Ask Lemmy

Nebula. It’s a video streaming service that is ad free and directly supports the creators.

https://nebula.tv/

Um subscription to what? Is none an ok answer?

A bus pass maybe, that way you can just get on and not have to fumble around paying the fare when you board.

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)

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.

YouTube Premium. I watch a lot of content on YT. I work from home and will generally have something on in the background while I work, so I'm easily consuming 10+ hours of content a day. It's honestly worth it for me, if for nothing else than to avoid the cat-and-mouse hellscape of adblocking. I'd rather pay $25 each month and have everyone in my family have an ad-free experience on all their devices no matter where they are or what network they're using, than having to help them troubleshoot browser extensions and DNS settings and PiHoles and all that.

Edit: Absolutely insane that people are upset that I pay for a service I make use out of, lmao

Having your own domain is pretty cool, even if it's just a single page with some text and links to social media profiles.

Proton Mail. High quality mail service where they don't mine your emails for data to sell. It's like 4-5 bucks a month depending on how you pay and it's been worth every penny.

Premiumize. I dont fully understand. But they have server farms thst will download your torrent, and then you download the file from them. Its faster and your IP doesn't see it as a torrent. You also dont have to leave ypir PC on if there's only one seeder. If somone else has downloaded thst torrent before its already in the farm and you visit download it from them.

However the main thing is they integrate into Kodi and my new fave Stremio. So you can just stream anything anytime without all the torrent stuff I just mentioned.

PBS, specifically the Passport that you can get through your local PBS. You get tons of content and you support public broadcasting

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

public library

here the subscription fee for one year is about as expensive as a single book.

Your highest quality local newspaper (includes online).

I have two:

• di.fm for all your electronic genres music needs (with bonus rock, classical and jazz streams).
• Kagi for a search engine that actually tries to give you proper results.

• 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)

http://404media.co

Outstanding journalism from four independently-minded journalists doing their own thing.

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.

My own domain name, on which I host a whole array of services (such as this Lemmy server). Bitwarden is also cool, I pay for it even tho I self host it to support development. But even if one doesn't self host, it's still worth it. Only 10€ per year for such an epic service. A VPS at Hetzner is definetly worth it. A relatively cheap service for all the stuff you can do on 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.

Monthly Donation to Lemmy Dev or to your favorite FOSS dev.

You know why!

More like a yearly subscription, but Down Dog. Keeps me active and I never get bored with them because the app is very customizable!

Having my Nextcloud instance for file storage, podcast, syncing my phone and photos, etc.

Tidal for music is 10x better than Spotify if you need music streaming. Otherwise buy albums on bandcamp.

So far I have yet to have many problems with the cheapest ProtonVPN plan, which I think it roughly $9.99USD a month. Their Linux application is nowhere near as nice looking as the winblows application, but at least it works.