[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Are you cutting back on subscription services?
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Ask HN: Are you cutting back on subscription services?
With a recession looming and inflation already here, are you
cutting back on any subscription services? I have recently gotten
rid of Spotify, Amazon Prime, my paid email service, Playstation
Network. I still have Google One (I use Photos, Mobile VPN,
switched back to GMail, Google Calendar). I am currently on a trial
of Youtube Premium (with Youtube Music) but I probably won't keep
it. I still have iCloud extra storage, Dropbox, GoPro cloud,
Netflix and Disney+.
Author : gardenhedge
Score : 23 points
Date : 2022-07-12 19:37 UTC (3 hours ago)
| sschueller wrote:
| I am canceling my BMW heated seat subscription over the warmer
| months.
| dragosmocrii wrote:
| Replacing it with the seat cooling subscription?
| Finnucane wrote:
| No, since I haven't signed up for that many to begin with.
| CrazedGeek wrote:
| Halfway --- I'm keeping my subs to indie or inexpensive things
| (Dropout, CuriosityStream/Nebula) or comped things (Disney Bundle
| via Amex Plat), and I just recently picked up a couple library
| cards for Kanopy, Hoopla, Freegal, and PressReader (as well as
| books). Got rid of Crunchyroll, Apple One, and YouTube Premium.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Canceled Amazon Music Unlimited.
| SilasX wrote:
| Disney+, but only because their handling of Star Wars properties
| was so bad I had to send a message (and explained why when
| cancelling). The worst fanfics I know have better first drafts
| than the Kenobi series put out.
| sscarduzio wrote:
| I did exactly this with my indie hacker company: ditched Retool,
| RDS, MailChimp,Chargebee,Codacy, Azure DevOps CI, Zapier.
|
| All moved to 1 medium size Hetzner VPS with various self hosted
| OSS services, crond and a custom Flask app.
|
| Everything is so fast and cohesive now. I'm saving close to
| $2K/month
| yasinaydin wrote:
| Yes, especially recently. My motivation/goal is:
|
| - Saving some money
|
| - Reducing digital usage and increasing spending more time
| IRL/AFK
|
| - Reducing media consumption, addiction and FOMO (movies, shows,
| albums)
|
| - Reducing number of service I use and manage
|
| - Reducing digital footprint, attack surface and shared personal
| data
|
| - Other minimalism and anti-consumerism related reasons
| xdfgh1112 wrote:
| I don't have any, and try to avoid taking on any new ones. They
| add up quickly.
|
| For hosting I use GitHub pages. No vpn. Free Dropbox plan.
| YouTube for videos and music. Might buy a few months of Xbox Game
| Pass if there a bunch of games to play.
|
| OTOH the amount I've lost via index funds this year outweighs the
| cost of all these subscriptions many times over, so you do you :P
| blisterpeanuts wrote:
| I renewed Prime because I received a $100 gift card for getting a
| Prime credit card. Probably will not renew the service, and will
| also terminate the credit card and, a few months later, rinse and
| repeat (they told me there's nothing wrong with doing that).
| hasbot wrote:
| Nah. I cut back heavily on eating out though. One meal easily
| costs the same as a couple subscriptions. My last meal out was a
| BBQ dinner and a beer for $25 (including tip).
| gravitate wrote:
| Subscriptions can financially sabotage you if you're not careful.
| They require you to have money ready in your account. Lately I
| canceled many subscriptions, since my main focus has now become
| domain name renewals. My phone carrier is pay-as-you-go and not
| subscription based but they will kick you off the network if you
| don't topup in a two month window.
|
| Also a proud owner of lifetime licenses to various software which
| is normally subscription based for those who can't afford a
| lifetime one off purchase.
| dunefox wrote:
| If Netflix introduces ads I will. Or if they stop account
| sharing. Or if they get more expensive without making good stuff
| (or cancel shows like Mindhunter and The OA... Christ.)
| smeagull wrote:
| Netflix only, and I'm looking to get rid of it.
|
| Actually I guess Hello Fresh counts. Will probably keep that.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I've never even started. I only have a handful of subscriptions
| only for specific and scope-constrained services such as:
|
| * JetBrains (IntelliJ/PyCharm IDEs), with an option to stop
| paying and still keep the last version you paid for - that
| integrity keeps me paying for it even though I don't technically
| need the latest version
|
| * Office 365 (or Microsoft 365 or whatever they're calling it
| now), only ~2$/month for hosted email and 1TB OneDrive space so
| worth it, don't need anything else
|
| * Kagi Search, it's pretty good but I subscribe mostly for
| supporting them rather than any specific benefit - it it was
| purely about the money then I'd say DDG is good enough
|
| Any consumer product I don't bother or milk the free trials
| continuously - Spotify has this nasty habit of "personalizing"
| everything without an opt-out so I just create trial accounts
| every couple months to reset my profile and avoid getting into a
| filter bubble. I also have downloaded mixes from various
| YouTube/SoundCloud channels (via youtube-dl) that keep me going
| through the day, are available as local files and don't rely on a
| shitty, memory-intensive and network-dependent player to play.
|
| For movies/series, the very few times I want to watch something,
| a friend usually has what I'm looking for, and worst case
| scenario, that friend can always be "the pirate bay". In
| hindsight I've got very little time to watch anything anyway and
| get most of my entertainment from free YouTube content (proxied
| via Invidious so no ads/etc). Patreon or ad-hoc donations take
| care of the "paying creators" aspect without giving any penny to
| Google who couldn't even be bothered to respect the GDPR until
| very recently so no bad feelings there.
|
| Gaming wise, I still get plenty of value from my fully-paid-for
| copy of Battlefield 3 and am not interested in anything new if it
| involves subscriptions, microtransactions or having to grind for
| months before getting good weapons/ugprades as I don't have time
| for the latter anyway and would rather spend that time enjoying
| BF3 where I'm already fully leveled-up. Old copies of Minecraft
| (Beta 1.7.3 - the _real_ Minecraft, self-hosted servers and
| friends) also provide tons of value.
|
| Anything else, not only do I not see enough value in it nor am
| happy with the (usual) privacy concerns, but wouldn't want to
| commit anyway in fear that they'll alter the deal in the future
| or change the software to benefit "engagement" at my expense.
| s1k3s wrote:
| Yes! I had ~5 Google Workspace subs I wasn't using, cancelled
| them all. I also cancelled the auto renewal for about 10 domains
| which I know I'll never really use. Other subscriptions I
| recently cancelled are Canva, a bunch of VPSs, and I'm also
| considering if I should cancel Spotify, even though it's a very
| low cost.
| martin_a wrote:
| I've always been quite careful with these subscriptions. I've got
| Spotify and Amazon Prime, which comes to around 15 Euro/month for
| both.
|
| Friend of mine got Netflix, Sky (for soccer), Audible and some
| more and comes out at almost ten times as much per month. I find
| that insane I don't even have time to consume so much stuff.
| smcleod wrote:
| Yes, like most of my friends Ive the cost of living (in
| Melbourne) rise so much I have far less disposable income, add to
| that the huge number of competing services each wanting their
| piece of the pie and now I avoid most subscription based
| offerings.
|
| In the last year I've gotten rid of Dropbox, Amazon Prime, Amazon
| Audible, Netflix, YouTube premium, Evernote, GitHub Pro, several
| Patreon pod/vodcasts, A VPS, WhiskyClub and a few other things.
|
| I've kept: iCloud storage, Fastmail, Apple Music, BackBlaze,
| Overcast
|
| I'm contemplating getting rid of: 1Password, Bear.
| PenguinCoder wrote:
| Like you and others in this thread I've been cutting back in
| subscription services. Difference is I plan on keeping my off-
| site backups (backblaze) and email (fast mail) . Those are
| important and vital enough for me to pay for and keep them.
| Other services like streaming music/movies or Amazon Prime, I
| have already cut back on. Non essentials.
| turns0ut wrote:
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(page generated 2022-07-12 23:02 UTC)