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.
Worth it: the medication I need to live.
Not worth it: the medication I need to live.
VPN for sure. Amazon you can use without Prime. Just wait until your total purchase hits $35 and delivery is free. I don’t have it myself, but I heard Youtube Premium is worth it because you get youtube and youtube music, so essentially 2 services for the price of one.
used to be 25$, they figured people spent alot more when its 35.
Paying holly creeps for their slop is funding your enemies
Same thing music streaming
Cut it out and pirate it. If you really care a out the artists and then money direct. Cut out the corporate parasites where ever possible. They are the enemy.
YouTube Premium family plan is worth it for me. Sure, I can set up a PiHole and block ads. But that’s only viable on networks I control; it won’t work if I’m out of the house unless I want to set up a separate tunnel through my home network at all times. And I also don’t have the time or inclination to set up and maintain a PiHole for each of my family members.
Pihole won’t even block youtube ads. The ads are served from the same server as the video you’re watching…
Why pay for journalism that is all but dead and biased these days?
Have you though about why it’s dead? It has always been biased, it’s human nature.
Have you ever actually had a gym membership? Most gyms I’ve belonged to had reasonable membership terms. Only one tried to get me to pay for the remainder of my one-year contract. The loophole was you could leave if you said you were moving out of town. They just took my word for it and that was it. Others just needed 30-days notice.
Password manager.
I am not sure why people subscribe to Music streaming services. My ex said it was to discover new music, but I do that via YT and friends. Other than that I just have 10 to 20 GB of music on my phone. No subscription, always available. Connects to all my devices. I just don’t get the point. Maybe if I didn’t have a PC it would be slightly more difficult to set up and add/remove music. But other than that?
They don’t want to admit they’ve been conditioned to waste their money on things they could be getting for free.
Because you have an enormous library of music, available on any device, instantly without having to download it and transfer it to the device you want to play it on. Also collaborative playlists are pretty sweet, and artist radios to help discover new music based on an artist you like. The vast majority of people don’t want to get their PC out to do all this stuff manually.
Spotify completely stopped me pirating music, never looked back.
I guess with the gym it depends on whether you use it or not. The one I joined got a lot of complaints about not letting you out of your contract, but I never tried to get out of my contract and I used it all the time. For me it was definitely worth it. They never charged me a fee on top of what they disclosed at the very beginning. That would’ve been aggravating.
For journalism, I pay for 404 media because it’s journalist-owned, but it’s pretty niche in its scope.
My issue with Amazon Prime other than hating Bezos is that it was too good at all the things that drew me to it in the first place. Keeping track of everything I like to buy and free shipping and a speaker that I could just talk to and order stuff made shopping so convenient! It led to a lot of overconsumption. I would just browse my recommendations out of boredom and if something caught my eye I’d hit the one-click button and it would be on my porch in a day or two. I started to accumulate piles of crap I didn’t need and hardly ever used. I decided that spending money ought to be a bit inconvenient.
Drug Science. A campaign to improve drug literacy and advocate for novel therapy, harm reduction, decriminalisation and legalisation via podcasts, mass meetings and seminars by experts in neuroscience, psychopharmakinetics, pharmacology and related fields.
Wikipedia, duh. It works because it’s free of advertising and corporate influence. That costs money and I am a happy subscriber.
Electronic Frontier Foundation. A campaign to defend our right to privacy and freedom from exploitation in the digital space.
Sustrans. A campaign to maintain, improve and extend the alternatives to using cars and make a humane and ecologically sustainable transport network.
While Spotify is the last service I would choose anymore for my music provider, it only lets you skip songs? Definitely not true. Like any major music service, it lets you build a library, listen to unabridged albums, make playlists, etc. Not sure where this point is coming from.
Music streaming from a provider that prides themselves on artist support like Deezer or Tidal also have all these features. Music streaming is one of the few services I struggle to imagine not paying for.
I personally use Apple Music since they actually pay relatively decent per stream and obviously integrates well.
You only read one line in before shilling apple? Lol
How are you gonna call someone an Apple shill when your first service listed as “worth it” is fucking Amazon? Lol.
?
I’m confused. I read the whole post. You also said podcasts aren’t exempt from ads and the features aren’t exciting to use. I don’t personally listen to podcasts. The service is still useful for streaming and downloading music. And what exciting features are there supposed to be?
I’m just confused at calling Spotify a “Worthless” subscription. While I admit that pirating or buying CDs is a preference for some, neither of those are as convenient as streaming.
As for shilling Apple Music, I said it’s what I personally use after mentioning both Tidal and Deezer and services that pride themselves on it, which my provided article supports. I just personally use it because I like the UI and iPhone integrations. None of what I said was an attack against the original post, just confused at the description of its features that weren’t factual.
You don’t need the subscription to do all that. At least not in the browser.
Looking at their site, doesn’t seem like that’s the case. Again, I agree with the Fuck Spotify sentiment. But there are still inaccurate points being made.
It will let you shuffle anything for free, but not let you play what you want, when you want.
Probably not supposed to work, but in a browser I have some of the premium features mentioned from playing whatever I want, changing the queue to creating playlists - all with a free account. I tried it with different browsers, different accounts and even without uBlock - just works. I still don’t understand why and how. If it is a bug, I hope that they don’t notice/fix it :D
I’m happy to be a direct supporter of creative people whose work I enjoy; think Patreon and similar setups.
I find that making small monthly payments to a handful of independent folks who do work I love and who directly appreciate my support to be far more satisfying and worth it than subscribing to a wealthy and powerful media conglomerate thing which feeds me a bunch of crap the majority of which I don’t care about.
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Everyone has their own opinions here. Here’s my opinion on what’s worth it and not:
Streaming services: Only if you’re not getting ads bundled with your subscription and you’re getting a lot of use each month from it, more than just renting each movie.
Amazon Prime: Again, only if you really need the frequent free shipping. I don’t, so I’ll eat $30 in shipping costs per year when I need something more urgently instead of paying $140 to avoid that.
Discord Nitro: Obviously not worth it but it’s funny because I had it for a few months before their privacy policy shocker in 2023. I genuinely wanted to support them before then because it was feature rich but not as bloated and ad-free with a reasonable privacy policy before 2023.
News: High quality journalism deserve the support.
SiriusXM: Unless you’re road tripping into the middle of nowhere, internet radio is free and has many more options.
Xbox game pass: I never saw the appeal because I’m a patient gamer.
Gym membership: I tried to get one a Planet Fitness a few weeks ago just for a month because the closer gym was revamping itself and was shocked to find that it wanted a downpayment. It tripled the price of a month of membership so I noped out, I’m not paying $50 for 8 trips to the gym that doesn’t even have bench presses.
streaming is never worth it, and the service providers are bleeding money just to keep it afloat.
Counterpoint: Dropout.
1000%, dropout is fantastic and more than worth the $5/mo I pay
