this post was submitted on 28 Jun 2024
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Fuck Subscriptions

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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.

==========

Some other groovy communities for those who wish to own their products, their data and their life:

Right to Repair/Ownership

Hedges Development

Privacy

Privacy Guides

DeGoogle Yourself

F-Droid

Stallman Was Right

Some other useful links:

FreeMediaHeckYeah

Louis Rossman's YouTube channel

Look at content hosted at Big Tech without most of the nonsense:

Piped

Invidious

Nitter

Teddit

 

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It’s unfortunate and I can empathize with the user but I don’t see it as obvious that this specific need should be catered to, for free. It’s primarily a music service and lyrics is an additional service to enhance the experience, apparently at the paid-tier. It’s not so expensive that it’s inaccessible to the average user, if music with timed lyrics is an important part of their life.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I don't know. If we were talking about Netflix making captions a premium feature that requires an extra fee, I'd think that's pretty skeevy and ableist. I hadn't thought about lyric sheets being an accommodation until OP brought it up, but now that they did, I'm kind of putting it in the same bucket.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

That’s a fairly good analogy, and it did made me this over a bit more. I agree that it would be weird if they put captions behind an extra fee. I suppose captions are more part of the “standard” offering historically so I would definitely just expect it to be included whereas timed lyrics is not something I’d expect by default. But I do an acknowledge that this could shift, especially as this feature enable deaf users to enjoy music. Hopefully Spotify can take the critique and find a good compromise that helps this user group. I just don’t think they thought to do this to squeeze money out of deaf users. I’m guessing it’s more of an unfortunate side effect.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Oh, I'm definitely not saying that there had to be intention behind it. After all, it's a consequence I never thought of, so I'm sure whoever made that decision at Spotify never did either. But then, they're supposed to be paid to think of consequences like this.

I guess the question is, if a decision screws disabled people in the pursuit of more money, does it really matter if the disabled people were deliberately targeted, or if they're just collateral damage?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Intentions matter, and to what degree you do it in pursuit of money. You do need money to have a sustainable business. But that can of course be to a point where it’s just greedy. Maybe they have gone to far in that respect, I don’t know.