Subscriptions Are Ruining Our Lives. Here's Why They're Everywhere Now. | You'll own nothing and you'll be happy!
Subscriptions Are Ruining Our Lives. Here's Why They're Everywhere Now. | You'll own nothing and you'll be happy!
"If buying isn't owning, pirating isn't stealing."
I heard this before and it is becoming more true each day.
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.
You'll own nothing and you'll be happy!
Can we get communism already?
the only things in life im happy owning is my home, my transportation and my informatics
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.
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 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.
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.
Next up, (cell) phone plans.
(though fuck landlines phones too)