Dropout and MeansTV
Dropout is a mostly improv streaming service, very high quality entertainment and a chemistry between performers only seen between people who love each other, it’s like watching a friend group of very prepared comedians. It’s about 6 bucks a month and password sharing is encourages
MeansTv is a worker owned streaming service aiming to provide information and entertainment tailored for a class conscious audience, it’s mostly documentaries but they’re really good and i’ve seen many ideas from all the left spectrum, it’s about 10 bucks a month
Sam Reich is the goat
Love the content from MeansTV!
Having your own domain is pretty cool, even if it’s just a single page with some text and links to social media profiles.
Um subscription to what? Is none an ok answer?
I pay for my fibre, and my phone. They’re indispensable.
Oh and a VPN
I can see why people pay subscriptions for media, but people who pay subscriptions for software or services are a massive problem. If people refused to use a service as soon as it turned to a subscription model, the idea would’ve died out
Nope, folks are fucking stupid
What’s wrong with paying a subscription for a service that requires resources to continuously operate, such as email hosting?
Having a Nextcloud instance.
People not coprotations.
In other words, things like Patreon or FOSS projects, where you subscribe to a “person/small group” to support whatever they do.
If you like rock and roll then I recommend Night Flight streaming service. They were running a deal if you paid for the year it cost less than $5 a month
I’ll check it out thanks!
Deutschlandticket JugendBW. It’s the Deutschlandticket for students in bw for 1€ a day. It is a single ticket for every public transportation (bus, tram, train, …) expect the long-distance trains.
That’s a good deal!
Volumio - Multiroom audio service. You install the os on a pi and hook up some speakers. The basic streamer is free for local files on a single device at a time. I paid $200 for a lifetime pass a few years ago. That gets you multiroom synced audio like Sonos and lets you add in streaming services.
Qobuz - Music streaming service. Much higher quality than Spotify, no shitty MQA like Tidal. They will have articles diving into a genre, band or record label with links to notable albums. It’s “station” playlists and similar artist recommendations are garbage but I’m more of an album person.
Fyi, Tidal dropped MQA in July and moved to using FLAC. https://www.headphonesty.com/2024/06/tidal-officially-dumps-mqa/ I like Qobuz too, and I support and encourage their mission in the streaming world. But personally I find more of my favourite artists are available on Tidal than on Qobuz. Unfortunately I find the tidal “station”-style playlists are also garbage. Nobody has a chance to effectively compete with Spotify’s algorithm on that front.
I like Qobuz, but it’s worth noting Tidal has discontinued their usage of MQA in favour of FLAC across the board.
I’ve never heard of Qobuz before but just signed up for the 30 day trial. Thank you!
Never heard of Qobuz. Been looking to replace yt music. Their algorithm is trash.
A reputable VPN, preferably with port forwarding (I use AirVPN, $5/mo and I have no problems with it.)
A Usenet provider and indexer (Newshosting is reasonable; nzbgeek offers a lifetime subscription)
Do you use the VPN to hide your traffic or to access foreign streaming sites?
Narc
Yes. And to watch porn when I’m visiting family in Texas.
Yea, this law was just christian bullshit
Wait, you can’t watch porn in Texas? 😂
I pause to appreciate their concern for my soul as I set my location to Kazakhstan and grab the lotion.
Yo, we don’t ask that kind of questions here!
A bus pass maybe, that way you can just get on and not have to fumble around paying the fare when you board.
I live in the Los Angeles area and have a car but yes, I have the bus pass on my phone for when I don’t want to drive or just have a short trip in town. It’s great!
Maybe it’s just my area but there’s also like, a 25% chance the reader won’t work and you’ll just get a free ride if you try to pay with your phone rather than cash. It makes hopping on the bus a fun gamble!
Nebula. It’s a video streaming service that is ad free and directly supports the creators.
As a fan of Jet Lag and the crew, it pains me how expensive it is outside the US.
It’s crazy that we live in a time where you have to add to your answer that it is ad free
I also have a Nebula subscription and recommend it as well. $60/yr or a $300 lifetime subscription.
Frequently you can get discount codes from the creators on there. I think I paid $20 this year.
Yeah I paid $30. Totally worth it.
GeForce now. As long as you have streaming speed Internet you can play so many games, at such high quality.
Microsoft game pass, I haven’t tried it with the above because I don’t have great Internet (I’ve got grandfathered into the intro price of GeForce now, I’m not canceling it, I’ll have better Internet some day), but it’s better than browsing games at my blockbuster/warehouse/Hollywood video back in the day.
YouTube premium. I’ve only listen to ads when I’ve first turned on a new phone, every time I do I count my money as well spent. Add in YouTube music (much better than Spotify imo) and I’m good for 95% of my media input.
A hundred bucks a month on various content creators. Not listening to ads in my podcasts, not having to fast forward and rewind, and supporting the people who make my life happier, it’s a win win.
For Microsoft Game Pass I look for deals on cdkeys.com or eneba.com and get Ultimate for $6-7/month. Been doing it for years.
Just tried free version of Pycharm and definitely going to pay for it.
I have been paying jet brains for years for pycharm and will continue to for maybe forever.
Paying the subscription for The Great Courses is absolutely insane value if its something you use regularly. Its not a credit system like Audible, its literally unlimited streaming of university level courses for 20$ a month (or like 12$ if you pay annually). The individual courses can cost upwards of 100$ so even if you only take one course every two months you still haven’t lost money.
It’s infinite learning, i cant shill hard enough.
Oh this seems like something I’d be interested in for sure. Thank you!
You bet! It’s even better if you have a braindead job like I do, then you can spend all day learning and getting paid for it.
my library gives them to me for free through hoopla
Thats awesome! Do they offer the whole catalogue?
afaict
Youtube and OCW have infinite amounts of that, why pay some company?
Because they don’t want to sift through tons of garbage to find the good stuff. I presume.
- A privacy-respecting mail service: I use mailbox.org since it follows email standards, but I think many ppl like Proton mail/Tutanota. Recommend because they are privacy-respecting, and self-hosting email is way too difficult
- More of a yearly subscription per-se, but a personal domain from any domain registrar. Recommend because why not? There are so many cool things one can do with a domain: custom email, your own blog, professional website for job, …
- A VPS from Linode (or any reliable provider). Recommend because some things are better done on a VPS… and I want a public-facing IP that is not directly from my bedroom
- I used to have subscriptions to the local arcade. Recommend because I basically get cardio workout on the DDR machine (and it costs less than a gym. And easier to cancel)
Protonmail is great, it comes with cloud storage, a really good password manager, and a very fast VPN. The linux experience is mid for their apps, but great on MacOS or Windows.
