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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
disposable shavers
I have them, but clean them with a squirt of alcohol and they last ages. I think the last time I bought a pack was 2020.
The cheapy ones like bics? I’m using an old school de razor and the blades are stupidly cheap, minimal waste and no single corp locking me in.
Oh those. I meant the Gillette Fusion razor heads. They are supposed to be disposable, and I do eventually get rid of them, but I extend the lifespan by a lot with a squeeze bottle of alcohol on them to clean them. A head that should last weeks will end up lasting me months with just a little care.
Thats a pretty good idea tbf. More people need to stock up on IPA the stuff comes in handle
- 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.
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.
Ad-free internet stuff.
Computer Operating Systems
A lot of Software actually
Antiviruses
Social media.
Windows
I paid for my calendar app, cause it had a feature I needed no standard app had plus it’s pretty good in other regards. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’m curious the feature.
I had a job with fixed days of a month shifts. And at least at the time, a lot of calendars couldn’t create repeating events for let’s say every fifth Saturday of a month. they all knew first, second, third or fourth but fifth, no luck. And aCalendar+ knew and knows that.
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.
Really depends on the workplace. I will not drink coffee and I’m no longer drinking hot chocolate even from my work. Mainly because a lot of my co-workers are slobs and everything is unsanitized. I had just witnessed last night, someone from day maintenance, had their gloves still on (presumably from touch dirty trash bins, scrubbing toilets .etc) just go about touching some things before realizing he needed them off.
And I ended up vomiting last sunday because nobody checks expiration dates on what we have and I ended up drinking hot chocolate that might’ve been expired. So, it depends on the workplace.
It’s not that odd that they have a preference, even if it costs them. My work provides tea bags and milk, but I bring my own because I like them more.
Yeah, but Dunkin for coffee??
It’s like the yuengling of coffee. Nothing special but it’s cheap and inoffensive.
I think the problem is that some Starbucks fans are pretentious. There are better and cheaper coffee everywhere but some of them will just choose the more expensive one and flash their premium membership card to you.
So at my work the coffee is shit because it’s a fully automatic coffee machine and it is also not properly cleaned. I usually make my own at home and bring a thermos.
Yes, but I work at a restaurant.
If I worked at a restaurant I would take advantage of free espresso.
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.
Inertia?
Or is there some local channel that they like that doesn’t have a youtube presence?No. And they also have Netflix. So they understand streaming shit. It boggles my mind
How technical is your dad?
Also honestly. Sometimes it’s a lot nicer to just push a button and have something come on.
One of the main reasons I use Plex is their random feature. “Wanna watch a syndicated episodic show and don’t care which ep? Press random” vs other streaming services you have to actually choose an episode.
I’d like to see a clever implementation of one-button “channel surfing” in an app like Plex.
So… Iirc you can shuffle all of the episodes in a library … Not sure about cross library. I just have one for TV and one for movies.
I know you can definitely make a smart playlist for the shows you want to shuffle through and go from there. Like I have a bunch of a few episodic tv shows, added them through regex to a smart playlist and hit shuffle all the time.
Not very at all
That’s why. My folks still have cable and pay for HBO. That’s how me and my siblings are able to watch stuff we don’t want to download on max :)
My dad jokes that hes happy he knows how to turn on his phone … Now his TV since that’s “too complicated”
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Bottled water to drink at home.
In my area in Greece, the water is not safe, my brother who used to work in the water containers says it’s full of rats. We all buy bottles. It would be nice to be environmentally conscious about it, but there’s no choice about it.
Not every country has safe tap water
Not even every state, look at Flint, MI …
Ok, so: bottled water to drink at home in countries with safe drinking water.
Not every home in countries with safe tap water have safe tap water at home
Much better)
I have a worst example, people who showered with said bottled water when we had a water supply issue in my town…
I’ve showered with tap water when my shower was broken. I think it makes sense if it’s the only way they can shower.
Even Los Angeles tap water isn’t safe to drink, as I understand it. Flynt, Michigan, too.
And even if it does, it might taste horrible.
If it tastes horrible then there might be something wrong with it
This drives me insane. The 5 gal jugs are so cheap to refill and keep using. I used one of those with a hand pump and a thin 1.5 gal jugs for my fridge for constant cold water when I lived where tap water wasn’t doable. It was like 10¢ a gallon to refill the jugs and I always had delicious cold water at the ready. There is absolutely no need to create so much waste
Becareful, because if you don’t clean the jugs, they will eventually not be safe to drink out of
When you put tap water in a bottle and put it in the freezer, so you’d have a cold bottle of water for an entire summer day, the water from the tap tastes “saltier” for some reason, while bottled “spring” water doesn’t. The “saltier” taste is kinda unpleasant 🤷♂️
Also my city has some chemical spill into the river where the city gets the water supply from, they gave out a emergency alert very late, and the city wasn’t really transparent about that whole ordeal, some people in my city are already doubting the safety of the tap water, reminds me of Flint, Michigan, so I kinda just don’t like the tap water 😖
Reverse osmosis filter, you can just get an under the sink one of you don’t plan on drinking your shower water. Kind of pricey up front, and you have to replace the filters every so often, but it gives good taste and peace of mind for filtering.
I am telling you from first hand viewing that bottled water plants use the same kind of filtering.
Undersink filter with a dedicated drinking water tap. Removes the chlorine taste that is probably what makes you think salty. You can get the whole setup for $75 and install it yourself. The filters are $40ish and last 6-12 months.
Some fridges have cold filtered water taps built in.
There are good filtering systems you can get to add to your sink or water supply. At most you’re looking at a couple hundred for something that will last years. The water in plastic bottles is not immune to leeching things from the bottles as well, but I guess it’s a matter of weighing which you prefer.
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.
It’s funny that the IRS has now been offering their own tax-free service. Intuit thought they could strong-arm people but even the IRS thought “no bruh, you’re crazy”.
I just never saw the appeal of paying for tax software/services, well maybe I can see it in services because there’s still a lot of people that have trouble with filing taxes and they may be in unique tax situations that they don’t understand.
But Tax Software makes it stupid easy to understand so it should not be something we pay for.
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.
Right, that’s what I was getting at with my second part hah
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.
How are they at dealing with investments?
For my simple needs (mortgage, 401k, couple different IRAs, and a managed investment account) it did great.
Sounds interesting. I’ll check it out.
Do they do imports from like betterment and vanguard?
YouTube premium.
Just get uBlock or revanced.
YouTube + HDMI Cable from PC to TV + UBlock/Firefox = win.
Okay, to preface I really hate giving Google money, but I hate ads more, and paying for Premium also removes ads on YouTube apps across platforms. It also in some minuscule way rewards the creators I watch, but real support comes from Patreon.
Yeah I pay because I get ad free videos and YT music, so I could cancel Spotify, which is almost the same price for only music.
YouTube charges too much. It costs more than Netflix! They need like a $6/mo plan or something.
In Australia they offer premium lite for $9 AUD a month that removes ads on normal YouTube but still has it on shorts and music.
I mean, it depends on how much you use it, no? I use YouTube more than Netflix and the like (most of the time anyway). Not that I have YouTube premium but still.
Yeah I’m with you. I know there’s some way to block ads on any device if you are really dedicated but I don’t want to get a PHD in ad blocking just to not have ads on YT on my phone
Install Revanced, it’s literally better than the vanilla youtube app because you can customize basically everything
I can’t find it on iOS
*you can’t find it in the app store / apple safe space. If you’re in Europe, you can sideload apps. Otherwise, you might need an upgrade
No
On android the trick is to do the same as you would on desktop. So Firefox + unlock origin.
It also gives a “free” music service, and while it’s not excellent by any means, that keeps me from spending MORE money on another music service.
I just like that I can log in on my AppleTV and it works immediately with no ads or bullshit.
I’m at a point in my life where I’ll pay for the media I’ll watch. If I’m not willing to pay for it, I won’t watch it. I also don’t want to watch ads.
"Ah, yes I see I see, and that’s very understandable. Thank you for paying us by the way.
Now, since you’ve been so loyal for all these years…what about [slides agreement across the table] you pay for it…AND you watch ads?"
– Basically every streaming service hopping on the bandwagon at this point
Streaming services are raising prices because prestige television was expensive and are using ads as a way to reduce the bill.
And you don’t have to pay for streaming if you don’t find it too be worth it. I’ve cancelled subscriptions because the increased price wasn’t worth it.
Maybe the television being produced ought to stop being garbage that nobody wants.
They tried making prestige TV first, not enough people bought it.
Sidenote: Lol I’m getting downvotes for mocking streaming giants and ads on Lemmy. That’s different 🤔.
Honestly, I hear you. Media isn’t easy to make and takes a ton of talented people a lot of hours to accomplish. I also drop off of subscribing to stuff if it was really nice but “enshittified” into forcing ads into every interaction.
Something needs to change fundamentally though, because we’re once again on the cable-TV slope of “20 minutes of entertainment extended to 45 minutes by interrupting it with the exact same ad of a mega corporation pretending to be an underdog influencer.”
My personal take is that if your average person were paid fairly, they’d have the money to spend on entertainment where ad-pollution wouldn’t be necessary, and if the entertainment distributors/platforms/whatevs asked the fair amount required to pay everyone involved fairly, everyone would be happy.
Lol a guy can dream.
And I wish that kind of world existed where people could fund that kind of media landscape.
I’ve just been aware that, for over a decade, streaming prices weren’t sustainable because they were subsidized by cable and broadcast.
I have lots of ad blockers. But my father watches YouTube on the LG TV app. I don’t live there anymore and hearing the ads from the other room became offensive to the family.
It was easier to just buy a premium family plan and call it a day.
Doesn’t work if you’re using a smart TV or console to view it.
Just solved this problem actually. Smart tube app. Download on your tv with a browser and sideload the apk. Dunno about console but I’m sure there’s some solution.
Yeah, not watching it on console. /s
Seconded on Smart Tube TV. Frankly, it works better than ublock on Firefox most days as YT doesn’t go out of its way to slow it down.
Also, I feel like it’s more lightweight too. The regular YT app was lagging a lot, Smart Tube TV was running great.
The maintainance and unreliability is annoying
There is literally a discord, with a link here on Lemmy, with links in said discord to download sources. Plus there are help and troubleshooting threads.
And happen to need exactly none of that, thank you very much. I pay the fee and forget about it
Microsoft Office and satellite radio.
I’m still waiting for a proper excel replacement. No, google sheets and libre office don’t cut it. I literally have a copy of office 2019 that I have to finagle to install only that app and nothing else.
Why doesn’t LibreOffice Calc do it for you?
It doesn’t have the same level of formulas, VBA, and data set linking.
The funny thing is, after few years of using the Google Sheets, I can’t go back to Excel, because it has some weird behaviours and some shitty UX that drives me crazy.
Of course I am not saying that you can even do 1/3 of what Excel can do, but for basic uses I find it much easier to use.
Oh for sure. Excel is hot garbage when it comes to UI. I really want a replacement so I don’t have to rely on Microsoft. I use Libre Office for every other office app, and a more sane experience.
You still listen to the radio?
Rarely, yes. Mostly I listen to free podcasts and music that I’ve paid for or otherwise acquired once. I don’t understand paying a subscription for a lower quality version of that. Maybe there are a few live programs that are only available on SiriusXM, but that’s a tenuous value proposition.
Operating systems and porn.
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.
How is it surprising people pay for operating systems? The vast majority of computers sold are bundled with an operating system license, and most people just use what came with the computer.
Because they pay for a worse experience.
Uhhhh you answered your own question. Why pay for an OS when it should either be included, or free Linux.
Therefore it’s surprising when people pay for an OS.
I use windows. I haven’t paid for a windows key since windows 7 iirc. Windows has been free for years. (I know you pay with your data etc. Good luck convincing average Joe who uses all social media services that this even matters)
Sames. I haven’t paid for a Windows OS since Windows XP.
The only way I ever got to the latest Windows OS, is either being given a machine with the latest version on it or I get a PC built but pirate a serial or a copy.
Exactly. Which is why it’s surprising to pay for windows OS.
Where are these surprising purchases then? People either use it for free, in which case they haven’t paid for it, or they bought it in a bundle with their PC, which is again very common.
Who is actually buying Windows standalone?
Who is actually buying Windows standalone?
People who build their own PC and want to use an OS that they are familiar with. Especially when you want to game, windows is just easier than any free os and you can get a legit key for 20-30 bucks, while pirating windows has become a lot more complicated since XP.
Every time I saw someone I know built a PC, they reused the license key from their previous one. And the first one was a free key from their university.
It definitely happens though!
Exactly. You can buy windows OS standalone without it coming in a package with a pc. It’s rare. That’s why it’s surprising.
Fair enough. To me the fact people don’t do it and that it’s rare is perfectly expected. In other words, I would be surprised if people commonly did that, but they don’t, so I don’t see anything surprising. But I can see your point of view, it’s looking at it a bit differently.
But “included” doesn’t mean free. You still paid for it.
That’s not the point. You’re buying a pc, it comes with it and sometimes costs extra.
This sub is about what’s surprising things people buy. Buying an OS is surprising, because it’s either part of the package deal for a new pc, or you can just use linux.
I think what you are trying to say is “buying an OS not as part of a package deal is surprising”. To that I would agree.
But most people are buying an OS as part of a package deal, so most purchases of an OS are not surprising.
I’m not “trying” to say anything lol. OP said operating systems. I’m talking about operating systems. Not a pc that is packaged with one.
I’m talking about operating systems. Not a pc that is packaged with one.
So yes, looks like I correctly understood what you are trying to say, and agree with you that buying a standalone operating system is weird. But nobody does that.
Looks like you consider buying something in a bundle to not be buying it, which is a valid opinion, though myself I disagree. Most OS purchases happen in a bundle with a PC, and every time I bought a laptop I asked for Windows to be removed from the bundle, which made it cheaper a bit (as I was going to install Linux anyway). If removing Windows from the bundle is making it cheaper, then clearly you were buying it and paying for it for when you don’t, as most people do.
I’m currently on Emporium. But I have paid for more porn than I’ve stolen. And porn is cheap.
So many people I know complain about windows having ads, that it’s auto installing bloatware, has annoying checks, forces you to login…
I paid the full price about a decade ago and haven’t been bothered by any of that. And yes, I’ve upgraded to windows 11
I’ve had the exact same experience. People on this site don’t like when others don’t hate Windows.
I like it because it just works.
It definitely “just works” alright. And damn do I appreciate that on the machine I like to use to relax
