Use Open Source Alternatives. You don’t even need to install Linux if you prefer a different operating system, just use the OS programs like Libre Office, Krita, or Gimp.
Edit: AND THEN DONATE TO THE SOFTWARE THAT YOU USE SO THEY CAN CONTINUE THE WORK.
Not even just software. Fucking everything. They are making car options a subscription.
This is my fear with dish and clothes washers manufacturers wanting to have wifi built into them. They’ve already gotten people used to using clothes and dish detergent in the form of little pods. I think appliance manufacturers look at printer companies and their ink prices and want a piece of that action. They want to play the same game. I’m sure Whirlpool would love it if you could only buy laundry detergent from them.
But in order to do that, they need to have their devices be internet-enabled. The printer companies figured this out. Third party ink manufacturers figure out ways to get past manufacturer lock-outs. So printers need to be internet enabled to allow patches that will disable new third party ink cartridges.
In my opinion, this is the real reason we see so many manufacturers trying to shove IoT and wifi connections into home appliances. Sure, selling your data to data brokers is a nice minor revenue stream. But the real prize is using that wifi to lock you in to buying obscenely expensive consumables for your dish washer, clothes washer, etc. Even fridges are at risk of this due to the water filters that many fridges have built in to them. Same with dryers.
The manufacturers of major appliances are pushing like crazy to connect these things to the net. Their official line is that they want this for consumer-friendly reasons. Most cynics say it’s just a way to sell your data. I however think the real goal is to turn every home appliance into a vendor-locked piece of garbage that requires consumables priced like printer ink.
I buy things that are a one-time purchase sometimes entirely because I was given the option.
And there are people who just pay for it, which blows my mind. Companies wouldn’t do it if there wasn’t money to be had. So now we get nickel and dimed so these corporations can get a steady stream of income rather than providing good quality products.
Apps are really notorious for it. What used to be a 10$ app now they expect subscriptions that amount to 60$ or more a year with no real noteworthy changes in service.
Calorie counting apps, for example, have been doing the same thing for over a decade now with little change besides cosmetic upgrades and “AI”.
Want to heat your car seats? That’s a suspension. Want to use your car’s radio? Another subscription. Get a higher mileage count to the gallon? Subscription.
Hello its HP…we have an all new printer subscription model we would like to sell you. Give us money monthly. Or better, give us money every time you use the printer!
The way it works is you pay for the printer, take it home, install the software and connect it unnecessarily to the internet where a hacker can easily hack your pii. Then we monitor your ink levels and printing count. If you use it, we charge you per page. If you’re running out of ink, we’ll charge you monthly and send you a new bottle. We’ll monitor the room temperature and sell that information to the power company. We’ll monitor for loud notices and send that to ICE and to shoe making companies so they can either deport you or sell you new shoes. Aren’t printers awesome?
When you have a world of billionaires, everybody’s reaching out their hands, begging, and shaking ass. This is called the Gambler’s Economy. Where weak men rule over those that work and produce value.
There was a map app I liked better than Google Maps because you could download any map you wanted for route planning and if you wanted traffic info etc, you had to buy the app for those features. But if you had to go places without cell connectivity. you would still be able to find your way.
Anyways, I liked it so much I payed 25 bucks to buy the app. Purchasing it gave me access to everything the app could do. Then Literally 6 months later, they were bought out by another company and rebranded and didn’t honor people who bought the app. Instead I would have to pay a monthly fee to use it…
I got rid of it and will never buy another app again.
Try Linux, I just recently installed fedora on dual boot
But be aware that it’s not all hunky-dory because I’m still figuring out how to get nvidia drivers working after trying solutions I found online and I’m still trying to figure out how to get hdr working in gnome and there’s also the fact that kde plasma keeps freezing after a short time so I’m stuck on gnome
Installation was fine though, I was scared I was going to fuck something up with dual boot
I liked the look of KDE plasma and used it when I first started with Linux but it is a buggy mess and extremely bloated. It feels like it’s stuck trying to be Windows 7 aero.
As for NV I use Nvidia as well and I haven’t had any issues on CachyOS with Nvidia’s actual “open” drivers (not neuveau)
Welcome to Rent Based Economy, peasants.
Perpetual debt. As planned.
Technoserfdom
- Definitely gonna keep my subscriptions as minimal as I can, like I currently am: just a VPN. Obviously I have a few others I’ll need in the future like utilities, internet, and phone, but those are the bare minimum you need since you can scrape by without paying a dime for content thanks to piracy, so long as you are careful.
- I have a couple of ones that I’d say are both high on the list ( no idea which is higher because they’re both pretty annoying to me ).
The first is that when I do dishes at home, I put certain things a very specific way when filling the dishwasher and putting things away, which is why I absolutely hate when other people do dishes. I’ll deal with other people doing the dishes, but then I always feel like I gotta go and put things back where they belong when I’m not the one to put the dishes away.
The second is more furry fandom specific. So, when it comes to fursuits, some people might ditch the fursuit head and just maybe wear the paws or other pieces of it if it’s not a single piece costume. My gripe is specifically that: not wearing the head. I don’t care if you poodle ( wear a partial and show some skin ), talk in suit, or whatever, but I think it’s extremely disrespectful to the character your suit is based off of, whether it’s your fursona, OC, an adopt, liberty suit, whatever, to not wear the head at a bare minimum. It’s why my opinion the bare minimum you should do for a fursuit commission should be the head.
SANE & MATURE ≠ “Boomer”
Supermarket chain Kroger announced today that they are switching to a subscription model for grocery purchases. “Customers will no longer be allowed to buy groceries directly, but will now be requested to log in using their account in order to complete purchases.”
“Moving to a subscription model will help us to streamline operations, cut costs and continue to provide our customers with prices.” according to the Kroger CAI’s quarterly filing with Wall St.
“At the self-checkout, after scanning your groceries, simply login with your e-mail address and 64 character password. You will then receive a text with your 128 digit verification code, which you can type in manually at the 3rd numeric keypad. If you attempt to purchase more than your subscription level, you’ll be guided on how to restock the excess items.”
Kroger says grocery plans will start at $5/day, which will enable customers to treat themselves to a daily ration of either 1 lb of cabbage or 1 lb of potatoes.
Please note that customers must create a unique account for each Kroger location. “Customer loyalty is very important to us.” said a Kroger representative, who then offered this reporter an opportunity to invest in a pre-public release of Kroger Koin.
Will I need a shoplifting subscription too as an add on?
So it’s either we destroy our masters or we allow our children to destroy our societies and who could blame the kids? There’s a reason why things are the way they are. Older men are dating younger women. I wonder why this is. Maybe it’s because their wallets are more mature. And what am I supposed to do? Be angry at women? Get real. One of the reasons why we have so many young men who are incels is because of employment issues. Yet some forms of feminism specifically libturd females who Love castrating males and rubbing shit in their face, blaming it on rightwing populism, but populism is capitalism in crisis. We are still in fucking denial. The violence that is directed towards women is directly correlated with socioeconomics and stupid fucking Judeo-Christian values. Now I know correlation is not causation. But shit, it’s got a relationship… Now just because people do these things and there is a bad economy doesn’t justify their actions but I am wise enough to know that I am a product of my environment. Look at all of these familicides that happen in our country yet we got these dumbass oinker shit rags making $200,000 plus a year and they are forming deputy gangs emboldened to the point where they’re chasing ink with their gang tattoos. The Catholic Church and the police are very similar in that they just shuffle around these reprobates. I don’t leave the house much only for what I need to do, the basic necessities of life. But when I do, I usually take a drive on a Sunday where all those that want to ignore our problems are in their homes sheltered buying shit on Amazon and I drive around and I look at all the people that are pushing shopping carts. Not like animals in the zoo, I’m just trying to see the temperature and where we’re at. It’s not looking good. Sometimes in life there are no easy answers. We live in the paradox, a open air prison, where we don’t understand what’s going on in the black box. If we could get inside that black box, we could turn the dials like the Wizard of Oz, and all these stupid social fucking ills would just automatically just disappear, at least at the rate that they are now. The German population hated themselves and that’s why they invented the undesirables. Now you as a civilization have an option. You either start having respect for yourself or you’re going to create a system that executes the undesirables while failing to realize that one day you might be an undesirable. Now it’s kind of like a slow even burn, but pretty soon this system is going to open up the komono, come on out and start swinging dick. Are you ready to send your children to die for a billionaire’s cock? Are you ready to be conscripted? because it’s gonna happen and they’re gonna start dropping nukes. You’re also going to see false flag events happening in your own country, but yet you think I’m a tin foil hat man and I think you’re an idiot that doesn’t understand history. There is no fucking war but the class war. The left and right paradigm is a byproduct of kicking the can. And the paradoxes that we live in are really fake. So when your grandpappy got some old man knowledge. Just remember, his brain doesn’t work like it used to. https://www.theviolenceproject.org/
Had me eating the onion until the third paragraph
😁
Time to start growing our own food. People buying groceries on klarna, after pay etc is already happening
I love potatoes and cabbage personally. But this is still scarily accurate and possible.
Kroger can come eat what I flush every morning.
Picard would be ashamed.
This is why FOSS with donation is actually a superior model.
I honestly rather download a free software and donate after I know that it’s good and I’ll know that I’ll always have access to it.
Paying for something that can be revoked (cause it’s a legally license, not owned) just doesn’t sound like ownership.
Right, but the problem with FOSS is a that it usually moves slow, typically isn’t very user friendly, and has no real support from devs most of the time.
But also: Blender
It really is a marvel of open source software.To add on to this:
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Krita (for art and what I want to use for learning art, it’s avalible for both Linux and Windows)
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Inkscape (for vector making and also can be used as a better text tool than kritas built in text tool if you’re using it in a combined workflow, avalible on Windows and Linux)
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Tahoma 2D (fork of OpenToonz, OpenToonz coming from Toonz which Studio Ghibli also uses. Used for 2D animation)
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Qbitorrent (torrent application avalible on both Linux and Windows)
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Gimp (Image editing program avalible on both Linux and Windows but in my personal opinion needs a UX rework)
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The best thing is when a private company contributes regularly to FOSS projects moving them along at a timely pace.
Turns out, if it’s a single person in their free time it’s slower. But at least if something isn’t working I can fix it myself.
meanwhile, companies are killing lifetime licenses that were previously paid for.
Yep I remember clearly the first time this happened to me with Splashtop Remote in like 2012. And more recently 4K video downloader. “4K video downloader is being deprecated, please upgrade to our new application, 4K video downloader” Literally only difference is my lifetime license is no longer good and I’d have to buy a subscription.
Well, too bad there are easier ways to download content and even if there wasn’t you have made sure I will never get anywhere near your products ever again.
That’s strange, 4k allowed me to upgrade my lifetime sub key to a new key for the new program.
Whaaaat?? That’s interesting, thanks. I will definitely have to look into that. I didn’t bother with the new one I just got mad lol
I just double checked my emails, and I forgot I did have to pay $7 AUD (like 4.50 USD) to upgrade it, which annoyed me a little at the time but was cheap enough I decided to swallow it.
This is wild. I decided to see what was what and clicked the link in my email to upgrade. It took me to the upgrade site and I pasted in my license key also retrieved from an email, and it said the license was inactive. I tried to retrieve the key again in case they had changed it, but it said no key associated with my email. Again they had emailed me the link to upgrade. Then I moved to my PC where I clicked the link in the application to upgrade and it autofilled my license key, same issue. Oh well, I put in a ticket, but I’m no worse off than I was before. Thanks for the info, though.
Ironically this made me donate to the lemmy instance my account is on. For the cost of just 3 bags of coffee a year I raised the monthly donations by 1%. Feels good man.
3 bags of coffee is highly variable
For me it’s $49 AUD x 3 = $147 AUD from my local coffee bean roaster and that $49 is for a 1kg bag
The only excuse for subscription model is when there is cloud storage/sync or server provided functions that are a core part of the software.
If I didn’t rely heavily on the cloud storage and syncing part of Lightroom for editing photos seamlessly on desktop, mobile, and web, then I would already have dropped Adobe for Darktable and a pirated copy of Photoshop CS2 for when I need to print.
I’m glad to see you mention that, I was going to make a similar comment. I figure it’s a message that’s probably well understood here on the fediverse, but outside of this space not so much.
I think there’s also an argument to be made for charging subscriptions based on overall maintenance needs. Upgrades, updates, bug fixes, and things of that nature take time and can also cost money.
However, overall, there are way too many subscription based apps that just don’t seem justified. If I buy version 2.3 of AppXYZ, and as long as I stick to that version nor need any online functionality, I just don’t see a valid excuse for a subscription, other than pure greed on the developers’ part.
