Asklemmy

As a kid I had to choose between FFXI and Star Wars Galaxies - and then Planetside came out!

I had a lot of good times in those games but switching between them month to month because I could only afford one at a time gave me a pretty healthy aversion to subscriptions before I got out of middle school. The only subscription service I've ever had was YouTube Red when it first came out because I was interested in a couple of the shows, but they all sucked so now I'm back down to just one subscription (FF14) unless you count car payments and my cell phone plan.

edit: oh wait I've also subbed to Disco+ for battlebots, but that was only because whoever was uploading them to 1337x stopped doing it which was a shame.

I was questioning myself when I started paying close to $25 for Netflix. Cancelled once I heard about pw-sharing no longer being a thing. Couldn't justify the cost of 4 screens if my family couldn't use it.

Now for most things, It's either self-hosted/FOSS/ or proprietary one-time fee. else I do without.

I bought a new PC in 2021 (because building was hard due to supply shortages) and it came with GamePass Ultimate. When I combined my existing Xbox Gold subscription, it gave me something like 1.5 years worth of GamePass Ultimate, which was really great! Once that subscription expired, I had saved up for a year worth of another subscription up front, but noticed they only offered month-to-month at that point. I realized I wasn't playing GamePass games enough to warrant the subscription (might have been different if I could install on my Steam Deck, not through a Windows install or streaming).

Once that GamePass subscription came up, and then Netflix started cracking down on password sharing that I was sharing with my sister in the next city over, it made me question a lot of recurring subscription. For streaming TV shows/movies, I think going forward we'll have one service subscribed to but bouncing around to catch up on shows that my wife and I may want to watch. For GamePass, I'll probably resubscribe once Starfield comes out.

HBO Max and Spotify were the only streaming services I paid for. I had HBO Max since the first few months of it's launch but when they raised the already high fee I cancelled it. Shortly after they changed it to Max, definitely don't regret it. HBO Max used to feel special but that specialness died.

Ignoring anything I subscribe online for and can’t cancel example (Just cancelled my cable internet was more painful than ID like)?

Any service that tries to auto deliver me another product in a monthly and won't let me order one without the auto replenish. (Example: Meal services and the like you tubers like to promote, but I’ve been seeing many things attempt this lately)

Man I've been having subscription fatigue since the first time I bought an RuneScape membership in 2004.

The Bluey android game.

So glad I got Nexus Mods Life Time Subsciption before they ditched it

I don't subscribe to anything because they're all scams.

For me, this beat saber knockoff game called "supernatural" which was advertised as free on the oculus app store. Not a one time purchase. Literal lunacy.