Really just curious what folks out there deem valuable enough to give money for monthly or annually. As a software engineer I have quite a few that keep me productive and I’ll list a few:
- ChatGPT
- Perplexity
- Obsidian Sync
- YouTube Premium
Just a VPN. Thinking about trying out Proton’s suite and maybe pay for that if it’s worth it. Otherwise I’m more and more leaning on OSS and self hosted things these days because corporations have shown themselves not to be trusted with anything important.
From what I’ve heard self hosting your email though can be a big PITA so paying someone for email is not a terrible choice. Self hosting you need to carefully manage the system and reputation to make sure your email that you send actually gets delivered, and doesn’t arrive in spam.
At the moment none, I don’t find any of it worth the money. I’m more of; that’s a good thing to pirate.
Many companies who sell content legally deliberately mislead. You must beware of it. There is ample free libre content to use, music, games, books, etc. Legally free.
Many companies who sell content legally deliberately mislead. You must beware of it. There is ample free libre content to use, music, games, books, etc. Legally free.
Mullvad, Bitwarden, Tuta, Signal.
I self-host everything and subscribe to nothing.
If my router/server/Nas is powered on anyway, it might as well do the lot.
You still have internet subscription, right? Next: run your own ISP
Not really productivity services, but to name a couple,
- Google One (extra storage, bonus YouTube Premium & YT Music premium)
- MXroute for mail hosting (used to self host)
- Amazon Prime (for the shipping, the content is a bonus for us)
- Hulu (kid’s gotta see that ONE show… 🙄)
- Lemmy.world (via Patron)
- Couple of YouTube creators and app publishers I enjoy regularly (via Patreon)
I’m considering joining Nebula because many of the creators I frequently watch on YouTube are setting up shop up over there, and I’m getting irritated with YouTube for how The Algorithm is affecting the quality and content of the infotainment channels I enjoy.
Was Google one (including yt premium) a limited time deal? I don’t see them connected right now.
You know? That might have been the case. I was an old Google Music subscriber, and I think when that rolled over to YT Music the subscription package bundled in YouTube premium. Later when I bit on the Google One subscription later, I think it was on a promotional offer. I remember it was about $100 at the time, and it aligned with some storage needs U had so why not?
I just looked and it seems the Google 1 and YT sub’s are billed separately. It was a while ago and my memory is hazy, but I’m into Google services for about $30 a month these days, and that’s what I pay for.
I pay for yt premium family ($23/mo) now. Was also a yt red subscriber.
The phone app has it’s problems at times, things like resetting to the main page, and other little nuisances, but I really like Nebula, went so far as to pay for their lifetime deal.
Aside from the VPS and object storage for housing Leminal Space, just Proton Mail. And The Anfield Wrap if we’re counting podcasts.
Surfshark VPN and YouTube premium. Recently cancelled Netflix and Amazon prime. Not much but I’ve had enough of subscriptions.
1Pass NordVpn ChatGPT YouTube Premium
- YouTube Premium
- Apple One Family (Music, TV+, iCloud, Arcade)
- HBO Max (best value for high quality content but Apple is very close these days)
- Prime (barely use it but it’s $12/yr here)
- Game Pass Ultimate
- Usenet Farm, couple of odd blocks and indexers
- Carrot Weather
Considering paying for RSS provider but they all seem overpriced for what they do above Feedly free tier.
What does a hosted RSS provider give you over a normal client? I use Nextcloud News (self hosted) but I don’t really know the benefit over just using an RSS app on my phone (besides syncing my list I guess).
Sync across devices at free tier which is the main thing. You pay by having access to things like real-time updates, filters, summaries etc. I don’t keep a vps these days and I have a preferred client that’s limited to commercial solutions.
Spotify but only because we are all sharing a family plan and the price makes sense at that point for the convenience.
As soon as Spotify gets rid of family plans and account sharing (just like all other streaming platforms) I’ll sail the seas with Lidarr.
I used to, but I don’t these days because the prices kept going up while the value kept going down. My last subscription was Pandora and Paramount+, but I wasn’t using it enough to justify the continued cost.
I also hate ads on a paid service, that shouldn’t be a thing. If there are ads, it should be free like Pluto.tv, Tubi, YouTube, Vimeo, etc.
Mullvad and Tuta are the only services I pay for monthly
Subscribe to?
None.
That is out of priciple to me, I refuse to have automatically renews subscriptions on my card.
I will however buy gift cards for services and buy new as I need them.
For that, I have one.
Geoguessr.
That game has helped me a shitload when I have been depressed, and now that I can afford it I buy gift cards for the time when I can’t in the future.
- Firefox Relay ($1/month)
- Bitwarden ($22/year, premium + family org)
- Inoreader ($15/year, Supporter to be ad-free)
- Joplin (donating 2$/month to the dev)
- Spotify (Family plan)
- Netflix (2 screens, HD)
- Amazon Prime (for faster free shipping and Prime Video)
- Amazon Kids+ (for the kids Fire HD tablets, they can play almost anything they want)
- IFTTT Pro+ ($4/month, legacy plan)
- NextDNS ($28/year) for the convenience of a pihole-like setup without having to host it
- Google One 2TB for the extra features and storage for my wife’s business at home.
- Cheap-ass VPS on Atlantic.net ($1/month, legacy plan)
- 2 domain names, around $25/year for both on NameCheap
Bitwarden
Proton Family
Spotify Family
Nintendo online
1 small Contabo VPS to host rocket chat
1 larger Contabo VPS for my main Nextcloud and Immich instances