Fuck Subscriptions
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.
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Some other groovy communities for those who wish to own their products, their data and their life:
Some other useful links:
Louis Rossman's YouTube channel
Look at content hosted at Big Tech without most of the nonsense:
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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?
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.
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
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.
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)?
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.
When I said "lesser Android TV"--I meant a lesser Android BOX....
Yup
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. 👍
Neat. And no need for subscriptions either, which is always a plus 😁
I have a month to test it. (My luck the instant I cancel my subscription, it'll stop working!) 😜
I dont know nothing about those. 3rd party on the phone that i broadcast to my tv. Simple as.
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
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.