crosspost from: https://lemmy.world/post/10321573

> i've never been on this site before -- that is to say, you don't even get like a couple free words > > what a joke

cross-posted from: https://feddit.it/post/3381833 >Exciting news for who? Only the site owner is excited that a free resource now requires a subscription > > "Yay! Now I have to pay another subscription! I'm so excited! Let's celebrate with them!" - nobody

Bit of a rant here, but I am currently subscribed to a game development related Patreon because I wanted to follow the development of a project that was interesting to me. The reason I covered the name is that the developer is doing a fantastic job with the project, posting regularly and providing interesting and informative posts, but the main advantage of Patreon is simply that he also provides builds which I was interested in checking out.

Patreon rebilled at the beginning of the month and I thought "Fine I guess, but I don't really want to pay $6 a month to get test builds of this game" and tried to cancel, assuming it would simply not rebill next month, but instead of cancelling rebilling, Patreon says I will immediately lose access to everything I can currently see on Patreon and new posts for this month, even though it billed me for this month literally three days ago.

There is no technical reason they can't just cancel rebilling and allow me to access this subscription until the end of the month, but they are clearly hoping I'll be scared to lose access to what I've paid for and will forget about cancelling later in the month, which would be the better time to do it, since I would benefit from access to more posts and development builds. There are a few other subscriptions I've used in the past that remove access to everything the instant you cancel, but even Amazon lets me continue free trials of Prime until the end of the trial period when I cancel it.

There are presumably no laws against this, or it was mentioned in some legal bullshit I ignored when signing up, but I do think that there should be a law that forces providers of subscription services to allow users to access their subscription for the entire period for which they have paid, regardless of whether they cancel their subscription if no refund is due.

cross-posted from: https://feddit.uk/post/3078732

> cross-posted from: https://radiation.party/post/118334 > > > [ comments | sourced from HackerNews \] > > > Welcome to the Internet of Stings, an occasional series in which we report on connected devices that are abruptly bricked or rendered considerably more costly due to the actions of their vendors. > > > > Today's tale concerns the Miku Baby Monitor, a $400 device aimed at parents who want to check up on their precious poppet from the comfort of their smartphone. > > > > Spend the cash and you'll get a camera that will also monitor breathing, room temperature, humidity, and provide some two-way communication to reassure the baby that its parent or guardian has taken a break from YouTube or Candy Crush to check that all is well. > > > > The upfront cost was steep, but what price can one put on the reassurance of a breathing waveform and being able to bring up some live video while you're out and about? Apparently, $9.99 a month.

!

I don't know if it has a subscription per se, but holy crap/crab

cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/3190681

You've seen Louis's rant about how difficult it is to cancel gym memberships. But I think he's mad at the wrong thing here, or at least not at the main wrong thing.

The worse issues, as I see them, are:

The main issues are:

1. Why does a gym require membership/subscription in the first place? Ok sure, fixed expenses and stuff, but that's the case of every business ever, and my grocery store doesn't require me to sign up for membership to buy bread.

Where I live (Europe), gyms, swimming pools and other such establishments are walk-in. You come, pay an entry fee and leave whenever. Memberships and tickets for multiple entries are offered, but it's just to save money if you want it and are a regular anyway. So there's a steep discount coming with those. Businesses need go actually earn your membership money.

I kept seeing people joking about gym memberships in US TV shows and comedies, and just had to shake my head.

Not that people aren't trying to bring this subscription/membership rot here. One large local gym/wellness chain now requires membership and a phone app to enter. The membership itself is free (presumably you pay with your data in some way) and there are still just single entrance fees, but fuck that.

2. I'd say it's good manners to accept cancellation of a contract by the same method as the sign-up. But in absence of good manners by businesses, laws should exist to enforce exactly this.

As far as I know, Europe-wide laws require cancellation of contracts to be easily available, at least using the same way as you can sign up.

So if the laws don't demand this, and businesses don't respect this simplest, basic logic, then there's something fundamentally more wrong than just "making it difficult to cancel".

And overall, it also just shows how far can things get when subscriptions are just accepted as normal thing. It always gets worse and worse, unless the law intervenes (if it does). That's why it's pretty much best to avoid subscription services and memberships whenever there's an alternative available. Sure, exceptions apply, but always think what the situation with your service will be in 10 years.

Louis getting pissed off by gym memberships is very entertaining. And he is right!

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/tech/t/433816

> BMW has made a U-turn on a controversial subscription service that saw drivers pay a fee to activate the heated seats fitted to their car.

//

How nice of them. But I'll bet my tyres that even worse subscriptions will come from all sides, and we won't need to wait long. These tiny wins against corporate nickle and diming only make sense, when we keep fighting them. More often than not, people get tired of complaining about the same thing over and over, until it just gets fully normalised.

In other words, don't buy cars with subscription seats, don't buy shitty subscriptions and try to not support companies that push that kind of shit.

Sorry for being a downer and not celebrating, but that's the point.

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/gaming/t/408797

> USD "per year" prices: > The Essential plan is increasing from $60 to $80. > Extra increasing from $100 to $135. > Premium increasing from $120 to $160.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/2944272

> Smaller subscription deals and the underperformance of certain titles have had a severe impact on Devolver and TinyBuild, says stockbroking firm Goodbody. > > Both companies floated at the peak of the games business in 2021 and have seen their share prices plummet over the past two years. Devolver has seen its share price drop 92% since its peak in January 2022, while TinyBuild's has fallen 95% > > "We have seen from Devolver and TinyBuild that subscription is under pressure at the moment," says Patrick O'Donnell, technology and video gaming analyst at Goodbody. > > "The cheques coming from Sony and Microsoft are just not as big as they were. And that creates problems if you're concentrated on that side of the market. > > "TinyBuild, of all of them, was most exposed. Devolver was exposed, but not quite as much."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/3882090

> Reader would work for like 90% of people, but no, everyone needs Standard or Pro because reasons.

"Subscribed" (subscribed and right after unsubscribed) to Game Pass because of a deal for 1$. When my subscription was closing in, got this in a new tab called "recommendations". It says:

---

Continue playing

Time to renew your subscription.

---

When I removed this notification, the whole tab disappeared.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/3405817

> Have to use Windows for work (I've asked), the ads have been getting worse and worse on my work laptop. Today got a game ad notification... That's clearly too far, right? Like I have to clear notifications, so I have to see it

And here's the other side, a view against subscriptions or rather any monetisation of features, specifically in cars but can easily be applied to lots of other industries.

This article can be quite agitative and speculative (tho I can't really disagree with much), so be warned - but like with that other post, there you go - some points "against".

It's a bit of a cucumber season, so I thought I'll post something from both sides of the argument.

This video discusses some positives of subscriptions, though specifically in comparison to free services. I think they're forgetting a few things - such as that just because a service is paid, doesn't mean it's inherently better or more private - but there you go. Some points "for".

I admit I don't quite get what is supposed to appear as the point of it.

But it seems like an example of a subscription service where a few people caving and using it make things worse for everybody.

Verification as a concept definitely makes sense. I can even imagine a one-time fee for it, as there may be some associated costs. Fair.

But once you start charging a subscription fee, it absolutely stops being a service for the good of the community, and starts just being a thing you want to sell as much as possible. Meaning the standards for verification drop, possibly to zero (like on Twitter), and the whole system loses any actual meaning. But people who do have a need for verification will need to keep paying too, just for appearance.

I think it's a lesson/example in why subscriptions suck, and why is it generally a good idea to discourage people from signing up to subscriptions like this. Even if it's "just a couple bucks". Eventually you'll just be paying for a pointless, if not an actively hostile system.

Gee, just charge for dark mode like Snapchat, or non-ugly icons like Reddit. Just don't mess up something essential people rely on?

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.

Honestly I don't even think it's that unreasonable, considering how much money a tool like this can save.

Nevertheless - it's yet another subscription to eventually make us reliant on services with monthly payments forever. And it's Microsoft, so there is no way this isn't another step towards a boring cyberpunk dystopia.

Don't forget that Office itself is also a subscription, even tho everything you need has been there since Office 95 or so. *) I'm still not used to that idea.

Man, this AI really turns out to be a golden goose and an overall weird thing. Can't we have Skynet instead of this boring death by a thousand cuts?

*) It's only a tiny hyperbole.

cross-posted from: https://yiffit.net/post/475688

> Xbox Game Pass Core subscribers will get access to a small selection of the games available with the regular/higher tiers of Game Pass, starting with more than 25 games

==========

2 years ago I had to move to a temp place. First evening, I unpacked my PS3 which I hadn't had time for for a long time. Lots of games on it (and on discs), so I could just sit and play Journey.

Had all my games had been this subscription sort, I'd have nothing.

Now I know you can still buy games - for now, anyway. But since these companies make you pay for multiplayer anyway, it's an easy upsell for them. Just pay a bit more and you can play so many games... Just pay forever.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/1539142

> LG to offer subscriptions for already purchased appliances and televisions, evolving into a provider for “Home as a Service”::Subscription fatigue is a thing and regulators are circling, but Korean giant reckons you're ready to cough up after buying hardware

Last year I got an iPad pro as a gift. I've been meaning to do more with it especially photo editing and I finally got around to looking into it.

But....every damn photo app seems to be a subscription. The ones that aren't are very basic.

Until I found Affinity Photo 2.

Holy hell, an extremely full featured photo app with no sub?! It's like Lightroom and Photoshop rolled into one for a one-time payment of $A30.

I took a few days to learn it and once you do it's very good.

For the cost of buying Affinity forever I could get Adobe's photo plan for just 2 months!

For someone like me who will use this stuff lightly, going some months without using it at all, subscription software sucks.

Well done to Affinity for providing a high quality alternative. Give them a look - they also have Windows and Mac versions.

This sounds like an ad but it's not, I'm just so tired of having subs pushed in my face - especially on the app store - that when I find a good alternative I feel like shouting about it!

"Look it up on Netflix" is the phrase everybody's heard, how do you deal with that?

I've done a mixture of different approaches, either by getting the film somewhere else (legally, of course) or just saying I don't use X service.

The article about the "subscription" HP ink made me realise something.

Subscriptions aren't a new idea at all. You could subscribe to paper magazines. And you got to keep them.

I'm just clearing up my old house and it's filled with tons of old tech magazines. Lots of useful knowledge here. Wanna know how Windows and Mac compared in 1993? It's in here. All the forgotten technologies? Old games, old phones, whatever? You'll find it.

Now, granted. You'd only get one magazine a month. Not a whole library of movies or games or comic books.

But still, the very definition of subscription has shifted. Now, the common meaning is "you only get to use these things as long as you're paying". Nobody even thinks it could mean anything else.

Besides, it doesn't only apply to services that offer entire libraries. Online magazines still exist in a similar form as the paper ones. But you only get to access them while your "subscription" is active. Even the stuff you had while you were paying.

BTW I'm not throwing my old magazines away. I won't have the space, but a friend is taking it all. If they wouldn't, I'd give them to a library or let someone take them. The online and streaming stuff of today and tomorrow? In 30 years it'll be gone, forgotten and inaccessible.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/1962740

> also from r/StallmanWasRight

// removed invalid link

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/1306163

> Njudah on Instagram

NOTE The original is about a Kickstarter. I'm not endorsing it or anything. Just reposting.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/1209676

> "The art and design communities, in particular, are feeling the pinch from Adobe Suite going towards a rental model, and now the artist and perennial thorn in the side of anyone who seeks to own a colour, [Stuart Semple] is doing something about it. He’s launching a competing suite called provocatively, Abode, which will follow an affordable paid-for licence model." > > https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/culturehustle/abode-a-suite-of-world-class-design-and-photography-tools > > > The Abode project seems overly optimistic in terms of scope, cost and timing to me but then I've never been involved in software development. Still, alternatives to the big names are always nice.