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This question just came to me while I was buying a subway pass. It's priced very well, provides a very good service, doesn't suffer from enshittification, and its price increases very rarely.

What are some other services which people don't mind subscribing to?

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[-] Thoven@lemdro.id 7 points 2 days ago

Mullvad VPN. $5 a month for 5 concurrent high speed connections. No fake sales, no BS.

Music streaming services are close. As I understand it the artists don't get a great deal, but as a consumer ~$12/m is on the high end of reasonable for unlimited access to high quality music. And unlike with television streaming services there's very little exclusivity bullshit. You can listen to most anything most anywhere.

[-] xavier666@lemmy.umucat.day 1 points 2 days ago

And unlike with television streaming services there’s very little exclusivity bullshit. You can listen to most anything most anywhere.

If services are on the spectrum of good to enshittified, music is currently in the middle. But don't know what will happen to them by the end of this year.

[-] bigboismith@lemmy.world 24 points 4 days ago

Electricity and water. Those actually have a real cost to provide, unlike software

[-] Thoven@lemdro.id 1 points 2 days ago

Not universally. I live in Alabama and the privately owned power company is very corrupt. We have some of the highest power bills in the US, with the biggest difference being not cost but profit margins. Water in my county is fairly priced IMO, but I've heard other counties aren't so lucky.

[-] some_kind_of_guy@lemmy.world 4 points 3 days ago

Most software with a subscription has some kind of backend resource that is being consumed, even if that's not obvious to the user. The software companies are getting rich too of course, so yeah it should cost less.

[-] HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml 5 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Some services, like social media, require backend resources and there's no way around it.

Others, dare I say most, are backend by the company's choice and usually to the detriment of the user.

Some require backend resources purely for DRM and so that they can pull the plug on it whenever they please and screw over everyone who paid for it. Like most single player games these days. Or as a means of holding your in game items hostage to get more money out of you (Pokemon Home comes to mind).

[-] some_kind_of_guy@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

Updates alone have no way to happen solely on the local machine. There are many reasons why using someone else's computer would be required, which have nothing to do with social media. Just off the top of my head:

  • Image/video/audio processing that requires more compute than you can reasonably except from average consumer hardware.
  • Antivirus and other forms of security which require near real-time fingerprinting and/or new definitions.
  • Licensing/certificate servers
  • Servers which receive and process telemetry data
  • Resources for submitting/processing/securing legal/government forms/documents

And a lot more I can't think of right now. Most of this shit makes me want to vomit in my mouth. I'd much rather spend my time and money sourcing, building, and configuring my own hardware and running everything locally. But that's just because I'm an idealistic nerd with an uncompromising bent towards digital liberty - most users and softwares are not built for that.

[-] HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Updates alone have no way to happen solely on the local machine.

No, but it wouldn't need to cost the original vendor that much backend resources either if they're willing to relinquish control of it. There's a reason most Linux distros would rather you use the torrent than their hosted images, and package managers allow you to add any mirror you want and for anyone to spin up a mirror. Something like IPFS (or BitTorrent) would be a great fit for software updates, because it doesn't matter where the file comes from, as long as it's the same file.

Updates are expensive for the vendor because they insist on their servers being the only place you can get them from.

Image/video/audio processing that requires more compute than you can reasonably except from average consumer hardware.

I'd be more accepting of this if it wasn't for the fact that they increasingly don't even let you try to run it on your own hardware. Taking an hour or even overnight to process a video might not be ideal, but there are still countless use cases where that's acceptable and worth the security of not sending your data to the cloud.

Antivirus and other forms of security which require near real-time fingerprinting and/or new definitions.

Antivirus is an antipattern and the need for it is usually a symptom of the OS architecture/permission control model being hopelessly vulnrable. An ideal system would be zero trust and some random piece of code wouldn't be able to do anything truly harmful to begin with. You can still social engineer the user into giving a malicious program trust, but you can social engineer them into whitelisting it in their antivirus too.

Licensing/certificate servers

Certificates don't need that much backend resources and can be decentralized in the same way as updates, taking load off the original vendor.

Licensing is a circular argument. I'm paying for you to maintain the system that determines if I paid or not?

Servers which receive and process telemetry data

Yeah that's not a "feature" most people appreciate. At best they accept it as inevetable because they can't turn it off.

Also, if a company tries using that as justification for their subscription model, they can go fuck themselves.

Resources for submitting/processing/securing legal/government forms/documents

If it has to do with the legal system or government, then it should be covered by the ultimate subscription model: taxes. I shouldn't have to cover a company's costs of filing things with the government when I already pay the government.

[-] SlurpingPus@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

An ideal system would be zero trust and some random piece of code wouldn't be able to do anything truly harmful to begin with.

Considering this is Lemmy, there's about 70% chance the person who wrote this also complains in other threads about how Google and Apple take control from the user in their platforms and remove oldschool features like file management.

[-] HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

No, I complain about Google and Apple being proprietary. That alone is a deal breaker for me so I really don't give a shit about them not having file management or whatever other old school feature. And if a sufficiently rigorous security model must take away old school file management in favour of a more restrictive system, so be it, as long as it's open source and publicly auditable.

If you're relying on a proprietary operating system, literally none of that matters because your root of trust is inherently untrustworthy.

[-] Fiery@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 3 days ago

Even software that does not require back-end resources has a cost if it's actively supported and/or receiving new features. These hours the developers put it are often unpaid when talking about open source, but it's not something anyone should take for granted.

[-] EpicMuch@sh.itjust.works 31 points 4 days ago

Dropout.tv Great content, rewards creative talent, more than fair price

[-] pipes@sh.itjust.works 4 points 4 days ago

What shows do you recommend? I watched the first episode of Very Important People a while ago and it was fun

[-] MurrayL@lemmy.world 7 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Game Changer is their flagship show, and has been consistently great at reinventing itself and surprising season after season. It’s a game show where the game is different every time and the contestants have to try and figure out what’s going on. It goes places.

If you enjoy long form TTRPG, they have dozens of Dimension 20 campaigns with all kinds of settings and genres.

Smartypants is a show where comedians get to give PowerPoint presentations on anything they want.

Play It By Ear is a personal fave - each episode is an entirely improvised musical, which feels like an incredible magic trick when they pull it off.

Um, Actually is a nerdy quiz show where contestants have to interrupt the host with factual corrections about video games, anime, sci-fi, etc.

Gastronauts is a cooking challenge show with professional chefs trying to fulfil unhinged requests from comedians.

There’s way more on there besides all that, but thought I’d share some highlights.

[-] pipes@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 days ago

They sound like a blast, thank you so much for the recs!

[-] zakobjoa@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

Make Some Noise for me is always peak.

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[-] KittyKatty@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago

Definitely GameChanger and Make Some Noise. Although, Make Some Noise starts off pretty mid in my opinion.

[-] nfreak@lemmy.ml 3 points 4 days ago

I've been loading up my Jellyfin server with their shows for a while and I've been meaning to grab a subscription purely to support. Great people and great content.

[-] cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 15 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

dropout
beacon
pbs passport
my local library

[-] sem@piefed.blahaj.zone 4 points 3 days ago

Where I live, the subway is expensive :(

I used to never see people hopping the gate but now I do every time.

[-] hyacin@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 days ago

Coffee delivery. I use a fairly consistent amount, so I don't get as overloaded/running out as some other things I've tried to subscribe to - and it lets me bypass "big grocery", and get better quality product directly from the roaster/blender.

[-] xavier666@lemmy.umucat.day 1 points 2 days ago

That sounds interesting but hyper-specific. But recently, I have switched to buying consumables directly from the producer. Skips the middle man like Amazon.

[-] hperrin@lemmy.ca 20 points 4 days ago

I honestly think there are very few things that make sense as a subscription service. Basically all software that runs on your computer (Adobe, Office, etc) make 0 sense being a subscription. Honestly, most web software could just be made to run on your computer. Things like email, cloud storage, phone service, that have ongoing non-development related costs make sense.

Media is the worst offender. Just let me pay for a download and watch/listen to something.

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[-] Today@lemmy.world 18 points 4 days ago

Our art museum is free but for 100/yr we used to get a subscription that got us 4 free tickets per day to visiting exhibits that are normally $16 each, plus free parking which is normally $10 and it's across the street from a big park with food trucks and activities.

Also, the zoo and botanical garden memberships that offer reciprocity with a bunch of other zoos or gardens.

Zoo membership is clutch with toddlers. 100% worth it. Same with the Children's museum.

[-] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Not just toddlers! My best trip to contiguous America involved the zoo and the aquarium in Atlanta, as well as the Fernbank.

Now it'll be a decade before America is safe for outsiders.

[-] Twanquility@feddit.dk 15 points 4 days ago

Mail provider. There are very cheap and privacy friendly options. Like 1 euro pr. month.

[-] pipes@sh.itjust.works 6 points 4 days ago

Similarly I always think that a domain name with unlimited mail forwarding addresses (aka aliases) is amazing; a .eu domain costs me around 6-7€ a year with Bookmyname - old timey interface but all I need it for is to add more and more aliases :)

[-] NanoooK@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 days ago

Which service do you use to have the alias? I use mailbox.org but the number of alias are limited.

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[-] some_kind_of_guy@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago

My state has a special state parks license plate with a parking benefit. Free parking at almost every state park. This includes beaches, nature reserves, mountains, hiking areas, skiing areas, etc.

Having the plates on means you just park and go, no kiosks or paper slips, putting money in a box or dealing with someone.

Parking is $5 and up, and the plate is only $40 extra (on top of normal vehicle registration fees), so it can pay for itself many times over the course of a year.

[-] xavier666@lemmy.umucat.day 3 points 3 days ago

That's actually great. I think that the savings in time alone pays itself. May I ask which state this is?

[-] incompetent@programming.dev 1 points 2 days ago

Not OP but California started offering them about a decade ago.

I don't know which other states offer them though.

[-] prettygorgeous@aussie.zone 6 points 4 days ago
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this post was submitted on 30 Jan 2026
59 points (98.4% liked)

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