We all know the saying of if you are not paying then you are the product, which again became relevant with how Reddit is dealing with its business model and trying to get everyone into their dataharvesting for more ads ecosystem. It is really sad how many of the worlds brightest techminds are building technologies that in the end all leads to show more ads.
I have been online for over 25 years, so it is a hard expectation to break that everything should be free. Free email, free search, free news, free social media etc.
Given how much time many of us spend using various online services, paying a little seems reasonable. Yet I often tend to think way too long on even smaller digital expenses, like an app for €2, but I will happily pay €10 for a coffee and a croissant at a train station like it is nothing.
I have seen many saying they wouldn’t mind paying a bit for a good Reddit experience, and I think I could even be persuaded to pay for Facebook if it removed all the ads and let me control my feed again like we could in the beginning. Yet these companies don’t really seem interested in providing that option.
What services do you find worth paying for - even though free alternatives exists?
I have a neutral email provider, a todo app (Todoist), a journal app (DayOne), a podcast app (PocketCast) - as well as the usual plethora of streaming services. I have considered trying Kagi for a paid search engine, though that is really a hard pill to swallow when good search have always been there freely available. Though Googles quality have really gone down in recent years.
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I pay for ProtonMail
The biggest, obvious one to me is news. Say what you will about mainstream media but some great investigative journalism still happens, and these companies are in an awkward position where no one wants to pay and everyone uses adblockers.
When I’m not living paycheck to paycheck I want to support Standard Ebooks (they’re doing a great job of showing how to make ebooks that don’t suck, check out their style guide) and maybe Neocities.
The more I think about how Medium works, the more I think it makes sense? While they could have done the typical thing where the people hosting content there pay for their share of the servers, by doing it in reverse the individual monthly cost can be lower (casting a wider net) and the people writing for them can actually get paid a bit for doing so.
I’m thinking about throwing some money at Obsidian, too, since I practically live in that app.
Totally agree on the news and journalism part. I subscribe to three different publications, which gets expensive, but it is worth it. Many newssites have also started to hide their articles behind paywalls, which is understandable, but also make sharing and discussing news with others on social media harder. And since most people can’t afford to subscribe to several news outlets, they will be limited in their exposure to different viewpoints - unless that particular newspaper is really good at challenging its readers and not just giving them what they think they want.
they will be limited in their exposure to different viewpoints - unless that particular newspaper is really good at challenging its readers and not just giving them what they think they want.
This is why I’m a big fan of Allsides. They seem genuinely dedicated to aggregating as wide a range of takes on current events as they can, which is really helpful for sniffing out BS. Honestly it’s mostly made me think there’s less BS than a lot of people think, so long as you can read past leading language.
I wouldn’t mind paying for most worthwhile services, actually I already pay for VPN, email, etc, but the fact is that the old adage “if it’s free, you’re the product” is no longer true. Even services you pay for collect and sell an impressive amount of data. I wouldn’t mind paying for social media, but then I would also expect a zero collection policy on any metrics that pertains to my account or interactions with it.
A subscription fee and any kind of profiting off of user data, need to never co-exist.
I absolutely agree, but what’s stopping them from accepting your money and grab all your data at the same time?
I recently purchased an expensive samsung tv. There is no way to disable advertisements or data tracking… They’re selling you an pricey piece of hardware and want to sell your data - double dipping at its finest.
(My solution has been not to agree to their tos, which means i can’t use any of the apps on it. I just plug in a roku and use the tv as a monitor. Also looking at adblock/pihole once i get a proper firewall back up)
Wouldn’t it be better to simply never give the tv a wifi password? Or am I missing something here?
Also, Roku is also quite bad about data collection and selling, IIRC. ☹️ But the only real choice seems to be which company you’ll let collect the data, not whether they can.
You’re not wrong. I don’t give it access to my lan. The roku, we’ve had for so long, I’m accepting the data collection from - but it’s also not a 1500 dollar device…
Well, it requires some more work, but you can also in theory set up a Linux box (or, heck, also a Windows one if you are so inclined) and use something like Electron Player (https://github.com/oscartbeaumont/ElectronPlayer) as a “frontend” for YouTube TV, Amazon Prime, Netflix,…
…or you tell Netflix Amazon and co. to stuff it, buy BluRays, rip them onto a media server, and set up Jellyfin, Emby, Plex… or, heck, just a fileshare and play the files using Kodi or something.
The problem I have is that you must use one of the terrible devices to view movies and shows at high quality. So far, pretty everything except Netflix doesn’t offer higher than 1080p or even 720p on PC due to DRM. Netflix required the most expensive subscription for 4K and only works on Windows with their app. Even if you have the latest expensive hardware, you need to get a cheap Chromecast, Roku, Fire TV stick or Apple TV for DRM. That’s for TVs, but none of those devices work on less common resolutions like 1440p or ultra wide resolutions. Which means the only way for me to watch those movies with a cinematic aspect ratio in high quality on my fancy monitor is either physical media or piracy.
This is the first I’ve heard of kagi. It looks interesting and I’m sick of scrolling past a page of “sponsored links”.
How have you found it?
I was using Neeva, a similar service. They shut down last month. People on the Neeva sub[…] Mentioned it. It’s quite a bit better than Neeva ever was.
I am yet to write an essay where I’d argue how it ad-funded internet is responsible for so many problems in our society, including the increased polarization and radicalization, the destruction of civil debate and the complete dehumanization of society.
Business models that depend only on monetizing eyeballs do not care about the individuals. They care only about the masses, the tribes, the identity groups and demographics. On the other hand, businesses that makes a living out of receiving a monthly payment from their customers need to care enough about their customers to the point where they can not lose them to a competitor.
I believe so much so in this, this is exactly why I’ve started Communick. Like you, I’ve always wondered why people are okay with paying $10 for some extra power up on Mario Kart, but would balk at the idea of paying $10/year for a social media service that is based on open protocols and does not put in a walled garden.
I actually started giving my home Mastodon instance 8 bucks a month as a little “thank you” for hosting and maintaining it, because I think they’re doing a solid job at keeping the place wholesome and curbstomping less wholesome instances, and keeping it up and running.
Also, I pay the subscription for Home Assistant/Nabu Casa, because I think it’s worth for having a locally-hosted home automation platform that is completely independant from any cloud provider, but can make use of cloud features if need be. Yes, I could set up my own SSL certificate for the instance, and set up the connection to Google Home manually, and run a completely local TTS (which I actually have as a backup in case the connection drops), but there, I pay for the convenience on top of supporting the developers a little bit.
And before I switched to Jellyfin, I was happily using Plex and paid for the Plex Pass.
Ima need to know more on your local tts. What is it ? What does it do ?
Ngl, I’ve been thinking of ditching my Google home. Used to be great, now I would barely call it functional. Used to be super easy to play music, setup timers and reminders, ask things, now it works as expected the first time maybe 10% of the time. It’s infuriating to use
before the whole “everything is free on the internet” you had to run your own server, know someone or pay a huge bill for special network services.
it was VC money being thrown at people for 20+ years trying to make them think the place was just “supposed” to be free and funded entirely by spam. It does not work, this is not PBS this is communication, and each user has to make a certain amount of input to keep it operational.
What you are seeing is the internet returned to its intended designs and interactions. We aren’t supposed to be tied to providers, only protocols.
no. I will steal everything
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I think it depends on the company.
If you think about paying big ones to have an ads-free experience, you have to keep in mind they still track you and sell metrics for ad targeting, that is they sell “your data” even if they don’t show you ads, why should I pay them if they don’t pay me for my data?
Different matter IMO if we talk about smaller companies (or small developers) that are still focused on providing a good service or app, I pay for protonmail for example, in some cases, paying a little bit might make a big difference to those developing.
Even more different if we talk about supporting opensource projects, that can’t be even considered “paying”, it’s donations to make it so those projects can go on since they’re not “monetized” in any way.
I don’t like subscriptions at all because I’m very conscious that one day I may not be able to afford to subscribe and I’ll lose access / data etc. So I will simply not use apps that require an ongoing subscription where my data is difficult to move. If they allow me to buy a lifetime license, I’m in.
I am happy to donate or make a monthly payment, knowing that if I stop I can still access it. So Obsidian works for me - I donate but the data is local and mine so if anything happens it’s still there. Archive.org I donate too - if I don’t pay I can still use it.
The other consideration I have is where is my data and what are they doing with it. For example, I host my email with Fastmail. It’s a yearly subscription but the data is mine and I can move it where I want and I trust the company credentials on not mining my data.
I wouldn’t pay Reddit or Facebook. Whatever you pay they’re still horrendous corporations that you are the product for.
I will easily pay $2 or $3 a month for something I use. The more I use it and it makes my life easier, the more I’ll pay. $2 is a no brainer to pay. More takes consideration.
You hit on something I wanted to say:- what is stopping companies from charging you money and then STILL harvesting your data transparently?
I absolutely agree. Hell, I would pay some companies to not show up to me anymore.
I would pay a reasonable amount to use Reddit if their true issue is not being profitable enough. If they lowered the API access fees to a reasonable figure, I would pay for a third party app. I would also pay for Reddit itself if it continued to allow third party access to the API like they have been. Maybe I’m in the minority, but if the argument is “if it’s free, then you’re the product” then I would, as dystopian as it sounds, pay for Reddit.
It may just be that I’m older and have more disposable income now, but I agree with the “if it’s free, you’re the product”. I also pay for a VPN, email, iCloud, backup services, also Overcast and Patreon for podcasts… it also makes me feel “good” to more directly support artists and makers than big producers like Spotify or Amazon.
