Learned the term recently and really enjoy it, subscription fatigue is the feeling we all have had now where we are just over how everything is subscription based.
Which one was the last straw or most annoying/frustrating to you?
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Adobe Reader needing a 5€ subscription for rotating pages. Fuck techno feudalism.
Oh my god I didn’t even know about that one. Why?? Browsers read them fine
Reading a PDF is something, editing is a whole other thing. For a while I had an Adobe Reader subscription it was the only one I know of that can edit a pdf were I can delete entire columns from a table. (It was a PDF generated by shitty sales software I was using)
I mostly edit PDFs to fill out documents. I know browsers can do that but they don’t save the progress until you download (or I’m to stupid). Recently found out that Google Drive has a “fill form” PDF editor that works pretty well. But to my blood pressures detriment that works only on Android and not in your browser where I have a proper keyboard. Google fucking enrages me with their complete arbitrary shit sometimes.
Sejda is really good for a fee PDF editor
Adobe: “You need to pay us over and over to edit PDFs! Suckers!”
Inkscape: “Hold my beer.”Found this open source, docker based, self hosted app for editing PDFs a few months ago. Works well enough for basic operations the last time I tried it (though not sure if it can delete columns from tables): https://github.com/Frooodle/Stirling-PDF
Figured I’d post the link here in case it helps you or anyone else.
Yeah, I went with stirling. It has a lot of great features, but it’s lacking in actual editing. Adobe allows you basically to edit a PDF like a word file.
I still have not found a competent (free) program on android that lets me mark up a pdf. They all claim to, but most (including fully-paid Adobe) won’t let you turn off finger marking. MFers, I have a stylus; I want my fingers to pan/zoom and my god damned stylus to make a line. Why is that so foreign?
Because most phones don’t have a stylus.
The default Preview app on Macs can rotate PDFs by default…but if your PDF is a fillable form, it’ll fuck it all up.
Yeah, Mac preview is surprisingly one of the best PDF viewing applications available on the market, it’s nearly as good as Acrobat. That’s really strange to me
Alarm clock apps that require a subscription. Basically any app that doesn’t require backend server infrastructure to function should not be subscription based.
There are alarm clock apps requiring a subscription now? Good heavens.
It started with the Netflix enshittification. I have had a Spotify and Netflix account essentially since these services were available, and that was great. Now only the Spotify sub is worth it, though I started to loathe that one as well because it at some point deleted all my local files or replaced them with what it thought matched them in their database.
Also every fucking app, no matter how mundane, wants to sell me a subscription. I have a web based game boy emulator on my phone, it works fine but everything beyond the absolute basic functions is paywalled behind a subscription. Not even a one time purchase.
Bro. RetroArch, gambatte or MGBA core. Thank me later.
if you truly need something web based, eclipse is completely free.
This
If it requires a subscription, it doesn’t exist.
That attitude has served me well. So far, at least.
I don’t do mail though, I know some do and are successful but mail is too important for me (and everyone subjected to my technical whims) to fuck it up.
I meant software and media. With mail, somebody’s running a server and policing spammers, which costs time and money.
Enshittification didn’t kill Netflix. What killed it was all the studios pulling their content licenses so they could start their own Netflix. Enshittification happened afterwards as Netflix desperately tried to make itself constantly profitable. They killed a lot of good shows and messed with the algorithm that showed people what they actually wanted to see.
I know what happened, I was there… Guess I should have used a different term for all the content being in one place for a good price shifting to being in a dozen places for exorbitant prices each than enshittification.
I’m torn between feeling bad for Netflix because they tried to do something cool and got the rug pulled out from under them as soon as it started to work, and mad at them for fucking up their algorithm and studio so badly
Netflix, and when they said I’d have to pay for password sharing for my stepkids, because they use my account when they’re at their dad’s.
That was the last straw. I cracked the shits, bought a couple of ex-enterprise servers, and setup … something different. I then cancelled all streaming services (I got wind of the second Disney hike coming).
The cool thing is they now email me with cheap rejoin offers, telling me about all the cool shows I need to be aware of. ;)
How are your kids coping with, uh, something different? I imagine it’s a tad less convenient, even with your server. Also, I haven’t done something different since the rise of Netflix. Is the quality of something different generally higher with streaming services just putting their content on the internet themselves?
I admit, last time I tried something different years ago, it wasn’t that good, but thought I’d give it another go. I’d bought a lifetime pass way back, so had nothing to lose by trying.
The kids are coping fine - the apps for something different are all pretty rock-solid now - macOS, iOS, Android, Chromecast GTV. Plus I’m on a decent fibre internet connection, so even full high quality things work just fine when they’re not at home. Honestly, there’s not a lot of difference, except my catalogue of things is better than any single service.
Plus I take requests. :D Actually, I allow automated processing of requests, within certain limits.
How do you process the automated requests? That’s my dream for my little slice of things.
There’s an *arr app that oversees requests.
Arrr! I be hearin’ tales of the five hearties of the Dutchman, sonarr, radarr, lidarr, prowlarr, and the most feared scallywag of 'em all: overseer!
These look like my kind of pirates, thanks!
Why tf are you guys talking in code
Arrrrrrr.
🏴☠️
No one cares if you pirate…what are they gonna do, track your lemmy account?
Lemmy is banning sea faring communities.
Edit: lemmy.world to be specific
lemmy.world is, not others
You mean lemmy.world? Nowhere else bans it to my knowledge. Pretty sure Lemmy itself doesn’t and can’t ban anything.
Lol - why do you care? If you know, you know. Right?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I self host my stuff with Plex and it’s really not any less convenient than Netflix or whatever else.
Yep, my son put together a machine to use as a PLEX server & I log in and watch things from across town. It works perfectly fine.
I started again since a year or so. And decided to set up a home server (from an old pc) with the whole *arr suite this summer. Automation these days really is marvelous. You just tell it once which show you want to watch. It fetches you all the shows that are already out and also fetches you each new episode every week. And it’s all in good quality. And you can set automatic subtitles straight from the app’s interface.
It doesn’t compress video more on mobile devices, that’s all I need to know. When I connect an iPad or iPhone to the home cinema setup, the compression is much worse then on an old laptop.
Mine are handling oit perfectly fine - and we have the added difficulty of having German as mother tongue, and wanting to keep the English language content in the kids library low. Finding german language torrents is rather tricky.
If you have kids, the PBS Kids video app is pretty alright. And free (in the US of course)
I think the one that did it for me was Xbox game pass. I’ve never been much of a fan of digital games, but Xbox game pass made me see what the future of games will be.
You will pay an ever increasing amount per month to play whatever Microsoft or whoever decides you can be allowed to play. You will own nothing you play and if you cancel your subscription, your console is worthless. Meanwhile the service will be crammed with ads, the games themselves crammed with ads, and your data harvested and sold for “personalized” ads.
I only buy physical games now.
Man, I already had subscription fatigue with the very first thing I subscribed to with my own money as a kid. Ultima Online. My friend recommended the game to me, not telling me it required a subscription. I bought a boxed copy at the store, not seeing the super tiny print where it mentioned the subscription. I was then upset when I was installing it and it asked for a CC#. I was 12. I didn’t have a credit card. I had to ask my dad to set it up and give up my allowance for it.
As soon as I found out about emulated shards (shards being what servers were called) that were totally free, I started playing on those. And having way more fun because they kept the game the way I liked it, while EA kept trying to make it more like WoW.
Man I can’t imagine getting a game that young and finding out after the fact that I’d had to give all my allowance to play it.
Similar story here, but it was EverQuest.
Yeah I briefly did eq. Ugh
i cancelled youtube premium when they removed dislike count from view, i felt that i was getting a inferior product once they removed that tool from me, it wasn’t worth paying
revanced is better ofc
Around the time when netflix started to suck, and new subacription services popped up everywhere.
Then a lot of other things that shouldnt rely on a aubscription started getting it. Random apps with a pro mode. The pro mode was now a subscription… its dreadful.
I refuse to get a subscription i would “need” to keep around fpr years.
Here we have 1 video streaming service for a month or two every once in a while. Never two at the same time.
Here we have 1 video streaming service for a month or two every once in a while. Never two at the same time.
This is exactly what I do. Every once in a while I get a subscription to Netflix, watch a handful of shows, cancel the subscription, and a few months later start a subscription to another streaming service for a month each. The only service I ever stayed subscribed to for more than one month per year is crunchyroll, but even that’s no more than 3 months in a year.
Netflix saturating their service with self produced garbage with zero entertainment value to the point I’m looking for a needle in a haystack
I never made it past Netflix. Once the quality started sliding and prices went up, it was back to the high seas for me. I guess I still have to pay for a VPN service though 🤷
This is basically my experience as well.
Tho I won’t be paying for a vpn service anymore now that PIA sold out, I’m going to set up the automated stuff and subscribe to Usenet indexers or whatever (I haven’t had a lot of time to look into it yet, but I have a bunch of info saved from a very kind person who helped me) instead because they will do what I want a lot better, automatically, and less risky apparently - no uploading and no seed ratio to maintain.
Beyond that, I do have a ps+ premium account because I will easily play $86 worth of games in a year (already have in the 2 months I’ve had it, with no effort of going to a place and hoping to find the games used. Im a collector, but I’m also not well off financially) but I otherwise go out of my way to avoid subscriptions and recurring payments.
If I need to pay for it more than once to have a better experience than FOSS, piracy, or just not having it, I’m not interested.
I paid $100 for a Plex lifetime subscription 10 years ago, not a penny since. I rave about the service to people, and get friends to sign up to use mine - and I always tell them if they like it, buy it outright. It’s stable and worth it, and if it dies tomorrow, I’d still be pleased with my purchase. If that hadn’t been an option I probably would have switched a long time ago when I learned there were FOSS options.
I feel like I have to beg my friends to use my Plex server. Like what the hell? I’m offering you ~1000 movies free, and all you have to do is register for a Plex account, but for some reason registering for Plex is way too hard and confusing (even though it’s the same process as any other service).
Whatever, guess I’ll enjoy my movies myself then. 🤷
That’s crazy. A friend of a friend runs a Plex server, and I’ve seen how much is on there. If he offered me access I’d be all over it.
Same. The struggle is real.
I’m with Windscribe and as far as I know they’re pretty secure?
Yeah I’m doing a mix of torrents and Usenet at the moment, cos I only started learning about usenet a month ago. It’s not as complicated as I thought it would be, but it does take a couple of hours to sit down and nut it out. It’s definitely not cheaper than a VPN though.
I have been thinking about building a server too, if only for the fun of it. I like learning more about computers. I’d probably just go with Jellyfin though, it seems to have a good reputation plus I’m a big fan of FOSS software.
I have a PIA account… I didn’t hear what happened. What changed?
I read something about they are under new ownership and keeping logs now, despite saying they don’t (they aren’t in a privacy-friendly sort of place). This was like 6mths ago. I can’t find anything about it now, so I’m not entirely sure what’s true, but it’s enough to spook me on it either way.
Additionally, for me at least, the service was being blocked a ton more than used to happen (couldn’t access a lot of the sites I was using it for) and it doesn’t seem the client has been updated in ages.
It’s probably fine, but it’s not worth it for me anymore.
Ah ok. I’ll certainly keep my eyes and ears open and bounce too if needed. Thank you!
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I’ve observed how these streaming services engage in borderline elder abuse. They make it extremely easy to sign up, and then to cancel, they require clicking through five different settings pages with tiny buttons and dark patterns. They obscure what each charge is on billing statements, and they are constantly increasing price, merging with each other, which creates confusion. I’ve had to help elder family and friends get out of subscriptions so many times, and each time, I essentially have to audit what they’re paying for. I think the Feds should mandate that every website has a giant red “Cancel subscription” button in the corner. The FTC is working on something like that, but it is unclear what it will look like in the final version.
Not really a discovery, bug when Disney Plus made their base subscription have adds like Hulu and then made the add free version double the price. The “Disney bundle” was $12 a month when it released. Now it’s $20 just to get Hulu and D+ without adds. I hold the star wars franchise pretty close, but I’m gonna have wait to see Ahsoka.
Either that or it’s time to get the paper hat out 🏴☠️
When I couldn’t just purchase a season of a tv show (Drag Race). You should just be able to buy a show or movie if you want to watch it.
The most recent season was exclusively on Paramount +. I guess they had exclusive right because it wasn’t available anywhere else. It was 3.99/month with a discount so I figured I’d keep it as long as the season aired. I was fucking amazed that there could be twenty fucking commercials in an hour show. If I wanted to skip backward or forward I had to watch three more ads first. Two weeks before the season finale they raised the price to 5.99 so I cancelled it. I didn’t need to watch it that badly. Their other content was shit, all nineties MTV and made for tv movies. When I signed up they advertised Yellowjackets so I was going to watch that. But no, that’s another subscription to Showtime.
It was the cheapest subscription I’ve had but the most aggravating experience, because it’s not about the money. It’s about feeling like I’m getting fucked over with every goddamn thing I buy lately.
I really want to watch Mike judge’s tales from the tour bus but it is only on cinemax. I would have no problem just buying the seasons but you can’t, the only way is to ad cinemax to my already paid sub of Hulu. Fuck that
Old school runescape charging $120 a year. I get that they make new content but that’s the cost of a AAA game each year.
It’s only $80 USD if you buy the full year at once but yeah it’s definitely on the expensive side. I get more fun out of some $20 games than I do out of RS.
I would be happy paying $60 a year for my main and then I could justify paying some extra for my ironman to be members.
YouTube premium raised their prices. I had got it back when Google music was the thing. Then they raised the price. Then they raised the price again. Then they raised the price again. The last price raise gave me the motivation to check out Spotify and newpipe.
I haven’t looked back.
Check out InnerTune on Android or https://beatbump.io , you can listen to yt music gratis thanks to free/libre software!
I did exactly the same thing. I miss Google Music. I also miss Songza which they bought, integrated into Google Music and then killed it off anyway.
I’m still grandfathered in from the Google Play Music days, paying $7.99/mo for YT Music + YT Premium. I will never interrupt that subscription and lose that price, haha.
You likely lose that price in December. I got an email telling me so and I believe it applies to all of us grandfathered in. Here’s the relevant part of the email:
As a long-standing and valued member, you are currently paying a lower rate for Premium than the rate available to new subscribers. To show our appreciation for your loyalty, we’re giving you at least three extra months at your current price before the price increase will impact your plan. Your price will not increase before your December billing date. Don’t worry, we’ll be sure to notify you again at least 30 days before the new price is effective.
Hmm, what was the subject of that email? I don’t see one like that, but I want to be sure.
“YouTube Premium Price Update”
July 20
Yeah, interesting, I don’t have that email. I guess I’ll find out if my subscription rate increases in December!
Use InnerTune and you can drop the price to 0 ;-)
Pardon my ignorance, I don’t mean to insult, but how does a python library drop the price to zero? Do you have your own app built using this library?
I’m sorry, I could’ve been more clear. There is an app called InnerTune (F-Droid is an app store on Android that contains only free/open source software) which lets you stream and download all of yt music for free. You can also use the website beatbump.io to stream.
Youtube Premium is also unnecessary when you use the adblocker Ublock Origin on Firefox. On Android, NewPipe is also a great app to watch and download the videos ad-free.
That is possible because Google badly protects its content APIs.
Huh, thanks for the info! I will definitely need to read up on all this.
*legacied
The term grandfathered in has a pretty fucked racist origin.
Had to investigate, and turns out you’re right about the origin. The original grandfather clause was meant to exempt blacks from voting. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandfather_clause
I’m not a fan of term banning, however. We still use the number 9 even though Hitler said it a lot.
Yeah but Hitler did not create the number 9. Slight difference. There is also no other term to express the number 9.
Legacied means the exact same thing and does not have the racist origin. There is certainly no ban on using ‘grandfathered in’ but there is no real reason to use it since it does not convey anything that the term legacied already does.
