Subscriptions Are Ruining Our Lives. Here's Why They're Everywhere Now.

I think the subscription overload has to do with the whole 90s kids are the only ones who know how to build and fix computers. We know how to go out and find alternatives or roll our own services. Hell we invented digital piracy so we are comfortable with not subscribing.

I only subscribe to two services, Google storage so my family's mobile devices can auto backup and Spotify because I like the suggestion engine and it's easier for my kids to stream music. For everything else there's piracy.

So then there is this new generation that are clueless in tech so these companies can nickel and dime them because they don't know any better. I know I try to teach my kids how to use tech but they just don't have an interest like I did.

Lol bruh, have some self reflection. People do it because it's easier. If you have the time to have all the hobbies that other people have and to roll your own home servers that's great, but that means you have an above average amount of free time. Otherwise, other people have hobbies that don't include server OS updates and choose to spend their time there and pay for someone else to manage their servers.
- Thank you so much for this comment
IDK, a kid not knowing how to pirate is weird too, at least where I live. That would mean their parents actually buying them media, which, in my experience, is not that frequent of a sight. I had classmates who had subscriptions just to feel good about consciously paying for the content (they were also upper-middle-class). The rest didn't really think about ethics and just pirated, the information on how to do it spreads through kids' collectives pretty easily. It seems to me that many of them don't even know that what they and their families are doing is "piracy"...
- It seems to me that many of them don't even know that what they and their families are doing is "piracy"...
  
  Yes🐸
90s kids are the only ones who know how to build and fix computers.

Aww dude

I have a bunch of smart devices - light bulbs, wall plugs, etc. They all connect to Home Assistant running on my own server and I don't need to pay any subscriptions.

IoT is not the problem, corporate greed is.

I do agree that it's pretty cool that HA can be used for free, but if you like something and use it regularly please find ways to contribute.
- You can contribute with giving your voice: https://ohf-voice.github.io/wake-word-collective/#ok_nabu
  
  That's one way. Or you can contribute code, help others in the forum, file bug reports... OR if you're the lazy one like me you can actually give them money.
  
  Don't like subscriptions? Ok by me, but please don't think that complete teams will be working on great and secure software for free. That's not something that can be maintained for a long time.
  
  If you like something, contribute to it.

Microsoft expects me to pay for Office 365? No, fuck you, I’ve got LibreOffice and your older Office software still works as good. Your word processing program, Word, hasn’t really changed that much since 2007 or even 2003. Hell, maybe not since 1997!

So I moved to foss probably about 20 years ago and have been going back and forth between libre office and open office.

A couple of years ago my wife wanted me office, so I got the subscription...and man it's so much better than either of those two, and to suggest that maybe it hasn't changed since 1997 is mindboggling.

I'm a big proponent of not signing up for these services, but this paragraph really misses the mark for me.

Disagree. E.g. Word typography is not as advanced as LibreOffice. And words document master is buggy as hell.

But yes. Excel can handle big files now. Still sucks at im- and exporting different csv formats...

But... Because it's integrated so we'll with windows, is faster most of the time.

In reality: of course word should be a better program and it does get lots of loving from redmond. Only because: if no new features, no new sales. And since word is mostly a solved problem, redmond invented new problems...

Working with a LO user and a sub par program always beats working with a word user who can't use styles, review, and merge documents.
- As much as I hate Google. I think they are king with document collaboration and sharing.
  
  Yes. But thats not word. Thats something else entirely which atleast my employer would never use (security, long term support, offline, integration with 3rd parties etc)
To me office is the bonus to the cloud storage and syncing. Yeah I know it’s easy to run a NAS but the UX of having to manage it is a headache and quite frankly it gives me more piece of mind to pass the buck of getting pwned to Microsoft or Google
- This. Office 365 offers 1tb for 5 accounts plus office for cheaper than just storage from Dropbox or Google drive.
  
  Office is just a bonus
Just use Google Docs then. Yes, it's Google. Yes, it will somewhat tie you into their ecosystem but Google Docs are free, get regular updates and are pretty good overall. I've been using Google Docs for many years now. I occasionally use Office365 for work and Google Docs is just as good, if not better.

Hell, maybe not since 1997!

Office 2000 was peak office: it had the definitive version of Clippit, and every actually useful feature you'll probably ever need to type and edit any sort of document.

...I will say, though, that Excel has improved for the weirdos that want 100,000 row spreadsheets since then, but I mean, that's a small group of people who need serious help.

This has nothing to do with anything, but whatever.

100k rows is a small data set for a lot of what I look at, but that is at work.

Let me split it down.

For work use, 100% has to be Excel. For personal use, either of the FOSS is more than enough.
- I think that's where the divide is, and why my employer pays for everyone to have Microsoft Office but I use a free office suite. I simply don't need the extra capabilities for my own personal use.
...Good god, someone actually called him Clippit. I never thought the day would come
- I do, but I also never have reason to refer to him.
I don't know exactly when the features arrived, but things like xlookup, power query, live data connections, etc have been welcome improvements in Excel.

Heck, even textbefore is a great QOL improvement.

Microsoft expects me to pay for Office 365? No, fuck you, I’ve got LibreOffice and your older Office software still works as good. Your word processing program, Word, hasn’t really changed that much since 2007 or even 2003. Hell, maybe not since 1997!

Yeah, it's a word processor. I don't need a newer with more features that I will never use. Some of these might make sense for a business with collaborative projects and such, but your average home user doesn't need it.

Adobe expect me to pay for Premire Pro? No, fuck you, i've got Kdenlive and it feels like premium-quality app

My subscribtions are Protonmail, Mullvad VPN and ChatGPT. On top of that I'm paying a voluntary monthy donation to a podcast.

That's it. If I had to guess, YouTube premium will be the next one but so far adblocking still seems to work.

In theory open source can help you escape subscription hell but Gimp and LibreOffice do not have feature parity with Photoshop and MS Office and have significantly inferior UX. Maybe for word processing, LibreOffice or an older version of Office is fine, but that is not true at all for spreadsheets. So much the case that I would rather use Python Dataframes + Juypter notebooks than LibreOffice Calc.

This is also the case for Indesign vs Scribus, Illustrator vs Inkscape, Autocad vs Freecad. Audacity is fairly powerful but again horrible UX. That list goes on I am sure.

Subscriptions Are Ruining Our Lives. Here's Why They're Everywhere Now. | You'll own nothing and you'll be happy!