you pay for shit you, preferably, will never use.
  
  Good point on the underutilized storage. It would be very good to have a pay per use kind of thing.

God forbid you pay for services.

eh... nintendo online isn't as shitty as the others
- Nintendo online is even more shitty than the others. We still have zero games with dedicated servers splatoon smash none of them have dedicated servers which is the whole point in why they needed to charge a fee. You might like having the old games on the emulator for the monthly fee and that would be fine but there's no reason to charge for matchmaking. Matchmaking and leaderboard should be free it might cost like 5 to 10 cents per year per user and they make way more than that with the 30 to 50% licensing fee for each game. To make the Nintendo one even worse third parties still have to pay for online services even though Nintendo also charges the customer. So if you buy a game that wants to use matchmaking or leaderboards they have to pay Nintendo additional fees for you to use them even though the customer you're all so paying the fee for the same service
  
  Who buys his kids products from Apple or Nintendo is most likely also torturing cute cats in his basement. And enjoys it.
- I rather flush my money in the toilet than buy Nintendicks products
- It's the only one we pay for. ~$35USD/year for the family plan is worth it to us.

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