KLISHDFSDF@lemmy.ml
on 02 Nov 2024 19:05
nextcollapse
and if you’re technically capable, self host and share with friends/family. fuck corporate greed
SorteKanin@feddit.dk
on 03 Nov 2024 14:36
collapse
I get the sentiment but this is not really an option most of the time if you want to stick with lawful methods. For instance, I cannot watch most movies or TV series these days without a subscription to some service.
i think its imporant we destigmatize piracy, honestly.
SorteKanin@feddit.dk
on 03 Nov 2024 18:47
nextcollapse
Uh, how? I mean you’d need to make it legal I feel like. But that’s never going to happen and I honestly don’t think that’s fair either. If piracy is legal, how would content creators actually be paid?
the first thing to realize is that most of the cost of a game goes to publishers, not the creators.
weed was destigmatized even being illegal for the longest time.
legal != moral
SorteKanin@feddit.dk
on 03 Nov 2024 21:19
collapse
most of the cost of [anything] goes to publishers, not the creators
My edit obviously. It does feel like that though. I pay Netflix, not the people making the movie. For games it is at least a bit better - I pay Valve (Steam) and the publisher but at least some of it goes directly to the devs. But it could be better still I suppose. But I’d honestly be okay if we got a Steam-like platform for series and movies where I could buy the ones I want without any subscriptions.
LunchMoneyThief@links.hackliberty.org
on 03 Nov 2024 21:49
collapse
When enough individuals ignore a law, it becomes soft nullified. For example, everyone doing ~30 over the speed limit. Even the cops where I’m from will tailgate you if you’re not going fast enough.
I salute non-VPN’d torrenters. Thank you for your service.
Nytixus@kbin.melroy.org
on 02 Nov 2024 18:55
nextcollapse
But did anyone ever say that you HAD to subscribe to everything? No.
I must be one of the few people in a group who have a better control in what they feel they can subscribe to.
Adobe expects me to pay monthly for Photoshop? No, fuck you, I've got GIMP and a number of other paint and photo manipulation programs.
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!
I understand this video highlights some of the more draconian practices of subscription services and they deserve to be. But also, people really really need to learn about alternatives instead of feeling like they've got to subscribe to something that they never had to in the first place.
Also, no, you do not need smart-everything. Leave all of the smart-appliance shit for the richies who happily throw money down on that and let them waste their time and money on the susbcriptions involving them. You don't need them, have some self-respect and know that the dumb versions of those smart things still are just as good and effective.
ThePantser@lemmy.world
on 02 Nov 2024 19:46
nextcollapse
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.
EngineerGaming@feddit.nl
on 02 Nov 2024 20:17
nextcollapse
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”…
sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
on 03 Nov 2024 01:43
collapse
It seems to me that many of them don't even know that what they and their families are doing is "piracy"...
Yes🐸
masterspace@lemmy.ca
on 02 Nov 2024 20:27
nextcollapse
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.
almar_quigley@lemmy.world
on 02 Nov 2024 20:48
collapse
Thank you so much for this comment
GeneralEmergency@lemmy.world
on 03 Nov 2024 10:32
collapse
90s kids are the only ones who know how to build and fix computers.
Aww dude
schizo@forum.uncomfortable.business
on 02 Nov 2024 19:53
nextcollapse
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.
uninvitedguest@lemmy.ca
on 02 Nov 2024 20:24
nextcollapse
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.
LunarLoony@lemmy.sdf.org
on 02 Nov 2024 22:14
nextcollapse
…Good god, someone actually called him Clippit. I never thought the day would come
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.
EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com
on 03 Nov 2024 03:39
collapse
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.
trespasser69@lemmy.world
on 02 Nov 2024 20:06
nextcollapse
Adobe expect me to pay for Premire Pro? No, fuck you, i’ve got Kdenlive and it feels like premium-quality app
EatATaco@lemm.ee
on 02 Nov 2024 20:27
nextcollapse
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.
RatzChatsubo@lemm.ee
on 03 Nov 2024 02:26
collapse
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)
TORFdot0@lemmy.world
on 03 Nov 2024 02:21
nextcollapse
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
Dnb@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 03 Nov 2024 02:50
collapse
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
LiamMayfair@lemmy.sdf.org
on 03 Nov 2024 14:22
collapse
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.
nialv7@lemmy.world
on 03 Nov 2024 02:05
nextcollapse
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.
barcaxavi@lemmy.world
on 03 Nov 2024 09:16
collapse
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.
barcaxavi@lemmy.world
on 03 Nov 2024 12:19
collapse
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.
EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com
on 03 Nov 2024 03:36
nextcollapse
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.
ContrarianTrail@lemm.ee
on 03 Nov 2024 05:25
nextcollapse
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.
deadlyduplicate@lemmy.world
on 03 Nov 2024 18:22
collapse
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.
GatoEscobar@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 02 Nov 2024 20:12
nextcollapse
Worst is, if you don’t subscribe to specific services, people will call you the odd one out
Telorand@reddthat.com
on 02 Nov 2024 21:51
nextcollapse
Yep. Those people aren’t my friends.
asdfasdfasdf@lemmy.world
on 02 Nov 2024 21:53
nextcollapse
Those people are dumb and weird.
firepenny@lemmy.world
on 03 Nov 2024 00:59
nextcollapse
That’s fine, I started doing my thing and stopped caring what the world thinks.
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
on 03 Nov 2024 01:12
nextcollapse
I look forward to the range of emotion someone’s face acts out when I tell them that I don’t have FB or I don’t have Amazon Prime.
🤌
Steamymoomilk@sh.itjust.works
on 03 Nov 2024 04:51
collapse
Random memory just appeared.
When i was in highschool, i used to sit with a group of people one of which. Begain a conversation talking about invader zim, everybody kinda pitched into the conversation with quibs and factoids about the animated series. Execept of me, as invader zim was only on your local soul sucking, nipple rubbing cable company (south park reference insues). The girl asked what i thought about the show? I simply explained i never had or cared for cable. To which basically apalled her, “how do you not have cable”, “what do you watch!” I replied antenna. Then for the next 30minutes of lunch there was a hole song and dance about how ive never watched (insert cable tv show).
Im glad i didnt grow up with cable, the three stooges were fun to watch, and the fun of me and my dad watching is forever with me.
The whole “flix cult” sounds similar to my cable tv experience.
WHAT YOU DONT HAVE
DISNEY PLUS (they can kill you now)
HULU (they have your favorite show! Only season 3 though cause fuck you!)
Netflix (has netflix originals which are very hit or miss)
demesisx@infosec.pub
on 02 Nov 2024 21:19
nextcollapse
Vote with your wallet. Boycott rent seeking companies that lock away their IP and charge money for access to it.
For example, FOR ADOBE TO DESERVE MY MONEY EVERY MONTH, 100% OF THEIR TECHNOLOGIES SHOULD BE OPEN SOURCE.
The only rent I happily pay for is a good VPN.
finestnothing@lemmy.world
on 02 Nov 2024 21:27
nextcollapse
I pay for music streaming on Tidal. I have a pretty big library of music from attempts to get away from streaming (and keep it up on Soulseek), but I use curated playlists too much to get away from streaming
Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee
on 03 Nov 2024 10:57
collapse
I definitely don’t recommend that you look up Tidal downloaders that allow users to keep the music they want from the service. You definitely don’t want to build a whole digital library that way.
sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
on 03 Nov 2024 14:42
collapse
swim should deff get it backed up but if merchant provides value, there nothing from with a subscription but swim should always hedge ;)
sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
on 03 Nov 2024 01:41
nextcollapse
Between you [and] the developer there is a mega corp... Programmer is paid a salary. Corpo pays bare minimum for labour. It doesnt matter if you buy product personally or not.
With that being said if everybody did the same, it would hurt the corpo but thats the goal... They need to get their act together and while idiots keep paying blindly, they wont.
slickgoat@lemmy.world
on 03 Nov 2024 02:59
nextcollapse
You buy a pair of shoes, the maker is paid. Why do you have to pay the bastard every month?
Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee
on 03 Nov 2024 10:58
collapse
Samuel Vimes nodding
Mojave@lemmy.world
on 03 Nov 2024 03:04
nextcollapse
I am a programmer, and I get paid whether or not the product is bought. Shovel your dogshit somewhere else.
Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee
on 03 Nov 2024 11:01
collapse
That’s a pretty short term view though, no? Presumably if an expected revenue stream does not generate flow to supplant the initial capital outlay, said business will not be a going concern for long?
I’m not defending subscription models at all, they’re corrosive to the economy, but your comment had me curious.
sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
on 03 Nov 2024 14:45
nextcollapse
you are attempting to align the interest of a wage slave with owner of corporation, corpo owners literally tell workers they aint shit and they are easily replacement.
think game industry crunch and fire practice... after rockstar lays off GTA6 staff, you buying the game does not help the laid off guy
Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee
on 03 Nov 2024 14:59
collapse
You’re conflating two separate things. I make a distinction between understanding the inherent friction of Labor and Capital along with a broad and deep awareness of the stacked playing field, and also keeping oneself employed by necessity.
sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
on 03 Nov 2024 15:02
collapse
wage worker is never aligned long term with his employer... at best short term.
Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee
on 03 Nov 2024 15:04
collapse
Yeah thanks for the insight
sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
on 03 Nov 2024 15:11
collapse
I make a distinction between understanding the inherent friction of Labor and Capital along with a broad and deep awareness of the stacked playing field
I don't think you did so i clarified. You essentially possited: "But ohh gee, if idiots don't buy this slop, company loses money, and developer loses the job"
See:
That's a pretty short term view though, no? Presumably if an expected revenue stream does not generate flow to supplant the initial capital outlay, said business will not be a going concern for long?
If enough people feel this way to punish the rent seeker, he has a choice to adjust his rent seeking model to appease the paying customer. If he fails to do so, that's a classic "free market" in the raw dog form, as it should too!
Your analysis entirely skips this key point, which is frankly the entire thesis for "vote with your money"
Most people aint here to get freebies for nothing, they will pay when it is proper to do so. But we will not be feeding a parasites. media and software is 100% discretionary so we have this choice here. rent and healthcare will require more rogue tactics.
Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee
on 03 Nov 2024 15:34
collapse
I think your focus is too narrow and your anger and need for someone to be punished for the awful systems that we are forced to survive within are clouding your ability to see the larger picture specific to the necessities of survival.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, but you sound like you’re speaking from a place of privilege, and I am allowing room for the realities of this current-state existence.
As I said, conflating two separate things. It doesn’t void the validity of either to acknowledge them.
sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
on 03 Nov 2024 15:52
collapse
If you punished this corpo for rent seeking, you are hurting the wagies 🤡
I am a tech consumer and enthusiast first. I am a corporate shill sellout second. I wish for bad practices in the tech community to die, even if it’s my own company doing it.
My concern as an engineer is that the product gets made well. I have no say or control over how the business cretins and marketing scumbags decide to destroy the company through terrible unethical practices like charging SaaS for completely self-contained software.
The short term view is that you need to keep a company afloat. Businesses should fail if they deliver products in awful ways. Yes, if the company fails, I will lose my job, and that is okay. It would be through no fault of my own, or really even the customers who wouldn’t pay for my company’s product. It would be the fault of the business decisions that were made. And the product landscape would then open up after my company’s failure. For example, if Adobe would finally fucking die then we may actually see better products on the PDF, and photo/video editing market. No more monopoly on sub-par creative cloud products.
The more realistic long term view is that software engineers will be okay if their company fails. The overwhelming majority are smart, get paid extremely well, and exist in a field that needs their manpower. They will be able to find a new job much easier than other fields. The tech community will not be okay long-term if bad companies cannot fail.
Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee
on 03 Nov 2024 15:38
collapse
Completely understand your viewpoint. I’m also aware though that there is a heavy saturation right now (at least in the DMV, which has historically been a bellwether for the greater economy) of both IT and bioscience/biotech industries. Both fields that also require very smart, educated, and experienced workers.
So, I’m saying that things can shift quickly, and workers are always on the losing end, so it pays to note how the winds are blowing, regardless of current status.
blind3rdeye@lemm.ee
on 03 Nov 2024 04:58
nextcollapse
I mean yeah, subscription services are shitty, but what’s wrong with lifetime purchases?
This thread is about subscriptions. So I’d assume that when people talk about ‘rent seeking companies’ etc, they are referring to subscription payments rather than lifetime purchases.
barryamelton@lemmy.world
on 03 Nov 2024 05:22
nextcollapse
As a programmer, and an open source one paid handsomely, fuck subscriptions and asshole software companies.
WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
on 03 Nov 2024 13:32
collapse
How do you get paid handsomely for open source? What’s your funding model?
JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
on 03 Nov 2024 14:06
nextcollapse
According to Wikipedia, he’s actually a criminal defense attorney in California, and also “The Fish”, original lead guitarist for Country Joe and the Fish.
barryamelton@lemmy.world
on 03 Nov 2024 18:33
collapse
Mmh, and if I go by your nickname, you are Jason Kaye, influential hardcore DJ and dead since a year.
I also appear on any graph that shows the months between July and January abbreviated by the first letter of the month.
barryamelton@lemmy.world
on 03 Nov 2024 17:53
collapse
The customers (multinational and middle size companies, ranging from telecoms, banks, governments, goods and services) pay for support and features of the software. Software has always bugs and CVEs that need fixing, or new features, or needs for securing its supply chain (with SLSA, SBOMs, etc).
There’s a handful multibillionarie companies that follow this approach with open source: Red Hat, SUSE, Canonical, VMware, etc. Particularly in cloud-native tech like Kubernetes and all that gets deployed on top of it.
If a technology is not open source it really doesn’t exist anymore. Customers have learned from the last 30 years and run away from vendor lock-in (AWS, AKS, Google cloud services…).
WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
on 05 Nov 2024 10:22
collapse
Oh, I program with open source stacks too. I thought you were referring to a specific FOSS app or SaaS.
barryamelton@lemmy.world
on 05 Nov 2024 19:13
collapse
Well, my employer pays me to maintain 100% of the time a specific security project that is deployed on Kubernetes. The project is donated to the CNCF (part to the Linux foundation), and my employer doesn’t push any of us in the team to work on any specifics, just to keep improving it in general. All development happens in the open, including slack chats, etc. (Would be happy to share the specific project, written in Rust mainly, but I don’t want to doxx this specific Lemmy account :D)
demesisx@infosec.pub
on 03 Nov 2024 11:47
nextcollapse
I’m actually a programmer. There are ways to compensate us that doesn’t force people to pay rent for our work.
This doesn’t really make sense. Programmers are usually just paid a salary. My salary is the same regardless of how many subscribers there are. I don’t give a shit. If everyone started pirating everything it wouldn’t really impact my job. There’s plenty of dev work to do.
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world
on 03 Nov 2024 01:09
nextcollapse
jokes on them, i still use CS6.
wankers.
Nanabaz2@lemmy.world
on 03 Nov 2024 07:53
collapse
Yea. Still use my full suite $200 adobe from being student. Like what, a decade old at this point?
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 03 Nov 2024 16:05
collapse
Boycott rent seeking companies
That’s all of capitalism.
demesisx@infosec.pub
on 03 Nov 2024 17:56
collapse
yes it is…
undefined@links.hackliberty.org
on 03 Nov 2024 01:36
nextcollapse
I don’t why but the fact this is on YouTube seems hypocritical but I can’t put my finger on it.
OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca
on 03 Nov 2024 11:18
collapse
That’s not hypocritical. That’s reaching your target audience.
RatzChatsubo@lemm.ee
on 03 Nov 2024 02:23
nextcollapse
That’s why I used Kodi, a Plex server, and modded youtube. Fuck ads and fuck subscriptions
Steamymoomilk@sh.itjust.works
on 03 Nov 2024 04:38
nextcollapse
I chatted with my uncle recently, and he told me about a movie from 2006. I asked where to watch it, he said you can watch it free on YouTube. Stop by my parents house, we decide to watch movie. It was 1 hour and 30 minutes, Runtime. There was 3 minute ads every 10 minutes.
The movie was good, but heavily dampered by ADS. To the point you would start to get invested and zone into the movie. Then BAM ADS, the only other option was to buy the movie for $4 on prime or pay for a hulu subscription.
I know subscriptions are stupid and i agree, but its just so infuriating!
Pay $7.89 for streaming service which may or may not have the thing you want to watch. For it to most likely to be on streaming service B. Or you go buy the DVD assuming you can. Which now you own a movie that may be CRAP.
You just cant ethically win :/
thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works
on 03 Nov 2024 04:47
nextcollapse
IMO: Pirate it guilt-free without a second thought. If you enjoy it, and deem it worthy of a rewatch - then buy the DVD/Blu-Ray.
Then rip a quality copy of it, and delete the previously downloaded one.
sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
on 03 Nov 2024 14:49
collapse
Then seed HQ version to give back ;)
NOTE: DON'T DO THIS UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING
Evotech@lemmy.world
on 03 Nov 2024 07:11
nextcollapse
How did you have the patience for that? Is immediately nope out
M600@lemmy.world
on 03 Nov 2024 08:59
nextcollapse
I wish so much that I could browse what’s on a streaming site before signing up.
Apalacrypto@lemmy.world
on 03 Nov 2024 11:09
collapse
But spoiler: Everything you want is spread across about 5 services, and there’s gaps in it anyway.
thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works
on 03 Nov 2024 12:34
collapse
…or it’s available on the service you subscribe to, but not in your region.
cows_are_underrated@feddit.org
on 03 Nov 2024 13:37
collapse
Or it is available in your region, but you have to pay for it anyway.
bruhduh@lemmy.world
on 03 Nov 2024 10:32
nextcollapse
Thing is, corporations twist ethics so when we obey we lose and when they fuck us over they win
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world
on 03 Nov 2024 22:49
collapse
When movies were on cable they’d at least edit the movie to fit between ad breaks. Modern streaming services have no concern for the content, and will just drop an ad wherever.
ContrarianTrail@lemm.ee
on 03 Nov 2024 05:19
nextcollapse
Fuck ads and fuck subscriptions
How do you imagine developers and content creators to get paid if neither of these two options is acceptable to you?
vrighter@discuss.tchncs.de
on 03 Nov 2024 05:25
nextcollapse
by selling me a license that lets me run their software on my own machine, not theirs. Like in the old times
ContrarianTrail@lemm.ee
on 03 Nov 2024 05:31
collapse
Doesn’t quite work with something like streaming services
TseseJuer@lemmy.world
on 03 Nov 2024 07:20
nextcollapse
well stop fucking streaming and let me buy the damn content
RatzChatsubo@lemm.ee
on 03 Nov 2024 13:33
collapse
It could if they actually let you download the content for a change.
And no I mean original quality, not split up undecipherable files that are hard to organize outside of their platform
ContrarianTrail@lemm.ee
on 03 Nov 2024 14:31
collapse
I tend to feel that if it’s a streaming service providing access to a wide range of videos, it could be argued that you don’t own them and, therefore, can’t download them either. However, you could still have the option to pay extra to actually purchase the video too. That money should go to the creator, though, who, of course, would also set the price. That could be free too. I, for example, have no issue with people watching my car repair ‘tutorials’ on YouTube for free.
RatzChatsubo@lemm.ee
on 03 Nov 2024 15:51
collapse
Man Google had it just right with Google music and books. Of course they threw it all away.
I was a big fan of Google music because I was able to upload my own music on to the cloud and they would help me tag albums. The streaming of new music was just the cherry on top and it was awesome when Google told me to check out a new album based on what I uploaded previously. Not only that, but they let you pay for music that you wanted to keep offline as well.
Now it’s all crammed into YouTube, which is horrible for music as it was never designed for music anyway
To this day, I still think this was the best compromise all around and it seemed very ethical and modern to the way we consume music.
Bronzie@sh.itjust.works
on 03 Nov 2024 07:35
nextcollapse
Honestly mate, I am not a tankie or even politically left in my country, but when looking at the insane results for these enormous companies and the ever increasing greed with ads/price hikes, I’ve just had enough.
I know it’s not morally right to steal, but I refuse to support companies like Alphabet paying their CEO 200+ million a year. If they manage to block me out when skirting their ads, then I’ll find something else to spend my time on.
So you’re right, I just don’t care anymore.
I do pay for Nebula though!
Flocklesscrow@lemm.ee
on 03 Nov 2024 10:52
collapse
100%
Your local library usually has a host of FREE media types. Including regular ol books, which thankfully still remain ad-free.
(But also movies, and digital readers, and news articles, etc).
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 03 Nov 2024 09:40
nextcollapse
Pay por the permanent ownership of the sold product.
As they say. If selling isn’t owning, piracy isn’t stealing.
If a seller doesn’t give me option to own their products I will certainly never steal them.
ContrarianTrail@lemm.ee
on 03 Nov 2024 09:53
collapse
But how do you apply this to a platform like YouTube? I don’t want to have to buy each video I watch.
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 03 Nov 2024 16:12
collapse
Sell “seasons”.
Put a prize on all videos released during each year. But once that’s paid I can have those videos forever.
No point on having to pay a monthly subscription forever to watch a video made 10 years ago from a youtuber that’s no longer active (maybe even alive).
pmc@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 03 Nov 2024 10:23
nextcollapse
I spend LOTS of money on physical media. Like on the order of thousands per year. If a company doesn’t release their media physically, I figure they don’t want my money and just pirate it.
ContrarianTrail@lemm.ee
on 03 Nov 2024 10:31
collapse
How do you apply this to a platform like YouTube? I don’t even finish most of the videos I start watching there, and the ones I do, I’ll likely never watch again anyway. Subscribtion seems much more logical profit model to a company like that.
FlyingSquid@lemmy.world
on 03 Nov 2024 11:07
nextcollapse
You don’t need to pay a subscription fee to watch YouTube. What are you even talking about?
thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works
on 03 Nov 2024 12:43
nextcollapse
He was discussing options where people oppose both ads and subscriptions as methods of payment for consumed media.
IMO YouTube Premium is the only subscription that I will probably never cancel as not only does it pay more to content creators than ad revenue does (per individual viewing), it directly financially supports the hundred-odd creators I enjoy (large and small).
If the cost is too high for you to justify, you can band together with friends to split the costs of a Family Plan and/or do as I do and VPN back to my home country where the cost is significantly less than it is where I live now!
pmc@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 03 Nov 2024 18:49
nextcollapse
That’s fair. Nebula, Patreon, and Floatplane are the three “streaming” subscriptions I keep because much of the money goes straight to the creative involved.
Free video sharing platforms are basically not viable as a business model. For a free and open internet to succeed, YouTube has to fail. At the moment, it only exists because Google subsidises it.
The ideal way for video sharing to work is for large content creators to set up their own federated video hosting websites (or pay for someone else to do it for them) and potentially offer some small amount of free capacity for those who want to upload small, not-for-profit videos
Teppichbrand@feddit.org
on 03 Nov 2024 11:18
nextcollapse
FUCK CONTENT, LET ALL THE MINDLESS DISTRACTION DIE, WE’D BE BETTER OFF IN THE STREETS, SPENDING TIME TOGETHER, BUILDING SOMETHING, ACTUALLY TALKING TO EACH OTHER!
Says a tiny edgelord in me. I would never write something like this, I’m an adult.
Darkenfolk@dormi.zone
on 03 Nov 2024 16:30
collapse
You are just three tiny edgelords in a trenchcoat, aren’t you?
Deway@lemmy.world
on 03 Nov 2024 12:02
nextcollapse
Not everything should be for profit.
I 'member the good old days when people made poorly designed website to share their passion and help others.
I 'member the good old days when people developed freewares, even proprietary softwares, just for the fun of it.
ContrarianTrail@lemm.ee
on 03 Nov 2024 12:12
collapse
Sure, but it’s also a fact that many of the YouTubers whose videos I deeply enjoy wouldn’t be able to make them if it didn’t make them any money
Which is why I would rather go with spending my money on YouTubers via things like Patreon, Kofi, GitHub Sponsers or even just get some merch. I would much rather go that route than spend money on YouTube to just not have ads. Yes, it’s a subscription, but at least from one of the creators that I watch, even just 1 dollar a month is much more money than what they get from ad revenue from a single person
ContrarianTrail@lemm.ee
on 03 Nov 2024 14:22
collapse
Sure, I have nothing against that. I, however, still think that whatever platform hosts their videos deserves some compensation, right? So that’s going to be either subscribtion, ads or donations.
You make a very good point there. I’d probably be more inclined to allow ads on YouTube if they weren’t so intrusive to my privacy and weren’t trying to push scams or overly sexualized mobile games every 4 seconds. (Although I’m not sure if it’s still that bad, I completely uninstalled the YouTube app after it got that bad and exclusively use FreeTube now).
The YouTube premium subscription also seems like quite a bit. $13.99 for that and YouTube music, I don’t want YouTube music, I just want no ads.
cows_are_underrated@feddit.org
on 03 Nov 2024 13:38
nextcollapse
Theres A difference between running a profitable buisness and ruining the whole user experience to please the shareholders.
ContrarianTrail@lemm.ee
on 03 Nov 2024 14:16
collapse
Ok, but ‘fuck subscriptions’ is a blanket statement directed at the subscribtion business model as whole, including the hypothetical well run, and non-greedy ones.
Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works
on 03 Nov 2024 15:09
nextcollapse
Am a developer, please do not pay for any software subscription if you don’t think it’s worth it.
Us devs would love to give the best experience, but if the customer is willing to pay for a shit experience, guess which path management makes you take.
didntwemeetin2007@lemmy.world
on 03 Nov 2024 20:51
nextcollapse
My favorite subscription is when I buy a “lifetime license” to a software and then 4 years later they move to SaaS. And now I just pay to beta test the software.
LunchMoneyThief@links.hackliberty.org
on 03 Nov 2024 21:45
collapse
Plex has started to enshittify as well. I switched to jellyfin because Plex had features behind pay walls and kept going “oops I accidentally changed your settings so you have to look at the plex home screen with ads for our streaming service”.
wreckedcarzz@lemmy.world
on 03 Nov 2024 07:02
nextcollapse
Next up, (cell) phone plans.
(though fuck landlines phones too)
TheBlue22@lemmy.blahaj.zone
on 03 Nov 2024 11:54
nextcollapse
That’s cool, I do not have a single subscription and will never, ever have one. If I can’t buy your product, I’ll sail the 7 seas
brrk@lemmynsfw.com
on 03 Nov 2024 13:45
nextcollapse
How do i pirate insurance?
ivanafterall@lemmy.world
on 03 Nov 2024 14:31
nextcollapse
Maybe become a sovereign citizen? YMMV.
sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
on 03 Nov 2024 14:47
nextcollapse
start your own reserve fund but this one kinda requires to already gave sufficient assets to eat day 1 adverse event.
booly@sh.itjust.works
on 03 Nov 2024 16:30
collapse
I made my own “cell phone service” but it only works within 10m of my home.
AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
on 04 Nov 2024 12:08
collapse
It’s a start. Keep at it.
hedgehogging_the_bed@lemmy.world
on 04 Nov 2024 14:14
collapse
How do you get home internet service without a subscription? I’m down to try it.
sibachian@lemmy.ml
on 03 Nov 2024 12:23
nextcollapse
the biggest reason for subscriptions is. 1. consumer laws don’t protect it. and 2. you can quit your job and don’t have to be actually productive and work for a living because your users will just keep on “buying” the product every month indefinitely. and finally 3. subscription basically gives you monopoly in any given area you host it; because the user will usually not look or even have the means to look for options or alternatives once they have already tied a percentage of their monthly income to a company for the software or service they provide - as wallets got spread thinner and thinner until they, now, are entirely swallowed by subscriptions.
the only people arguing in favor of subscriptions are those who don’t want to work for a living while still taking advantage of the capitalist system.
cows_are_underrated@feddit.org
on 03 Nov 2024 13:35
nextcollapse
The only case where a subscription can be good is if you don’t have that much money to afford something(if its a one time purchase), because you would have to save up for some time. That’s the only case where a subscription can be good, but this doesn’t apply to 99% of them
Michal@programming.dev
on 03 Nov 2024 21:29
nextcollapse
It’s expensive being poor
cows_are_underrated@feddit.org
on 03 Nov 2024 22:46
collapse
That’s why I said it depends. What I was referring to is more like the usual leasing(should have clarified that). How many people are buying their car with a one time purchase and not in small rates because that’s easier to handle?
AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
on 04 Nov 2024 12:07
collapse
It’s pertinent if you only need something for a short time, or if you want to test something before committing to buying it.
Otherwise, there’s few cases where renting makes sense.
I worked at Amazon and the head of Ring said their best customers were people who bought a subscription and then put the camera in a drawer and forgot about it. They don’t even want to provide you a service. They want you to absentmindedly give them money every month because you forgot to cancel.
Fine, but this is on the buyer not on the seller.
I mean, if you buy a subscription to something and then don’t use it (or forgot to cancel while not using it) is not really a seller fail: you would have wasted your money even you’d have bought it without a subscription.
I get subscriptions are (mostly) bad, but it is not always a seller fault and the buyer should be aware of what he is doing or spending money.
I get what you’re saying but the forgetful customer is explicitly what they said they want, which is dumb any way you look at it. Many times you’re forced into signing up for subscription, or coerced under the guise of a free trial. Now this wouldn’t be as bad if they came back and were like, “hey we see you haven’t used our service in a while, do you still need it?” rather than just leeching money from the user. The system is designed to purposely allow the user to make these errors and that’s wrong any way you want to shape it.
I get what you’re saying but the forgetful customer is explicitly what they said they want, which is dumb any way you look at it.
I don’t disagree on that.
Many times you’re forced into signing up for subscription, or coerced under the guise of a free trial. Now this wouldn’t be as bad if they came back and were like, “hey we see you haven’t used our service in a while, do you still need it?”
Maybe, but at this point I doubt that a forgetful customer would pay attention to it. What would really make the difference would be to renew the subscription explicitly. This way you could be forced to sign for a false free trial, but you would also need to confirm a subsequent subscription.
rather than just leeching money from the user. The system is designed to purposely allow the user to make these errors and that’s wrong any way you want to shape it.
Yes, this is another way to see it. But the solution in my opinion is not to eliminate the concept of subscriptions. The solution is to educate the customer.
reksas@sopuli.xyz
on 03 Nov 2024 14:34
nextcollapse
only way i’ll be happy with that is if no one owns anything. corporations, people, billionaires. Otherwise might as well burn it all down, why should care if i dont own anything.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
on 03 Nov 2024 16:04
collapse
Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
on 03 Nov 2024 19:05
collapse
This is why fact checks are bullshit. Reuters admits that
a WEF social media video from 2016 that stated eight predictions about the world in 2030, including: “You’ll own nothing. And you’ll be happy. What you want you’ll rent, and it’ll be delivered by drone.”
Now to make the statement false they bring in a strawman “Stated goal” condition and prove that particular part to be false, then claim that makes the whole thing false.
Such bullshit.
drake@lemmy.sdf.org
on 04 Nov 2024 08:19
nextcollapse
Fact checkers are all just self-important opinion columnists.
Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
on 04 Nov 2024 12:44
collapse
Academic research is the standard that should be aimed for. References and no opinions.
Don_alForno@feddit.org
on 04 Nov 2024 08:43
collapse
That doesn’t mean all fact checks are bullshit, just that fact checkers are people with jobs and opinions too.
Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
on 04 Nov 2024 12:16
collapse
Yes, it is possible to fact check with integrity. Not like this example.
Opinions should not enter into fact checking as opinions are not fact.
In this case the job of these people is clearly to perform damage limitation for the WEF
deadlyduplicate@lemmy.world
on 03 Nov 2024 18:05
nextcollapse
Found this out when I wanted a decent journaling app for Android. All the most popular ones have subscription tiers that amount to hundreds of dollar over just a few years… for a fucking journal app? what the hell!
Definitely feel ya there. I highly recommend Obsidian or Joplin. Not sure what features you’re looking for, but I’ve found Obsidian refreshingly simple. Aso nice knowing that it’s just markdown files on my device that can’t be sold as data.
wrekone@lemmyf.uk
on 03 Nov 2024 20:31
nextcollapse
I love Obsidian. It blows away every other notes app I’ve used. I use it seemlessly across Android, iOS, Windows, and Mac devices. It’s as customizable as you want it to be, even if that means “not at all”.
I’ve set mine up with all kinds of templates and automation to populate and organize my daily notes, notes on books I’ve read, notes about people I meet, project notes, the list goes on and on…
And if I ever decide not to use Obsidian any more, all of the notes are stored as markdown files on my device(s). So I don’t lose anything. Not even the formatting. Just make sure to back up your vault, in case you lose the device itself.
if you are looking for an Foss alternative for obsidian, check out logseq. it isn’t a 1 for 1 copy of obsidian and its feature set, but the way I use them they are identical, besides the source code availability!
Hadn’t heard of that one. Looks nice! Do you know if there is a built-in way (even if it’s through a plugin) to sync your content across devices? I didn’t see anything on their homepage about it.
excral@feddit.org
on 04 Nov 2024 07:30
nextcollapse
I don’t think logseq has fully automated synchronization, at least it didn’t when I started using it. What it does have is the option to automatically git commit changes. You can then synchronize through a remote repo. It isn’t fully automatic and requires a remote repo you can trust with your data but it works great for me
sukhmel@programming.dev
on 04 Nov 2024 09:14
collapse
Only third party sync, I use Syncthing for that, works great most of the time
I second the syncthing method, it also works great for a private password manager like keepassxc or keepassdx depending if youre on a computer or phone!
Zementid@feddit.nl
on 03 Nov 2024 19:02
nextcollapse
F-Droid… An open source app store with exactly that: Apps without BS
Not only that but they can train their AI’s on all their subscribers’ journal entries. Check F-Droid.org for some free, privacy respecting FLOSS journaling apps.
There is this one app on there called PTO (plain text organizer) that is pretty interesting. It basically just gives you a new plaintext file each day to journal on
EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world
on 03 Nov 2024 22:33
nextcollapse
I’m not sure what the logical outcome of this escalating arms race of enshittification will be, but as a career Sysadmin I’ve been able to avoid a LOT of this bullshit through self hosting, which is something a (Non-tech nerd) layman isn’t going to bother with, for as long as existing products (and their subscriptions) are still within “tolerable” levels.
But the thing is, a lot of the convenience with computing devices today didn’t exist in the 90’s, when it was more common for young normies to have what would be considered above average computer technical skills today.
When the entire market turns into inescapable subscriptions, the market for a non-technical friendly appliance box, like Synology came close to doing, shows up to corner the market on hardware you can own and run your own shit on with minimal headaches and no subscriptions.
swizzlestick@lemmy.zip
on 03 Nov 2024 23:01
nextcollapse
In short, people with the money to spend can’t be arsed to inconvenience themselves with self hosting or ‘alternative’ sources.
Folk without the money find a way through perceived necessity and maybe learn something on the way.
Then there’s people with the money and the know-how who are just looking to save or do so on principle.
Younger generations grow up with subscriptions and black boxes that are not ultimately under their own control, and lack the knowledge to change it.
It’s a sad state of affairs, but their tolerance for ads and subscription slop keeps attention away from people like me.
EngineerGaming@feddit.nl
on 04 Nov 2024 18:49
collapse
Counterpoint - younger generations grow up in the same poverty as their parents (so that any subscriptions are unlikely) and even if they don’t - their media needs may not fully align with what their parents would buy. So children in my experience do find ways to pirate. Maybe not the best ways, but still.
swizzlestick@lemmy.zip
on 04 Nov 2024 20:45
collapse
It’s a good point.
I’d hazard a guess that they are more in the minority than before though. Closest I have seen is friend-of-a-friend referrals for nominal cost pirate IPTV services that provide cable channels & movies. Even then they are paid, and most invite trouble by just going at it without a VPN. Current going rate is £50 for a year here - bring your own Fire stick.
Funny you should mention Synology though, ours is running an Emby server for media here. Having everything properly catalogued (and presented with flair) is fantastic.
To the extent you are able to (particularly if trying to stay legal).
So for streaming content, much of that isn’t available to ‘buy’ at all. Even for the stuff you can “buy”, technically speaking in many jurisdictions it’s not legal to be able to rip your DVD or Blu Rays or remove DRM from a digital download.
For certain software, on-premise editions have been abolished or priced into the stratosphere because they don’t want that market to exist anymore. Some of that software has competent alternatives, but sometimes your choice is dictated by your clients and partners, and opting for a less compatible or merely perceived as less compatible option is a non starter. Even among on-premise editions, a lot of software vendors have switched to still having it by subscription as the only legal way to keep using it. Again, maybe for those software you can get away by breaking the law as a workaround, but legally…
This is of course assuming the conversation narrowly applies to software type things. Everyone is also rebranding ‘leasing’ as ‘as a service’ and are copying much of the software playbook, for the same reasons, including making purchase of equipment more expensive to steer people toward the ‘as a service’ revenue strategy.
Then going beyond the ‘tech’ industry, it’s getting really hard to buy a house rather than rent it from some company that has been pouring money into acquiring all the available real estate.
Fedizen@lemmy.world
on 04 Nov 2024 06:45
nextcollapse
we need some kind of “subscribers bill of rights” both to discourage and to check the stupid business models.
It won’t make any difference. There’s a gamers Bill of Rights that nobody remembers. It was produced by the owner of a company that now ignores that it ever existed.
Makes me wanna throw out my hp printer I bearly use.
Edit: the printer was discovered broken lol
Mercuri@lemmy.world
on 04 Nov 2024 13:24
nextcollapse
You should. The next time you want to use it, it’ll probably do some bullshit. Better to be rid of it now than be coerced into giving HP money in the future. If you need a printer, replace it with whatever Brother laser printer is on sale at the moment.
mechoman444@lemmy.world
on 04 Nov 2024 13:43
collapse
I heard this before and it is becoming more true each day.
SuperSaiyanSwag@lemmy.zip
on 04 Nov 2024 13:35
nextcollapse
Currently I have hbo max free with my phone plan, plex on nas and my local library. I also have YouTube music family plan, but I started putting songs on nas recently, maybe I’ll replace that too.
pinkystew@reddthat.com
on 04 Nov 2024 15:22
nextcollapse
I’m not OP but I think it means “Providers are saying consumers should accept subscription-based models without complaint”
JayleneSlide@lemmy.world
on 04 Nov 2024 15:42
collapse
It came from a speaker a few years ago at the Davos World Economic Forum. Davos is where the ultra rich gather each year to plot out how to be even more evil.
threaded - newest
So don’t sign up. Go without.
and if you’re technically capable, self host and share with friends/family. fuck corporate greed
I get the sentiment but this is not really an option most of the time if you want to stick with lawful methods. For instance, I cannot watch most movies or TV series these days without a subscription to some service.
i think its imporant we destigmatize piracy, honestly.
Uh, how? I mean you’d need to make it legal I feel like. But that’s never going to happen and I honestly don’t think that’s fair either. If piracy is legal, how would content creators actually be paid?
the first thing to realize is that most of the cost of a game goes to publishers, not the creators.
weed was destigmatized even being illegal for the longest time.
legal != moral
My edit obviously. It does feel like that though. I pay Netflix, not the people making the movie. For games it is at least a bit better - I pay Valve (Steam) and the publisher but at least some of it goes directly to the devs. But it could be better still I suppose. But I’d honestly be okay if we got a Steam-like platform for series and movies where I could buy the ones I want without any subscriptions.
When enough individuals ignore a law, it becomes soft nullified. For example, everyone doing ~30 over the speed limit. Even the cops where I’m from will tailgate you if you’re not going fast enough.
I salute non-VPN’d torrenters. Thank you for your service.
But did anyone ever say that you HAD to subscribe to everything? No.
I must be one of the few people in a group who have a better control in what they feel they can subscribe to.
Adobe expects me to pay monthly for Photoshop? No, fuck you, I've got GIMP and a number of other paint and photo manipulation programs.
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!
I understand this video highlights some of the more draconian practices of subscription services and they deserve to be. But also, people really really need to learn about alternatives instead of feeling like they've got to subscribe to something that they never had to in the first place.
Also, no, you do not need smart-everything. Leave all of the smart-appliance shit for the richies who happily throw money down on that and let them waste their time and money on the susbcriptions involving them. You don't need them, have some self-respect and know that the dumb versions of those smart things still are just as good and effective.
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.
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”…
Yes🐸
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
Aww dude
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.
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.
…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.
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.
Adobe expect me to pay for Premire Pro? No, fuck you, i’ve got Kdenlive and it feels like premium-quality app
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.
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: 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.
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.
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.
Worst is, if you don’t subscribe to specific services, people will call you the odd one out
Yep. Those people aren’t my friends.
Those people are dumb and weird.
That’s fine, I started doing my thing and stopped caring what the world thinks.
I look forward to the range of emotion someone’s face acts out when I tell them that I don’t have FB or I don’t have Amazon Prime.
🤌
Random memory just appeared. When i was in highschool, i used to sit with a group of people one of which. Begain a conversation talking about invader zim, everybody kinda pitched into the conversation with quibs and factoids about the animated series. Execept of me, as invader zim was only on your local soul sucking, nipple rubbing cable company (south park reference insues). The girl asked what i thought about the show? I simply explained i never had or cared for cable. To which basically apalled her, “how do you not have cable”, “what do you watch!” I replied antenna. Then for the next 30minutes of lunch there was a hole song and dance about how ive never watched (insert cable tv show). Im glad i didnt grow up with cable, the three stooges were fun to watch, and the fun of me and my dad watching is forever with me. The whole “flix cult” sounds similar to my cable tv experience.
WHAT YOU DONT HAVE
DISNEY PLUS (they can kill you now)
HULU (they have your favorite show! Only season 3 though cause fuck you!)
Netflix (has netflix originals which are very hit or miss)
Vote with your wallet. Boycott rent seeking companies that lock away their IP and charge money for access to it.
For example, FOR ADOBE TO DESERVE MY MONEY EVERY MONTH, 100% OF THEIR TECHNOLOGIES SHOULD BE OPEN SOURCE.
The only rent I happily pay for is a good VPN.
I pay for music streaming on Tidal. I have a pretty big library of music from attempts to get away from streaming (and keep it up on Soulseek), but I use curated playlists too much to get away from streaming
I definitely don’t recommend that you look up Tidal downloaders that allow users to keep the music they want from the service. You definitely don’t want to build a whole digital library that way.
swim should deff get it backed up but if merchant provides value, there nothing from with a subscription but swim should always hedge ;)
God forbid a programmer be compensated for their labor.
I mean yeah, subscription services are shitty, but what’s wrong with lifetime purchases?
Adobe still has lifetime purchases?
yeah, 1337x.to
Between you [and] the developer there is a mega corp... Programmer is paid a salary. Corpo pays bare minimum for labour. It doesnt matter if you buy product personally or not.
With that being said if everybody did the same, it would hurt the corpo but thats the goal... They need to get their act together and while idiots keep paying blindly, they wont.
You buy a pair of shoes, the maker is paid. Why do you have to pay the bastard every month?
Samuel Vimes nodding
I am a programmer, and I get paid whether or not the product is bought. Shovel your dogshit somewhere else.
That’s a pretty short term view though, no? Presumably if an expected revenue stream does not generate flow to supplant the initial capital outlay, said business will not be a going concern for long?
I’m not defending subscription models at all, they’re corrosive to the economy, but your comment had me curious.
you are attempting to align the interest of a wage slave with owner of corporation, corpo owners literally tell workers they aint shit and they are easily replacement.
think game industry crunch and fire practice... after rockstar lays off GTA6 staff, you buying the game does not help the laid off guy
You’re conflating two separate things. I make a distinction between understanding the inherent friction of Labor and Capital along with a broad and deep awareness of the stacked playing field, and also keeping oneself employed by necessity.
wage worker is never aligned long term with his employer... at best short term.
Yeah thanks for the insight
I don't think you did so i clarified. You essentially possited: "But ohh gee, if idiots don't buy this slop, company loses money, and developer loses the job"
See:
If enough people feel this way to punish the rent seeker, he has a choice to adjust his rent seeking model to appease the paying customer. If he fails to do so, that's a classic "free market" in the raw dog form, as it should too!
Your analysis entirely skips this key point, which is frankly the entire thesis for "vote with your money"
Most people aint here to get freebies for nothing, they will pay when it is proper to do so. But we will not be feeding a parasites. media and software is 100% discretionary so we have this choice here. rent and healthcare will require more rogue tactics.
I think your focus is too narrow and your anger and need for someone to be punished for the awful systems that we are forced to survive within are clouding your ability to see the larger picture specific to the necessities of survival.
I’m not saying you’re wrong, but you sound like you’re speaking from a place of privilege, and I am allowing room for the realities of this current-state existence.
As I said, conflating two separate things. It doesn’t void the validity of either to acknowledge them.
If you punished this corpo for rent seeking, you are hurting the wagies 🤡
I am a tech consumer and enthusiast first. I am a corporate shill sellout second. I wish for bad practices in the tech community to die, even if it’s my own company doing it.
My concern as an engineer is that the product gets made well. I have no say or control over how the business cretins and marketing scumbags decide to destroy the company through terrible unethical practices like charging SaaS for completely self-contained software.
The short term view is that you need to keep a company afloat. Businesses should fail if they deliver products in awful ways. Yes, if the company fails, I will lose my job, and that is okay. It would be through no fault of my own, or really even the customers who wouldn’t pay for my company’s product. It would be the fault of the business decisions that were made. And the product landscape would then open up after my company’s failure. For example, if Adobe would finally fucking die then we may actually see better products on the PDF, and photo/video editing market. No more monopoly on sub-par creative cloud products.
The more realistic long term view is that software engineers will be okay if their company fails. The overwhelming majority are smart, get paid extremely well, and exist in a field that needs their manpower. They will be able to find a new job much easier than other fields. The tech community will not be okay long-term if bad companies cannot fail.
Completely understand your viewpoint. I’m also aware though that there is a heavy saturation right now (at least in the DMV, which has historically been a bellwether for the greater economy) of both IT and bioscience/biotech industries. Both fields that also require very smart, educated, and experienced workers. So, I’m saying that things can shift quickly, and workers are always on the losing end, so it pays to note how the winds are blowing, regardless of current status.
This thread is about subscriptions. So I’d assume that when people talk about ‘rent seeking companies’ etc, they are referring to subscription payments rather than lifetime purchases.
As a programmer, and an open source one paid handsomely, fuck subscriptions and asshole software companies.
How do you get paid handsomely for open source? What’s your funding model?
According to Wikipedia, he’s actually a criminal defense attorney in California, and also “The Fish”, original lead guitarist for Country Joe and the Fish.
Mmh, and if I go by your nickname, you are Jason Kaye, influential hardcore DJ and dead since a year.
I also appear on any graph that shows the months between July and January abbreviated by the first letter of the month.
The customers (multinational and middle size companies, ranging from telecoms, banks, governments, goods and services) pay for support and features of the software. Software has always bugs and CVEs that need fixing, or new features, or needs for securing its supply chain (with SLSA, SBOMs, etc).
There’s a handful multibillionarie companies that follow this approach with open source: Red Hat, SUSE, Canonical, VMware, etc. Particularly in cloud-native tech like Kubernetes and all that gets deployed on top of it.
If a technology is not open source it really doesn’t exist anymore. Customers have learned from the last 30 years and run away from vendor lock-in (AWS, AKS, Google cloud services…).
Oh, I program with open source stacks too. I thought you were referring to a specific FOSS app or SaaS.
Well, my employer pays me to maintain 100% of the time a specific security project that is deployed on Kubernetes. The project is donated to the CNCF (part to the Linux foundation), and my employer doesn’t push any of us in the team to work on any specifics, just to keep improving it in general. All development happens in the open, including slack chats, etc. (Would be happy to share the specific project, written in Rust mainly, but I don’t want to doxx this specific Lemmy account :D)
I’m actually a programmer. There are ways to compensate us that doesn’t force people to pay rent for our work.
This doesn’t really make sense. Programmers are usually just paid a salary. My salary is the same regardless of how many subscribers there are. I don’t give a shit. If everyone started pirating everything it wouldn’t really impact my job. There’s plenty of dev work to do.
jokes on them, i still use CS6.
wankers.
Yea. Still use my full suite $200 adobe from being student. Like what, a decade old at this point?
That’s all of capitalism.
yes it is…
I don’t why but the fact this is on YouTube seems hypocritical but I can’t put my finger on it.
That’s not hypocritical. That’s reaching your target audience.
That’s why I used Kodi, a Plex server, and modded youtube. Fuck ads and fuck subscriptions
I chatted with my uncle recently, and he told me about a movie from 2006. I asked where to watch it, he said you can watch it free on YouTube. Stop by my parents house, we decide to watch movie. It was 1 hour and 30 minutes, Runtime. There was 3 minute ads every 10 minutes. The movie was good, but heavily dampered by ADS. To the point you would start to get invested and zone into the movie. Then BAM ADS, the only other option was to buy the movie for $4 on prime or pay for a hulu subscription.
I know subscriptions are stupid and i agree, but its just so infuriating! Pay $7.89 for streaming service which may or may not have the thing you want to watch. For it to most likely to be on streaming service B. Or you go buy the DVD assuming you can. Which now you own a movie that may be CRAP.
You just cant ethically win :/
IMO: Pirate it guilt-free without a second thought. If you enjoy it, and deem it worthy of a rewatch - then buy the DVD/Blu-Ray.
Then rip a quality copy of it, and delete the previously downloaded one.
Then seed HQ version to give back ;)
NOTE: DON'T DO THIS UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING
How did you have the patience for that? Is immediately nope out
I wish so much that I could browse what’s on a streaming site before signing up.
You can!
Www.justwatch.com
But spoiler: Everything you want is spread across about 5 services, and there’s gaps in it anyway.
…or it’s available on the service you subscribe to, but not in your region.
Or it is available in your region, but you have to pay for it anyway.
Thing is, corporations twist ethics so when we obey we lose and when they fuck us over they win
When movies were on cable they’d at least edit the movie to fit between ad breaks. Modern streaming services have no concern for the content, and will just drop an ad wherever.
How do you imagine developers and content creators to get paid if neither of these two options is acceptable to you?
by selling me a license that lets me run their software on my own machine, not theirs. Like in the old times
Doesn’t quite work with something like streaming services
well stop fucking streaming and let me buy the damn content
It could if they actually let you download the content for a change.
And no I mean original quality, not split up undecipherable files that are hard to organize outside of their platform
I tend to feel that if it’s a streaming service providing access to a wide range of videos, it could be argued that you don’t own them and, therefore, can’t download them either. However, you could still have the option to pay extra to actually purchase the video too. That money should go to the creator, though, who, of course, would also set the price. That could be free too. I, for example, have no issue with people watching my car repair ‘tutorials’ on YouTube for free.
Man Google had it just right with Google music and books. Of course they threw it all away.
I was a big fan of Google music because I was able to upload my own music on to the cloud and they would help me tag albums. The streaming of new music was just the cherry on top and it was awesome when Google told me to check out a new album based on what I uploaded previously. Not only that, but they let you pay for music that you wanted to keep offline as well.
Now it’s all crammed into YouTube, which is horrible for music as it was never designed for music anyway
To this day, I still think this was the best compromise all around and it seemed very ethical and modern to the way we consume music.
Honestly mate, I am not a tankie or even politically left in my country, but when looking at the insane results for these enormous companies and the ever increasing greed with ads/price hikes, I’ve just had enough.
I know it’s not morally right to steal, but I refuse to support companies like Alphabet paying their CEO 200+ million a year. If they manage to block me out when skirting their ads, then I’ll find something else to spend my time on.
So you’re right, I just don’t care anymore.
I do pay for Nebula though!
100%
Your local library usually has a host of FREE media types. Including regular ol books, which thankfully still remain ad-free.
(But also movies, and digital readers, and news articles, etc).
Pay por the permanent ownership of the sold product.
As they say. If selling isn’t owning, piracy isn’t stealing.
If a seller doesn’t give me option to own their products I will certainly never steal them.
But how do you apply this to a platform like YouTube? I don’t want to have to buy each video I watch.
Sell “seasons”.
Put a prize on all videos released during each year. But once that’s paid I can have those videos forever.
No point on having to pay a monthly subscription forever to watch a video made 10 years ago from a youtuber that’s no longer active (maybe even alive).
I spend LOTS of money on physical media. Like on the order of thousands per year. If a company doesn’t release their media physically, I figure they don’t want my money and just pirate it.
How do you apply this to a platform like YouTube? I don’t even finish most of the videos I start watching there, and the ones I do, I’ll likely never watch again anyway. Subscribtion seems much more logical profit model to a company like that.
You don’t need to pay a subscription fee to watch YouTube. What are you even talking about?
He was discussing options where people oppose both ads and subscriptions as methods of payment for consumed media.
IMO YouTube Premium is the only subscription that I will probably never cancel as not only does it pay more to content creators than ad revenue does (per individual viewing), it directly financially supports the hundred-odd creators I enjoy (large and small).
If the cost is too high for you to justify, you can band together with friends to split the costs of a Family Plan and/or do as I do and VPN back to my home country where the cost is significantly less than it is where I live now!
.
That’s fair. Nebula, Patreon, and Floatplane are the three “streaming” subscriptions I keep because much of the money goes straight to the creative involved.
Free video sharing platforms are basically not viable as a business model. For a free and open internet to succeed, YouTube has to fail. At the moment, it only exists because Google subsidises it.
The ideal way for video sharing to work is for large content creators to set up their own federated video hosting websites (or pay for someone else to do it for them) and potentially offer some small amount of free capacity for those who want to upload small, not-for-profit videos
FUCK CONTENT, LET ALL THE MINDLESS DISTRACTION DIE, WE’D BE BETTER OFF IN THE STREETS, SPENDING TIME TOGETHER, BUILDING SOMETHING, ACTUALLY TALKING TO EACH OTHER!
Says a tiny edgelord in me. I would never write something like this, I’m an adult.
You are just three tiny edgelords in a trenchcoat, aren’t you?
Not everything should be for profit. I 'member the good old days when people made poorly designed website to share their passion and help others. I 'member the good old days when people developed freewares, even proprietary softwares, just for the fun of it.
Sure, but it’s also a fact that many of the YouTubers whose videos I deeply enjoy wouldn’t be able to make them if it didn’t make them any money
Which is why I would rather go with spending my money on YouTubers via things like Patreon, Kofi, GitHub Sponsers or even just get some merch. I would much rather go that route than spend money on YouTube to just not have ads. Yes, it’s a subscription, but at least from one of the creators that I watch, even just 1 dollar a month is much more money than what they get from ad revenue from a single person
Sure, I have nothing against that. I, however, still think that whatever platform hosts their videos deserves some compensation, right? So that’s going to be either subscribtion, ads or donations.
You make a very good point there. I’d probably be more inclined to allow ads on YouTube if they weren’t so intrusive to my privacy and weren’t trying to push scams or overly sexualized mobile games every 4 seconds. (Although I’m not sure if it’s still that bad, I completely uninstalled the YouTube app after it got that bad and exclusively use FreeTube now).
The YouTube premium subscription also seems like quite a bit. $13.99 for that and YouTube music, I don’t want YouTube music, I just want no ads.
Theres A difference between running a profitable buisness and ruining the whole user experience to please the shareholders.
Ok, but ‘fuck subscriptions’ is a blanket statement directed at the subscribtion business model as whole, including the hypothetical well run, and non-greedy ones.
Am a developer, please do not pay for any software subscription if you don’t think it’s worth it.
Us devs would love to give the best experience, but if the customer is willing to pay for a shit experience, guess which path management makes you take.
My favorite subscription is when I buy a “lifetime license” to a software and then 4 years later they move to SaaS. And now I just pay to beta test the software.
One-time purchases.
Plex has started to enshittify as well. I switched to jellyfin because Plex had features behind pay walls and kept going “oops I accidentally changed your settings so you have to look at the plex home screen with ads for our streaming service”.
Next up, (cell) phone plans.
(though fuck landlines phones too)
That’s cool, I do not have a single subscription and will never, ever have one. If I can’t buy your product, I’ll sail the 7 seas
How do i pirate insurance?
Maybe become a sovereign citizen? YMMV.
start your own reserve fund but this one kinda requires to already gave sufficient assets to eat day 1 adverse event.
I made my own “cell phone service” but it only works within 10m of my home.
It’s a start. Keep at it.
How do you get home internet service without a subscription? I’m down to try it.
the biggest reason for subscriptions is. 1. consumer laws don’t protect it. and 2. you can quit your job and don’t have to be actually productive and work for a living because your users will just keep on “buying” the product every month indefinitely. and finally 3. subscription basically gives you monopoly in any given area you host it; because the user will usually not look or even have the means to look for options or alternatives once they have already tied a percentage of their monthly income to a company for the software or service they provide - as wallets got spread thinner and thinner until they, now, are entirely swallowed by subscriptions.
the only people arguing in favor of subscriptions are those who don’t want to work for a living while still taking advantage of the capitalist system.
The only case where a subscription can be good is if you don’t have that much money to afford something(if its a one time purchase), because you would have to save up for some time. That’s the only case where a subscription can be good, but this doesn’t apply to 99% of them
It’s expensive being poor
That’s why I said it depends. What I was referring to is more like the usual leasing(should have clarified that). How many people are buying their car with a one time purchase and not in small rates because that’s easier to handle?
It’s pertinent if you only need something for a short time, or if you want to test something before committing to buying it.
Otherwise, there’s few cases where renting makes sense.
I worked at Amazon and the head of Ring said their best customers were people who bought a subscription and then put the camera in a drawer and forgot about it. They don’t even want to provide you a service. They want you to absentmindedly give them money every month because you forgot to cancel.
Fine, but this is on the buyer not on the seller.
I mean, if you buy a subscription to something and then don’t use it (or forgot to cancel while not using it) is not really a seller fail: you would have wasted your money even you’d have bought it without a subscription.
I get subscriptions are (mostly) bad, but it is not always a seller fault and the buyer should be aware of what he is doing or spending money.
I get what you’re saying but the forgetful customer is explicitly what they said they want, which is dumb any way you look at it. Many times you’re forced into signing up for subscription, or coerced under the guise of a free trial. Now this wouldn’t be as bad if they came back and were like, “hey we see you haven’t used our service in a while, do you still need it?” rather than just leeching money from the user. The system is designed to purposely allow the user to make these errors and that’s wrong any way you want to shape it.
I don’t disagree on that.
Maybe, but at this point I doubt that a forgetful customer would pay attention to it. What would really make the difference would be to renew the subscription explicitly. This way you could be forced to sign for a false free trial, but you would also need to confirm a subsequent subscription.
Yes, this is another way to see it. But the solution in my opinion is not to eliminate the concept of subscriptions. The solution is to educate the customer.
only way i’ll be happy with that is if no one owns anything. corporations, people, billionaires. Otherwise might as well burn it all down, why should care if i dont own anything.
Yep, it’s a propertarian conspiracy theory:
This is why fact checks are bullshit. Reuters admits that
Now to make the statement false they bring in a strawman “Stated goal” condition and prove that particular part to be false, then claim that makes the whole thing false.
Such bullshit.
Fact checkers are all just self-important opinion columnists.
Academic research is the standard that should be aimed for. References and no opinions.
That doesn’t mean all fact checks are bullshit, just that fact checkers are people with jobs and opinions too.
Yes, it is possible to fact check with integrity. Not like this example.
Opinions should not enter into fact checking as opinions are not fact.
In this case the job of these people is clearly to perform damage limitation for the WEF
Found this out when I wanted a decent journaling app for Android. All the most popular ones have subscription tiers that amount to hundreds of dollar over just a few years… for a fucking journal app? what the hell!
Definitely feel ya there. I highly recommend Obsidian or Joplin. Not sure what features you’re looking for, but I’ve found Obsidian refreshingly simple. Aso nice knowing that it’s just markdown files on my device that can’t be sold as data.
I love Obsidian. It blows away every other notes app I’ve used. I use it seemlessly across Android, iOS, Windows, and Mac devices. It’s as customizable as you want it to be, even if that means “not at all”.
I’ve set mine up with all kinds of templates and automation to populate and organize my daily notes, notes on books I’ve read, notes about people I meet, project notes, the list goes on and on…
And if I ever decide not to use Obsidian any more, all of the notes are stored as markdown files on my device(s). So I don’t lose anything. Not even the formatting. Just make sure to back up your vault, in case you lose the device itself.
if you are looking for an Foss alternative for obsidian, check out logseq. it isn’t a 1 for 1 copy of obsidian and its feature set, but the way I use them they are identical, besides the source code availability!
Hadn’t heard of that one. Looks nice! Do you know if there is a built-in way (even if it’s through a plugin) to sync your content across devices? I didn’t see anything on their homepage about it.
I don’t think logseq has fully automated synchronization, at least it didn’t when I started using it. What it does have is the option to automatically git commit changes. You can then synchronize through a remote repo. It isn’t fully automatic and requires a remote repo you can trust with your data but it works great for me
Only third party sync, I use Syncthing for that, works great most of the time
I second the syncthing method, it also works great for a private password manager like keepassxc or keepassdx depending if youre on a computer or phone!
F-Droid… An open source app store with exactly that: Apps without BS
Not only that but they can train their AI’s on all their subscribers’ journal entries. Check F-Droid.org for some free, privacy respecting FLOSS journaling apps.
There is this one app on there called PTO (plain text organizer) that is pretty interesting. It basically just gives you a new plaintext file each day to journal on
I’m not sure what the logical outcome of this escalating arms race of enshittification will be, but as a career Sysadmin I’ve been able to avoid a LOT of this bullshit through self hosting, which is something a (Non-tech nerd) layman isn’t going to bother with, for as long as existing products (and their subscriptions) are still within “tolerable” levels.
But the thing is, a lot of the convenience with computing devices today didn’t exist in the 90’s, when it was more common for young normies to have what would be considered above average computer technical skills today.
When the entire market turns into inescapable subscriptions, the market for a non-technical friendly appliance box, like Synology came close to doing, shows up to corner the market on hardware you can own and run your own shit on with minimal headaches and no subscriptions.
In short, people with the money to spend can’t be arsed to inconvenience themselves with self hosting or ‘alternative’ sources.
Folk without the money find a way through perceived necessity and maybe learn something on the way.
Then there’s people with the money and the know-how who are just looking to save or do so on principle.
Younger generations grow up with subscriptions and black boxes that are not ultimately under their own control, and lack the knowledge to change it.
It’s a sad state of affairs, but their tolerance for ads and subscription slop keeps attention away from people like me.
Counterpoint - younger generations grow up in the same poverty as their parents (so that any subscriptions are unlikely) and even if they don’t - their media needs may not fully align with what their parents would buy. So children in my experience do find ways to pirate. Maybe not the best ways, but still.
It’s a good point.
I’d hazard a guess that they are more in the minority than before though. Closest I have seen is friend-of-a-friend referrals for nominal cost pirate IPTV services that provide cable channels & movies. Even then they are paid, and most invite trouble by just going at it without a VPN. Current going rate is £50 for a year here - bring your own Fire stick.
Funny you should mention Synology though, ours is running an Emby server for media here. Having everything properly catalogued (and presented with flair) is fantastic.
To the extent you are able to (particularly if trying to stay legal).
So for streaming content, much of that isn’t available to ‘buy’ at all. Even for the stuff you can “buy”, technically speaking in many jurisdictions it’s not legal to be able to rip your DVD or Blu Rays or remove DRM from a digital download.
For certain software, on-premise editions have been abolished or priced into the stratosphere because they don’t want that market to exist anymore. Some of that software has competent alternatives, but sometimes your choice is dictated by your clients and partners, and opting for a less compatible or merely perceived as less compatible option is a non starter. Even among on-premise editions, a lot of software vendors have switched to still having it by subscription as the only legal way to keep using it. Again, maybe for those software you can get away by breaking the law as a workaround, but legally…
This is of course assuming the conversation narrowly applies to software type things. Everyone is also rebranding ‘leasing’ as ‘as a service’ and are copying much of the software playbook, for the same reasons, including making purchase of equipment more expensive to steer people toward the ‘as a service’ revenue strategy.
Then going beyond the ‘tech’ industry, it’s getting really hard to buy a house rather than rent it from some company that has been pouring money into acquiring all the available real estate.
we need some kind of “subscribers bill of rights” both to discourage and to check the stupid business models.
It won’t make any difference. There’s a gamers Bill of Rights that nobody remembers. It was produced by the owner of a company that now ignores that it ever existed.
Makes me wanna throw out my hp printer I bearly use.
Edit: the printer was discovered broken lol
You should. The next time you want to use it, it’ll probably do some bullshit. Better to be rid of it now than be coerced into giving HP money in the future. If you need a printer, replace it with whatever Brother laser printer is on sale at the moment.
Brother. Get a Brother.
Oh yeah my idea
Can we get communism already?
“If buying isn’t owning, pirating isn’t stealing.”
I heard this before and it is becoming more true each day.
Currently I have hbo max free with my phone plan, plex on nas and my local library. I also have YouTube music family plan, but I started putting songs on nas recently, maybe I’ll replace that too.
.
I’m not OP but I think it means “Providers are saying consumers should accept subscription-based models without complaint”
It came from a speaker a few years ago at the Davos World Economic Forum. Davos is where the ultra rich gather each year to plot out how to be even more evil.
I feel like someone needs to point out that this saying is often conflated with the idea of 15 minute cities.
The idea of 15 minute cities is that people want their amenities within 15 minutes so they don’t have to drive.
It is not an idea to keep you confined and take away your ownership of things.
the only things in life im happy owning is my home, my transportation and my informatics
I pirate everything, own everything and I’m happy as fuck. I even share my Jellyfin server with 20 other people so they can share in my joy.
They should pay you monthly for your costs. (: