What are some things you are subscribed to that make a service worthwhile in keeping?
I only have a few I can say is worth-it but worth it in a more conserving sense, like pumping-the-brakes kind of deal. Not something you would want on all of the time.,
- Amazon Prime.
People may be split on Amazon for activist reasons or what have you, but I find it difficult to argue against what benefits that is brought from it. I sparingly use Prime and get it only when I have things I want to shop for that will be best used with it. I don't personally use Video, Music or what have you.
- All Streaming Services (Only if you have a work-around)
Subscribing to any base streaming service plan with ads is worthless, but worth it if you use an HDMI cable from PC to TV or whatever configuration. Then watch through a browser that kills advertisements.
Worthless Subscriptions
Spotify
You're only paying for the privilege to skip songs which should be a basic right of usage. Podcasts still aren't exempt from advertisements. Features provided aren't really that exciting to use.
Sirius XM
I just re-subscribed to this for $1 and might be personal taste, but I listen to the comedy channels. I don't go anywhere else because I find that the music-based channels played things I don't typically like or can vibe with.
Discord Nitro
You're just paying for cosmetic junk which also all have separate price tags and other useless profile things that some of which, obstruct profiles so it is pointless. Only provides minor perks to video, audio and file capability. You also get to use emotes, that you can barely see anyways, in any server you're in (unless mobile).
All news-based ones
Why pay for journalism that is all but dead and biased these days?
X-Box Game Pass
Bit 50/50 on this one. On one hand, trying out so many games is a perk, but, it also works against itself because you could be isolated by choice and what limit you have to work with.
Gym Memberships
Very parasitic and predatory. They all lock you into contracts and pretend that they're like your car dealership or even your apartment landlord into these year-long subscription models. They prey on you not using their facility, they charge you annual fees and other fees you don't know about. The only way out of them is to pay the remaining balance of the subscription or other scheming means. Very few out there actually let you cancel.
I hadn't thought of those as subscriptions but I just use cheap VPS instead of a VPN vendor. Also I wouldn't use Protonmail especially since the recent incident where they (temporarily) booted some journalist email accounts. But I'm happy with fastmail, which tbh is on the expensive side.
I also have a cheap MVNO cell phone plan and I guess that is worth it since I do use the phone. My home internet is definitely not worth it though, and I should get rid of it.
I consider anything with a reoccurring payment as a subscription, even if it's technically just upkeep for a provider you use (domain renewal might be another example).
I haven't tried fastmail, although I haven't heard anything bad about it. How does it compare to proton?
Is my apartment rent a subscription? It dilutes the word enough that the question stops meaning anything.
I've never used Proton so I can't directly compare it with Fastmail. I would say Proton used a lot of privacy hype in its marketing that didn't hold up in reality, though I can't say it was insincere when it started.
In a pure technical sense, Fastmail is not particularly extroardinary. They run mail servers with decent uptime, have a fancy webmail client with a calendar sort of like gmail, etc. I like that there are humans at the other end. I've emailed the devs with issues and gotten answered, support tickets for routine probs also get answered (not by engineers but still by humans), etc. So, I think it is worth it since I'm unwilling to use gmail/whatever and I'm not well enough organized to self-host something as critical as email. That said, I could probably survive using mxroute which is a lot cheaper.
I guess one way to narrow it down would be "reoccurring payments for digital services", since that is much clearer.
I guess that makes sense for what Fastmail's trying to achieve. Sounds like it could be a good option for others trying to migrate from "free" webmail providers that I'll recommend in the future! :)
Thanks for your quick reply btw.
Well, maybe you're right, though I had thought of subscriptions (in the sense of magazine subscriptions) as being for products, rather than services. That is, you pay them and in return you get access to a pile of bits that they generate, but the bits you get (video streams or whatever) are the same as what everyone else gets (minor personalization doesn't count). So their business model is that they have a certain blob of data, and they sell access to it in dribs and drabs, and moreover, they charge you monthly whether you use it or not. Services like email are like paying someone else to mow your lawn, not the same.
I haven't generally found that to be worth it, though I'll occasionally make one-off purchases of data, such as books and CD's.