When my paid Paramount+ subscription included unskippable ads.
I loathe the trend where I pay money and they still expect me to sit through ads. That's why we all left cable to start with.
What’ll really aggravate you is that way back when cable was first rolling out, it was billed as paid TV service without ads (as opposed to the ad-supported OTA local networks). Obviously that promise didn’t last long.
It’s a tale as old as time. Its happened before, it’s happening now, and it’ll happen again.
That's why people switched to cable to start with. Broadcast TV had ads and cable didn't.
People have depressingly short memories and a depressingly long patience for megacorporate thievery.
Ads on cable channels first happened in 1971. I doubt most people on here were born yet then.
What's the point of paying for a subscription if you still get ads 🤷🏻
Marvelous strategy model.
Adobe Reader needing a 5€ subscription for rotating pages. Fuck techno feudalism.
Oh my god I didn't even know about that one. Why?? Browsers read them fine
Reading a PDF is something, editing is a whole other thing. For a while I had an Adobe Reader subscription it was the only one I know of that can edit a pdf were I can delete entire columns from a table. (It was a PDF generated by shitty sales software I was using)
I mostly edit PDFs to fill out documents. I know browsers can do that but they don't save the progress until you download (or I'm to stupid). Recently found out that Google Drive has a "fill form" PDF editor that works pretty well. But to my blood pressures detriment that works only on Android and not in your browser where I have a proper keyboard. Google fucking enrages me with their complete arbitrary shit sometimes.
This might be a cop-out, but I'm absolutely sick of paying rent, and the open source alternatives aren't great
can't you pirate it? (make it your own and become independent from your providers?) Even if sacrificing a couple of features.
You wouldn't download a car, would you?
Alarm clock apps that require a subscription. Basically any app that doesn’t require backend server infrastructure to function should not be subscription based.
There are alarm clock apps requiring a subscription now? Good heavens.
Netflix, and when they said I'd have to pay for password sharing for my stepkids, because they use my account when they're at their dad's.
That was the last straw. I cracked the shits, bought a couple of ex-enterprise servers, and setup ... something different. I then cancelled all streaming services (I got wind of the second Disney hike coming).
The cool thing is they now email me with cheap rejoin offers, telling me about all the cool shows I need to be aware of. ;)
How are your kids coping with, uh, something different? I imagine it's a tad less convenient, even with your server. Also, I haven't done something different since the rise of Netflix. Is the quality of something different generally higher with streaming services just putting their content on the internet themselves?
I admit, last time I tried something different years ago, it wasn't that good, but thought I'd give it another go. I'd bought a lifetime pass way back, so had nothing to lose by trying.
The kids are coping fine - the apps for something different are all pretty rock-solid now - macOS, iOS, Android, Chromecast GTV. Plus I'm on a decent fibre internet connection, so even full high quality things work just fine when they're not at home. Honestly, there's not a lot of difference, except my catalogue of things is better than any single service.
Plus I take requests. :D Actually, I allow automated processing of requests, within certain limits.
I think the one that did it for me was Xbox game pass. I've never been much of a fan of digital games, but Xbox game pass made me see what the future of games will be.
You will pay an ever increasing amount per month to play whatever Microsoft or whoever decides you can be allowed to play. You will own nothing you play and if you cancel your subscription, your console is worthless. Meanwhile the service will be crammed with ads, the games themselves crammed with ads, and your data harvested and sold for "personalized" ads.
I only buy physical games now.
Man, I already had subscription fatigue with the very first thing I subscribed to with my own money as a kid. Ultima Online. My friend recommended the game to me, not telling me it required a subscription. I bought a boxed copy at the store, not seeing the super tiny print where it mentioned the subscription. I was then upset when I was installing it and it asked for a CC#. I was 12. I didn't have a credit card. I had to ask my dad to set it up and give up my allowance for it.
As soon as I found out about emulated shards (shards being what servers were called) that were totally free, I started playing on those. And having way more fun because they kept the game the way I liked it, while EA kept trying to make it more like WoW.
Around the time when netflix started to suck, and new subacription services popped up everywhere.
Then a lot of other things that shouldnt rely on a aubscription started getting it. Random apps with a pro mode. The pro mode was now a subscription... its dreadful.
I refuse to get a subscription i would "need" to keep around fpr years.
Here we have 1 video streaming service for a month or two every once in a while. Never two at the same time.
i cancelled youtube premium when they removed dislike count from view, i felt that i was getting a inferior product once they removed that tool from me, it wasn't worth paying
Netflix saturating their service with self produced garbage with zero entertainment value to the point I'm looking for a needle in a haystack
I never made it past Netflix. Once the quality started sliding and prices went up, it was back to the high seas for me. I guess I still have to pay for a VPN service though 🤷
I've observed how these streaming services engage in borderline elder abuse. They make it extremely easy to sign up, and then to cancel, they require clicking through five different settings pages with tiny buttons and dark patterns. They obscure what each charge is on billing statements, and they are constantly increasing price, merging with each other, which creates confusion. I've had to help elder family and friends get out of subscriptions so many times, and each time, I essentially have to audit what they're paying for. I think the Feds should mandate that every website has a giant red "Cancel subscription" button in the corner. The FTC is working on something like that, but it is unclear what it will look like in the final version.
Not really a discovery, bug when Disney Plus made their base subscription have adds like Hulu and then made the add free version double the price. The "Disney bundle" was $12 a month when it released. Now it's $20 just to get Hulu and D+ without adds. I hold the star wars franchise pretty close, but I'm gonna have wait to see Ahsoka.
Either that or it's time to get the paper hat out 🏴☠️
When I couldn't just purchase a season of a tv show (Drag Race). You should just be able to buy a show or movie if you want to watch it.
The most recent season was exclusively on Paramount +. I guess they had exclusive right because it wasn't available anywhere else. It was 3.99/month with a discount so I figured I'd keep it as long as the season aired. I was fucking amazed that there could be twenty fucking commercials in an hour show. If I wanted to skip backward or forward I had to watch three more ads first. Two weeks before the season finale they raised the price to 5.99 so I cancelled it. I didn't need to watch it that badly. Their other content was shit, all nineties MTV and made for tv movies. When I signed up they advertised Yellowjackets so I was going to watch that. But no, that's another subscription to Showtime.
It was the cheapest subscription I've had but the most aggravating experience, because it's not about the money. It's about feeling like I'm getting fucked over with every goddamn thing I buy lately.
Old school runescape charging $120 a year. I get that they make new content but that's the cost of a AAA game each year.
YouTube premium raised their prices. I had got it back when Google music was the thing. Then they raised the price. Then they raised the price again. Then they raised the price again. The last price raise gave me the motivation to check out Spotify and newpipe.
I haven't looked back.
Definitely Netflix with the password sharing lockdown garbage. Then I looked closely at my Spotify. I realized my yearly rewind was almost always the same artists at the top, so I pay over $100 a year to listen to the same music every year. I bought the album's I like and I feel so at peace now that Spotify can no longer tnrow shitty podcast recommendations in my face.
I feel like I've avoided subscriptions for the most part, except for basics like rent, energy, telephony, a travel card. The software I use is mostly open-source (some of which I voluntary support on a monthly basis). I don't need paid streaming because public TV streaming is good enough for shows/movies and YouTube with ad-block is good enough for music. I don't game.
I had it when Adobe started it with their suite. Let me just buy access to a major version and all patches and minor upgrades.
Pro-tip if you're sick of paying for streaming: Stremio (app--I run on NVIDIA Shield) + Torrentio. Totally free and will have everything you ever need. For a few dollars, Real-Debrid adds more/faster stream options, but it's purely optional/nice-to-have.
Spotify. It is a mirror of my Youtube Premium and Youtube gives me better value. So I ditched Spotify.
Netflix. Price hikes with lesser content that no one in my house wants to watch. Subcriptions for occasional use stuff been purged since that.
None, because I never subscribed in the first place.
Most of my media consumption is video games, and I often revisit decades-old games, so only temporarily having access to a game is not acceptable. Neither am I interested in paying more than once to retain access to content I already paid for; that's a scam. Perpetual license or GTFO.
I don't generally watch movies, but if that ever changes, I'll be buying them on disc, keeping them, and ripping them so I can play them on my Linux PC. If I can't rip a disc because available tools can't break the DRM, then the disc is defective as far as I'm concerned, so I'll most likely return it for a refund without watching the movie.
I'd like to credit early-2000s Slashdot for teaching me to think this way. If everyone did, a lot of today's problems wouldn't exist, including the subscription scam we're discussing in this thread. Shame what happened to that website and its community, but it was good while it lasted.
I'm subbed to YT premium, Spotify, and Amazon Prime. I primarily use Steam. I pirate via torrents for movies and series. No streaming services interest me. I've used a free trial for Netflix way back when and I was disappointed that some content was not available to download for offline viewing. With torrenting I can watch content in a better quality, I don't have to worry about buffering, I don't have to worry about discs and menus, etc. All I really want is just the mkv file and that's it.
Sync for Lemmy. I was looking forward for the app, but the subscription to remove ads made me stick with Connect instead.
Sublime Text 4 going subscription based instead of major release based. I downgraded back to ST3 and am keeping my lifetime license on that one. The alternative is a 3 year usage license which is trash for the price you need to pay
My first subscription was World of Warcraft, back in vanilla and when I was a dipshit high schooler only starting to get a feel for things like managing money.
And even then, right out the gate it felt like bullshit. Did it anyway cuz peer pressure, but back then and ever since, subscriptions almost all feel like blatant ripoffs.
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