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?
When my paid Paramount+ subscription included unskippable ads.
I loathe the trend where I pay money and they still expect me to sit through ads. That’s why we all left cable to start with.
What’ll really aggravate you is that way back when cable was first rolling out, it was billed as paid TV service without ads (as opposed to the ad-supported OTA local networks). Obviously that promise didn’t last long.
It’s a tale as old as time. Its happened before, it’s happening now, and it’ll happen again.
Why limit yourself to subscriptions if you can do both and earn even more money? 🤑
PS: Microsoft perfected this with Windows bloat ware, adverts and tracking. Why did they need to integrate that, if you already paid ca. 150€ (Home) or 250€ (Pro) for a licence? Those prices are integrated into the prices of hardware purchases too, in case anyone is wondering. Purchase a laptop without an OS and it’s generally about 100-150€ cheaper. Anyone interested in Microsoft 365 and Windows 365?
by the time I had my own money I didn’t even think of getting pay tv because it was already running more ads than free to air.
Never had subscription fatigue because paid services have never been better than the free option in my experience.
That’s why people switched to cable to start with. Broadcast TV had ads and cable didn’t.
People have depressingly short memories and a depressingly long patience for megacorporate thievery.
Ads on cable channels first happened in 1971. I doubt most people on here were born yet then.
What’s the point of paying for a subscription if you still get ads 🤷🏻
Marvelous strategy model.
I’m still refusing to pay for P+ in the UK. They nicked us about so much with Discovery, Picard and Lower Decks all being on Netflix and Amazon, then started pulling the rug from under us with Dis S3 and it appears maybe LD S4 this year. I’m not paying for a whole new service for one franchise no matter how much I love it. At least Disney got Marvel, Star Wars and all the Fox content before trying D+.
Yeah it’s such a shameless cash grab, I know corporations mug us off every day but it’s disrespectful when they’re so desperate about it.
Even worse when it’s regarding Trek, a franchise that’s always been critical of capitalism.
Imagine how we feel over here in NZ when we wanted to watch S2E1 of GH we actually got S1E3 of DOOL instead! Boy when the NPD were told about this I bet they ASAP’d their pants!
I hate acronyms.
I still haven’t forgiven Paramount+ for making me watch that train wreck of a Halo show.
Nobody made you watch that but you lol.
They tricked me! They said it was about Halo! I had no clue!
Luckily I did the 6 month free trial and learned. 6 months is generous, ads are not.
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)
Adobe: “You need to pay us over and over to edit PDFs! Suckers!”
Inkscape: “Hold my beer.”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
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.
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.
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
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Netgear. Being told to “subscribe” for basic customer service made me get a whole new modem cause I’m not putting up with that bullshit
This might be a cop-out, but I’m absolutely sick of paying rent, and the open source alternatives aren’t great
can’t you pirate it? (make it your own and become independent from your providers?) Even if sacrificing a couple of features.
tent not rent!
Too real where I live.
i dont know whether to upvote in solidarity, or downvote because it’s wrong.
You wouldn’t download a car, would you?
Subscribing to a worthless landlord eats up 50% of my meager income every month.
netflix in 2016/17 when they upped the rates AND made vpn=ing much harder.
Just an fyi, your comment posted 3 times.
thanks i’ll try to delete some .
it’s like trying to cancel a subscription
Haha I feel that. It’s gotten to a point that we don’t even know what subs we have and don’t have. Just decided to get a new card and let them run out. The seas have been nice to return to.
listening to music in new orleans, i’d usually chuck money in the bucket.
that’d be a better model - for artistic stuff at least - stick it on torrent and include a giant internet tip jar link.
not for things that are critical public services, but are treated as private things.
Sync for Lemmy. I was looking forward for the app, but the subscription to remove ads made me stick with Connect instead.
I dont see any ads. Or at least I dont notice then
Then do the one time payment option that was added literally a couple hours after the launch of the public beta?
114€ . Hahahaha fck that.
The one time ad-free is much cheaper than the Ultra price that you’re quoting, which offers different services.
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To me, Jerboa is superior. At the end of the day, it is designed by Lemmy developers and the UX/UI is simple enough.
It’s the only app I’ve seen that show the number of upvotes AND downvotes, not just the sum.
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Oh, I’ve noticed that. Does the dev know about it?
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The phone game. Egg inc. It just updated offering a subscription for in game bonuses.
Completely agree, and I’ve paid this game for the upgraded storage and many piggy bank cracks over the last couple of years because I play often and appreciate them keeping the game running and updating stuff. I am not, however, paying a monthly fee to use it
I feel like I’ve avoided subscriptions for the most part, except for basics like rent, energy, telephony, a travel card. The software I use is mostly open-source (some of which I voluntary support on a monthly basis). I don’t need paid streaming because public TV streaming is good enough for shows/movies and YouTube with ad-block is good enough for music. I don’t game.
Energy and telephony are at least actual services that someone is actually performing.
Man I’ve been having subscription fatigue since the first time I bought an RuneScape membership in 2004.
At one point I had
Spotify, Wow, Runescape, Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Disney+, Amazon, and Doordash. I didnt even realize it but one day I was just like, why the fuck am I paying for all this. Cut it allllllll away. Now I just have Spotify and HBO. Not as bad and if I want to watch something on the other platforms I cancel HBO. One streaming service at a time.Doordash has a subscription?
When I had it, I was ordering from doordash every week. So paying for the monthly fee covers one orders delivery fee basically. Very worth if you use it a lot but I started cooking more after I canceled it.
Dashpass
Yeah, they call it dashpass.
I just deleted doordash entirely. Shit is too expensive and I am too obese.
There’s a Doordash+ option that takes away some delivery fees. I don’t normally pay for it but you get a year free with your Amazon Prime account.
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.
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
Pro-tip if you’re sick of paying for streaming: Stremio (app–I run on NVIDIA Shield) + Torrentio. Totally free and will have everything you ever need. For a few dollars, Real-Debrid adds more/faster stream options, but it’s purely optional/nice-to-have.
I would counter-argue for Jellyfin + Radarr-suite. I just like better Jellyfin’s interface.
Both options are valid, I use Plex instead, but selfhosting people need to understand that there is beauty on the streaming route, pirate streaming route.
Honestly, the streaming way is less bothersome and with almost immediate results, so there’s a lot of beauty in it.
I am a picky bastard so I want to make sure I’ll be able to watch everything in 4K, without waits nor interruptions. Plus I watch a lot of old stuff that takes a while to get: American Gothic took me 6 months to get, I tried getting the DVD set first but realized the latter episodes weren’t included.
I’ve seen it mentioned, but never tried it. I’ll have to read up on it, thanks!
Weather apps.
Official NOAA app is $1.99 a year. Worth every penny. Only subscription I’m happy to pay.
While many weather apps use published NOAA/NWS data, there’s no official app. Not sure who you’re paying lol
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Wunderground FTW! It also lets me tap into my local home weather station, as well as those of my nearby neighbors and the weather forecasting is far superior to whatever the hell came with my phone.
Wunderground was awesome until IBM bought it
omg even weather apps now? 🤣😭
They’re one of my exceptions. The API/data needed for weather apps to function is not free (at least in the US), with the possible exception of NOAA, though I’m not sure if they offer an API for apps to use.
That’s why the developers have to pass the cost on. If you’ve got a free weather app, you’re probably paying for it with ad views. I’m personally not interested in doing that, so I chose an app I liked that lets me choose which source I want to use and customise the display.
Another thing I have a subscription for is a flight tracker. Operating ADS-B receivers is also not free, nor is additional data some apps get about delays and the like.
I also have a WoW subscription because servers are an ongoing cost (not factoring in continual development and new features even within a single expansion) but won’t keep paying for single player games. My purchase should cover development costs and the cost of fixing bugs.
Other stuff? Nope. I’ll spend a few dollars for useful utilities, but everything seems to be free with in-app purchases now, so most of the stuff I’ve got is grandfathered in from when you paid a reasonable fee that covered development costs and you weren’t hounded.
