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I was going through my Wal-Mart+ subscription plan that I got for free and I saw their offers. One of which was EMeals, that was a 60-day trial. I thought that this was like Blue Apron or other meal delivery services so I thought I'd take a crack at it and hope that it would get me on a path to eat better.

Turns out, it's just a meal planner. And it's absurd to me why and how would anyone pay for something when there are countless and countless recipes and meal planners readily available for free. Who'd the fuck would want to pay for a planner? That's like paying for a calendar app.

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[-] 2ugly2live@lemmy.world 9 points 2 days ago
  • Books
  • Porn
  • Streaming Services
  • Bottled Water (if you have access/the means of purchasing a filter)
  • "Buy now, play later." Just buy it later and avoid the fees.
  • A lot of "Courses." There are so many free resources online.
[-] Shelbyeileen@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

Yes, porn is free, but the companies that host it are utter garbage. They pay next to nothing, claim ownership of the content, and don't care if a person is being exploited. Finding a person that you think is awesome/sexy and supporting their content means custom tailored and personal fun-times; that the adult content creator is the one who gets paid; and that it's unlikely they're being forced/pimped/trafficked.

Free porn is perfectly cromulent and there's a lot of variety; but if you can afford it, supporting a person is better overall. I used to create erotic cosplay photography for a living, so I'm all too familiar with how screwed up things are for sex workers.

[-] VinesNFluff@pawb.social 8 points 2 days ago

Ad-free internet stuff.

Computer Operating Systems

A lot of Software actually

[-] damnthefilibuster@lemmy.world 13 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Adobe. Someone said they pay $60 a month for it, and are locked in for the year, which they didn’t even know about! All for editing photos. Just editing photos.

It amazes me the amount of people that think theres no alternative to adobe, just for their casual use. I know that for professional it has some features that no other has.

[-] Coskii@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 days ago

I recently purchased Affinity photo, which did most of what I used to use Adobe for. No subscription, one time purchase, and I'll likely never need to worry about that again.

I tried gimp a few times and found it frustrating to use.

[-] Greee1911@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago

Holdup. It's $60 a month for the adobe suite, which give you access to like 30 aps, including a video editor, DreamWorks, illustrator and a whole bunch more. It's only $20 a month for thw photo suite, which gives you lightroom, photoshop, and bridge. The $60, a month for the suite is absolutely worth it depending on what you are doing.

[-] squid_slime@lemm.ee 11 points 2 days ago

Streaming. OS's, disposable shavers/ head, prime. Very few subscriptions are a good deal and if they are a good deal thats just them cornering the market to eventually close in.

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[-] Brutticus@lemm.ee 23 points 2 days ago

Streaming services. I've been balls deep into piracy since I was a kid but I remember once I was house sitting and my friend had netflix and I Was drunk and wanted to watch He-man. I turned on their netflix and it didn't have it. I was like, why even pay for this shit whats it good for? I have been morally opposed to paying for streaming ever since. Ive been taking some classes recently and some of the Gen Z kids are like, baffled I don't have spotify. I am baffled they can't pirate songs. My friends, you dont have to pay for that single. I can download it during the span of this conversation with my phone.

Also on that note, any of WotC's D&D tools. I remember the D&Dinsider debacle. 4e was a cool game but basically unplayable without some automation. They tried downloadable software but found people had way too easy a time hacking it. So they launched a constantly crashing version behind a paywall that ran on silverlight (so it couldn't run on Mac. As a webapp.) And hackers still kept up the downloadable character builder with updates. It was more consistent, didn't crash, and is still functional to this day. I ban D&Dbeyond from my games. I encourage everyone to use 5e.tools (if they must play 5e).

[-] themoken@startrek.website 20 points 2 days ago

I default to piracy too, but I'm guessing you don't listen to a lot of new music. The thing a music service offers isn't just access, it's discoverability. It didn't replace my FLAC collection, it expanded it. What it replaced was listening to the radio to find new stuff.

For video I'm more with you. I'm happy to rely on word of mouth. Especially since the streaming services drop movies all the time and discriminate against watching in a browser. Getting a good rip means you can watch it anywhere, anytime, and not have to worry about it disappearing.

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[-] Anonymouse@lemmy.world 25 points 3 days ago

I was surprised to hear that a coworker suscribes to one of the streaming services to stream shows from PBS. First of all, it's free OTA. Second, I think they have an app.

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[-] Dirk@lemmy.ml 53 points 3 days ago

Operating systems and porn.

[-] communism@lemmy.ml 18 points 3 days ago

Free porn tends to be full of abuse towards its actors. Not that paid porn is automatically ethical but there are definitely indie options where no one is being coerced into performing sexual acts they're not comfortable with. Also if you have a niche fetish sometimes the only options are paywalled.

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[-] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 days ago

Antiviruses

[-] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 60 points 3 days ago

As an American, Turbo Tax. I've been using FreeTaxUSA for almost 20 years with no problems, without paying for filing software.

But if I weren't American, my answer would probably be: tax software.

[-] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 days ago

Most countries don't have tax software.

They have a website usually. A free one, from the government. That calculates their taxes for them. You just have to check if it is correct from your side.

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[-] skeezix@lemmy.world 15 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

In many other countries (such as mine) you dont use tax software. The government figures out what you owe or overpaid. Because they have all the info they need to know that.

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[-] son_named_bort@lemmy.world 21 points 3 days ago
[-] Boomkop3@reddthat.com 22 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

WinRAR is legitimately a great program and whomever made it deserves some compensation

[-] patatahooligan@lemmy.world 34 points 3 days ago

Maybe it was good 10-20 years ago. What's it got to offer today? Why should we use a proprietary format when there are faster and more space-efficient open formats widely available today?

[-] Soulifix@kbin.melroy.org 28 points 2 days ago

7-Zip has long replaced WinRAR, for me.

[-] dewritoninja@pawb.social 4 points 2 days ago

I just cannot stand the 7zip UX

[-] renzev@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Create archive: 7z a archive.7z file1.pdf file2.pdf file3.pdf ...
Extract archive: 7z x archive.7z

What is there to hate? It's pretty much the same as every other archive tool that I've seen.

[-] portuga@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago

You mean you can’t figure it? It’s solely the best compression tool around that you can think of.

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[-] Nemo@slrpnk.net 105 points 3 days ago

My coworkers will walk into work with Dunkin or Starbucks lattes... we have not only free coffee at work, but access to an espresso machine with milk steamer.

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[-] Tudsamfa@lemmy.world 31 points 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Online subscription models, gacha and AAAA price tag games.

Not everyone wants to be a cybercriminal, god knows I'm one of them, but almost every person already has a backlog of games, an old classic that they want to experience again or community favourite that has gotten a lot of mods. Those are all free. And even if you want to spend money on something, why would you spend it on this year's hyped up game when last year's is still just as playable and at a discount?

That being said, I did buy Balatro full price, so I ought to know the answer.

[-] TORFdot0@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago

My problem is that I wait 20 years to late to play games and they cost more second hand than they originally did. GameCube fan problem

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[-] Cruxifux@feddit.nl 93 points 3 days ago

I do not get people who still pay for cable tv. My dad pays like 120 dollars a month for it and the programming is horrible, the ads are insane, all the best sports shit is on streaming services now, I do not understand it at all.

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[-] DarkDarkHouse@lemmy.sdf.org 31 points 3 days ago

Books.

Most librarians are knowledgeable and love helping you find something, or getting it in from another library.

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[-] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.ml 45 points 3 days ago
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[-] Zero22xx@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

Social media.

[-] vext01@lemmy.sdf.org 73 points 3 days ago

Bottled water to drink at home.

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[-] SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.ml 42 points 3 days ago

The meal subscription services strike me as premade salads on steroids. You're paying a premium for all the labor, ingredients, (excessive) packaging, shipping, their profit, etc and you still have to put it together and cook it. It really isn't that hard to look up a couple of recipes, buy the ingredients (you'd probably be going to the store anyway) and prep for 30 or so minutes a night. If you make full recipes you'll probably have leftovers so you won't even have to cook the next day.

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[-] tht@social.pwned.page 4 points 2 days ago
[-] CrimeDad@lemmy.crimedad.work 51 points 3 days ago

Microsoft Office and satellite radio.

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[-] Zahille7@lemmy.world 54 points 3 days ago

YouTube premium.

Just get uBlock or revanced.

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[-] renzev@lemmy.world 33 points 3 days ago

Gray market license keys for software. The money you're paying for these will never make it to the developer, so you might as well pirate.

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this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2025
199 points (99.0% liked)

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