Ask Lemmy

Library membership

Email to avoid email providers from companies like Google or Microsoft.

Electricity has been a pretty good subscription. Zero sales or promos ever though.

Nebula is pretty cool, though I have the lifetime pass. Or patreon.

VPN

I'm happy to give Qobuz my money for providing an excellent music library and be the best paying streaming service for the musicians that I listen to.

Your own email domain + an account at a privacy respecting email service is more than worth it. Avoids the privacy nightmare that is using Google/Microsoft for your email, and gives you the flexibility to change email providers on a whim if your current one starts doing anything you don't like.

Health insurance, if you can afford it

Judging based on what I'm actually paying for myself I'd say Mullvad VPN, Protonmail and a nameless AI assistant.

Edit: I forgot I've got a website too, so hosting of that is another one.

Kagi is a great search engine that I've found to be worth paying for.

Internet and/or phone service.

Dropout is one I enjoy and they do profit sharing internally, which is nice to see.

None. Other routes or methods exist for just out everything. Knowledge, services etc. stop buying into this concept created to part you with money. We did years with subscriptions not being a thing.

Take the slightly harder path and keep your money in your pocket. Learn how to get what you want without further enabling big tech and the greedy class. Sorry probs not the answer you want.

Only decent one is as above VPN!

Internet, the shit show is 24/7 no need to pay more for anything.

Mobile data.

A good VPN that values privacy is a pretty easy answer

Random one, but I get a lot of use out of a boardgamesarena premium membership. I've got a few mates that I can't see IRL as much any more, so it's nice to be able to jump on a video call and play some board games. Only one in the group needs a membership to unlock all the games and it's about £30 for the year. Easily better value than a few hours in a pub

I have other subscriptions I find varying levels of useful for me, but hard to argue for many of them being particularly good value.

Kagi, next DNS, mullvad

Costco, Credit cards (assuming you can get your moneys worth).

On the nerdier side, Nabu casa, VPS.

And on the mundane, internet.

The only thing I pay a monthly subscription for is domain/web hosting, food, and medication

Email, Nebula, Dropout, Borgbase, a domain name.

I also have humble choice, but that's a bit of a tossup. I've found some great games through it that I still play, but most months it still feels worth it to me

Edit: Forgot Mullvad VPN! Love that thing, 15/10 would recommend. Reddit doesn't like it, but also I don't like reddit so whatever

NextDNS.
This way, you can very easily filter out most of the ads on your mobile devices.

If you want to, you can also play this game on hard mode, and start blocking telemetry more aggressively. It can be done, but various apps will stop working. When that happens, you'll unlock a fun new mini game: DNS White List Tuning.

PBS Passport. Support your local PBS station

Dropout, Revolut, power and water

Online backup. Because it will happen, eventually.

Mullvad, and a strong internet connection from the spyware company of your choice. With that you can pirate any media, and browse the internet. I have never needed more.