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:
view the rest of the comments
Yet another reason why paying for software is stupid.
Software is made by people (good software, not slop) ~~which~~ who deserve a living too. Expensive, extortionate software pricing is a different thing.
Making software developers' livelihoods depend on who can give them enough money is stupid. It'll inevitably lead to situations like this where shitty products get made by virtue of them being sponsored by rich bastards.
Just give them a universal basic income and let everything be open source volunteer stuff.
Fine, let's work toward that. Until then, that's not how things work.
That's how every job in the world works.
It is called economic model and it is a societal contract. For better or worse, capitalism democratised consumption and largely improved the lifelihood of many.
I'm all for UBI, but it is too idealistic to have this without a world-disrupting event like a Great War or similar.
Or the arrival or AI? A global pandemic which prevented working together?
GDPs where the median and average are constantly drifting apart? The creation of a cabal of billionaires who manipulate the masses and get caught. The rise of trillion dolllar companies, where it is difficult to function in society without using their products or services.
The world events have happened. Edit: so many typos.
Obviously those things weren't disruptive enough to usher in the changes you're hoping for, since they didn't happen.
I guess we'll have to wait until even more people are food insecure to see what happens.
Jesus! Have we been haooened already!
And yet (very nearly) all the software on my PC is completely free.
I don't care who does and doesn't "deserve a living" -- I just find it very stupid to pay for something you don't technically own ... and which, in many cases, can be arbitrarily taken away from you at any time, with no refund.
Software shouldn't be a fucking subscription for every damned thing.
That's beyond ridiculous. Sell the fucking ware the way it is. Not every damned product needs live-service.
I guess I don't mind the business model, but if I am going to be leasing something the rates better be comparable. In other words, if a permanent $80 Eord/Excel/Powerpoint license would have lasted me around 80 months before I started looking for an upgradge or improvement, then a leased version of the same better cost me around $1/month.
Sure, but the people that made that software had to pay electricity bills and capital purchases of computers. The fact that they decided to release that as free (freedom and price) software is a different topic, itself laudable but most times not even altruistic.
And on the "arbitrarily taken away" topic, you seem to be against "services" and not necessarily software (the means to the end).
The fact that you didn't donate any money or paid the devs doesn't mean everyone else did the same.
Let me reiterate: I don't give the slightest fraction of a fuck whether the devs were paid or not, nor about who did or didn't pay them.
I'm not paying money for shit I don't own. Especially not if it can be taken away from me at any time by the asshats who 'sold' it to me. That's it.
You're using something that required someone else's time and knowledge. You're talking as if you're entitled to that without giving anything back in any way, shape of form. You're not, and quite honestly, you sound like a dick.
There is no obligation for anyone to pay for FOSS. The devs knowingly give their time in anticipation of nothing. Shaming someone for using it as per the license is ludicrous. Support if you want, but don't cry foul when the license is used as stipulated.
Is that why they almost always have a donations link? Also, I'm not "shaming" them for not paying. I'm shaming them for acting like an entitled prick.
How dare I take something that somebody offered for free!
If everyone did the same thing, free open source software wouldn't exist. If you can't pay, you don't need to. But if you can donate, you should. Acting like an entitled brat makes 0 sense here. The devs don't owe you anything, amd you're talking as if it was their duty to give you free software.
You sound like the annoying douche that opens a github issue and demands it to be fixed asap.
Yes it would. Just maybe not developed as fast or as comprehensive.
Lots of open source developers out there work completely for free, never seeing a single red cent for their efforts.
Heck, I -- just barely, technically -- am one of them. I've made a couple PRs to fix issues in open source software. I never got paid for it. And I'm okay with that. If you're using some of the software I (very slightly) helped with and you didn't pay for it ... good for you! I hope you enjoy my bugfixes!
You're literally disproving your own point.
You're part of the reason foss software exists because "paying" for it has many forms. Collaborating is one of them.
I'm very happy with my monthly payments (donation) to libreoffice, freecad, KDE, e/os, signal, among a few others.
An ethical way to for this to work in the current economic system is:
Corporations and government entities are required to pay the developers. Then the devs are assigned to open source projects. That software is free for anyone to use.
Where do you propose I buy critical enterprise software instead? I swear, children should not be allowed online.
1: Reevaluate which software is "critical" to your enterprise.
2: Use open source when possible.
3: If it truly is "critical" and there's no other alternative that can do what you need, then sure. "Buy" it, I guess. (Actually, rent a license for it, lol.) That may make financial sense if you're using that software to make more money than the software costs. I'm not your supervisor, and I'm not your mommy. You can do what you want.
But I can't spend money on that. How am I supposed to respect it? Who do I blame when something goes wrong?
That's a risk management problem.
One of the problems of FOSS is that they offer no warranty. Which big companies don't like.
Some FOSS products do offer a paid alternative license that offers support and warranty.
But if they don't, you have to do the risk management. What are the chances of the risk occurring? And what would be the impact?
The risks of office software risk are not that big though:
The probability of 3 is high, 1 is low, and 2 is very low. The impact of 3 is low, 2 is medium and 1 is high.
If I'm not paying corpodaddy how will I respect software?