Sync for Lemmy. I was looking forward for the app, but the subscription to remove ads made me stick with Connect instead.

Evernote. I’m not sure why I even stayed with them for so long; probably the pain of moving after so many years. Switched to Joplin before they doubled their fees for zero new (useful) features.

This Google 1 shit. I love my Pixel phone, but they give shit for memory options so that you are forced to pay for the experience of Gmail and saving media. Pisses me off that I can't just save it to my phone.

The phone game. Egg inc. It just updated offering a subscription for in game bonuses.

netflix in 2016/17 when they upped the rates AND made vpn=ing much harder.

Netgear. Being told to "subscribe" for basic customer service made me get a whole new modem cause I'm not putting up with that bullshit

Not subscription, but the first service I thought "wtf is this money-making model?" was Plants vs Zombies 2. The game wasn't that good. And, oh, my most recent guilty pleasure is Monopoly Go; it's entertainingly boring?

Apart from that, I've tried to keep subscriptions that I really like or use constantly:

• ~~UberPass~~ Uber One (mainly for when depression hits)
• Deezer (just because I get 20% discount)
• Kagi (first month atm, but it has a minimum % of trash results)

America Online.

That was a 6 month fucking ordeal to cancel, and it ended up taking bank intervention and the changing credit cards for it to finally go away.

I used to pay for software subscriptions. I had a subscription to Substance 3D software and then they sold their company to Adobe 🤮 so now I 🏴‍☠️

also stopped paying for Spotify after the Rogan deal. I still use the free version for the "discover weekly" playlists, and I can't tolerate ads so I use an app called Mutify which mutes the ads as soon as they start playing which is a godsend

never paid for any streaming subscriptions and never will, VPN+piracy+Plex is an objectively better experience. no ads, no content removal, no paying $$$ to rich psychopathic ghouls

I guess I’m in the minority because I don’t mind subscriptions much. If I think it’s unreasonable I just won’t pay for it. Nobody is forcing me to.

I signed up for Netflix years ago. When they decided to make it cost more to let my parents share the sub I pulled the plug.

When Sony Plus became required for online play on the PS4. Xbox already had similar going on at that point. The last console I have ever bought was a PS3 as a direct result of this.

At one point I had
Spotify, Wow, Runescape, Netflix, Hulu, HBO, Disney+, Amazon, and Doordash. I didnt even realize it but one day I was just like, why the fuck am I paying for all this. Cut it allllllll away. Now I just have Spotify and HBO. Not as bad and if I want to watch something on the other platforms I cancel HBO. One streaming service at a time.

Cable TV.

2020 Design. The software costs $1500 a year.

Literally when there was only netflix and then Disney+ came out

My mobile plan. The standard is signing for 24 months. I can't really choose a plan that suits me, they stick virtually unlimited calls (which I barely use), and add mobile data that I can't use up either. Settling for less barely reduces my bill if at all for whatever reason. On top of this, despite me signing for a set fixed amount to pay, they decide to "index" an extra 10-15% every year due to "unforseen circumstances" like inflation. And every time I sign a new contract I get an extra 10% on top of my bill for the same features I don't use. Oh and they add a "happy call" where the call signal sounds like a piercing annoying very low quality melody, despite me denying the service. Switching to another telecom doesn't really remedy the problem, the other two on the market here seem worse than mine in every respect.

Looking at the prepaid features, we're looking at a 40-50% reduction in monthly fees, just paying for what I use, whenever I want to use it. It's needlessly annoying switching from a subscription to a prepaid plan. You'd have to switch telecoms for a month and switch back to the one you like the most if you want to keep your number.

So yeah, as soon as my contract expires, I'm done with renewing. I'm sick of this.

Just watching all these new subscription services for everything gave me the fatigue and started my self-hosting and actually-owning-things journey, even just paying for Netflix (when I still did) was too much for me, it didn't have everything I wanted, if it did it would remove it after a year or so, and every couple years the price would hike.

Everything kind of. Netflix, Dinsey, YouTube, Prime, HBO, Spotify, Apple Music and so much more. I rather sail the seas.

When I was still a I used to browse lots of news sites that now have massive pretentious and ironic "DEMOCRACY DIES IN DARKNESS" style paywalls.

I bought a new PC in 2021 (because building was hard due to supply shortages) and it came with GamePass Ultimate. When I combined my existing Xbox Gold subscription, it gave me something like 1.5 years worth of GamePass Ultimate, which was really great! Once that subscription expired, I had saved up for a year worth of another subscription up front, but noticed they only offered month-to-month at that point. I realized I wasn't playing GamePass games enough to warrant the subscription (might have been different if I could install on my Steam Deck, not through a Windows install or streaming).

Once that GamePass subscription came up, and then Netflix started cracking down on password sharing that I was sharing with my sister in the next city over, it made me question a lot of recurring subscription. For streaming TV shows/movies, I think going forward we'll have one service subscribed to but bouncing around to catch up on shows that my wife and I may want to watch. For GamePass, I'll probably resubscribe once Starfield comes out.