this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
59 points (96.8% liked)

Fuck Subscriptions

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Naming and shaming all "recurring spending models" where a one-time fee (or none at all) would be appropriate and logical.

Expect use of strong language.

Follow the basic rules of lemmy.world and common sense, and try to have fun if possible.

No flamewars or attacking other users, unless they're spineless corporate shills.

Note that not all subscriptions are awful. Supporting your favorite ~~camgirl~~ creator or Lemmy server on Patreon is fine. An airbag with subscription is irl Idiocracy-level dystopian bullshit.

New community rule: Shilling for cunty corporations, their subscriptions and other anti-customer practices may result in a 1-day ban. It's so you can think about what it's like when someone can randomly decide what you can and can't use, based on some arbitrary rules. Oh what, you didn't read this fine print? You should read what you're agreeing to.

==========

Some other groovy communities for those who wish to own their products, their data and their life:

Right to Repair/Ownership

Hedges Development

Privacy

Privacy Guides

DeGoogle Yourself

F-Droid

Stallman Was Right

Some other useful links:

FreeMediaHeckYeah

Louis Rossman's YouTube channel

Look at content hosted at Big Tech without most of the nonsense:

Piped

Invidious

Nitter

Teddit

 

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This is just a reminder, if you think some subscription from a gigacorp is a good deal. It even might be, for a while. Then the price will go up and up once people get used to the idea.

It's one of the problems of subscription services in general.

Yes, I know. Raising prices is and has always been a normal part of life. The thing is, the more services are subscription-based, the more these price hikes can be bothersome.

If the cost of toilet paper goes up more than you find comfortable, you can at least to try to budget it better and use less of it. Maybe you can stockpile it or borrow some. If it were a subscription toilet paper, you either have it or don't have it. Or maybe you'll get paper that prints ads onto your...

I'm getting silly. You get my point. Subscriptions can make sense, but also be a major trap.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Looking forward to all the comments explaining how YouTube is different from toilet paper. Thanks in advance for the lessons!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

i thought tp and yt were synonyms tbh

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Because youtube is where the poop is

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I try and convince my friends all the time that yt premium is not worth the money and a scam. They dont listen its "just too convenient". Like using an adblock or 3rd party apps is difficult?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

If someone can point me towards a tutorial on blocking YT ads on both Roku & Android TV I'll cancel my Premium subscription as soon as I see it working.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

zoot's suggestion is probably the simplest, but if you're feeling adventurous you could get a raspberry pi and setup a pi-hole server to intercept your internet traffic and redirect ad requests to a null domain

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

When I first got the Roku, I had a "Oh, HELL NO!" moment when I saw that the Youtube app delivered fresh, sticky ads to my eyeballs--for which I have zero tolerance on all my devices.

A little research resulted, and I ordered a Pi 4. A couple of days later, after it was set up, I realized that PiHole (and later, AdGuard Home) would NOT filter out Youtube ads (although they work quite well for OTHER ad-filtering).

Shortly after that, Youtube offered me a free, 3-mo subscription, upon which I bit.

$11.99 felt steep to me, but I begrudgingly complied. At $13.99? That might be a deal-breaker.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

On Android TV you can just use NewPipe, SmartTube, SkyTube... With some apps you can use your account and subscriptions directly.

Or YT (re)vanced I guess

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

This is what I did on my Chromecast TV. I actually installed SmartTube and then used another app with special permissions to override the YouTube button on the little remote it came with to launch SmartTube instead. I also swapped the Netflix button to go to my personal server of content.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Now that's a solid suggestion!! I've had NewPipe on my phone forever--it never occurred to me that it might work on my Shield Pro! 🤦‍♂️ 👍

If I invested in a lesser Android TV for the bedroom (there's a Roku in there) and cancelled the subscription--it would pay for itself (eventually)?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can just use any 30-50 €$£ Android stick and stuff it with Android apps. Keep the TV as a monitor.

Until a month ago I was using an old Android 5 TV. It can still do so many things.

I suggest using NewPipe (or NP x SponsorBlock) 0.24.1 as that had a better layout for large screen. Not sure if they fixed it in 0.25.x yet.

Some other YT apps are actually specialised for TV use so you may wanna try more of them too.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

When I said "lesser Android TV"--I meant a lesser Android BOX....

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Well, I've installed and tested NewPipe, SmartTube and SkyTube. SkyTube Extra crashes on opening. NewPipe works, but isn't nearly as polished as SmartTube--which is our winner so far. 👍

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Neat. And no need for subscriptions either, which is always a plus 😁

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I have a month to test it. (My luck the instant I cancel my subscription, it'll stop working!) 😜

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I dont know nothing about those. 3rd party on the phone that i broadcast to my tv. Simple as.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm suprised people pay for youtube premium instead of just downloading UBlockOrigin

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Edit: I’m really sorry I just noticed that you posted this MONTHS ago. I’m an idiot

A lot of people watch videos on their phones, and ad-blocking is a lot more of a pain there. The official YouTube app is pretty much the only app on iOS that I know of and no ad-blocker works for that, I don’t think - though a good ad-blocker and Safari works quite well to watch YouTube on iPhone.

No real options on Apple TV though, that I know of.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

uyou+extra is a custom youtube app for ios, so ios users can use that. It isn’t on the app store so you gotta sideload it via developer mode and a signing app.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Awesome, thank you for sharing! I'm going to look into this. Really appreciate it! <3

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

The real issue here is that we as a society have poured countless hours of information into a repository owned by a for profit venture, and that repository loses money.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I haven't gotten any notifications about this and when I go into my account it still says my next payment is the same. Edit: God dammit just got it

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