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Guessing this is for when you also pay for your burrito delivery with installment plans as well?
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The Subscription Economy in America is Collapsing...
- Thread starter Zarathustra[H]
- Start date
I have cable because I have had it for years before streaming was a thing to build up my Plex library. Nothing is copy protected on FiOS so my TiVos just record 24/7 and dump everything to Plex if I don’t get to it first. If I cancel it I can’t get it back because they no longer offer it so it has been difficult to cancel since I do turn on random crap if I am working at the coffee table. The day they finally pull the plug on it which may be when Verizon officially takes over.
For Prime, my promo gets me a year for $14.99 total this year. I think I placed a total of 3 orders this year so far so I won’t really miss the free next day.
As far as the rest, I had to come up with something for family to gift me since my mother still insists on opening presents as a family since we get together for all the kids.
Only because I need a cell phone and never had a plan in my name. I have always just been an additional line on someone’s plan. If I ever drop off itI would just go pay as you go since I use less than 2gb a month.
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Pretty sure that the concern was more that China was manipulating content algorithms to try to shape the views of young Americans. Not necessarily for or against any specific foreign nation, or even for or against any right or left politics in the U.S. In many cases our global adversaries are trying to push content that is on both sides of the political spectrum. The intent is to intentionally create division in the U.S, because the more the U.S. is divided, the more they can get away with tier authoritarian agenda on the global stage.
And yeah, what has been more divisive lately than the actions of a certain middle east country? So there is likely some truth to it.
It's the same type of influencing Russia has been trying to do for decades now, but Russia didn't actually control a major platform like TikTok.
But could Larry Ellison force his views on the content algorithm? Absolutely.
I mean, lets not forget that Oracle was essentially indirectly founded by the CIA for... ...reasons.
It's probably not a bad idea to observe a healthy bit of skepticism when considering the motivations of that company.
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I'm not sure what I hate more at this point; being asked to subscribe to literally everything, or being asked to tip for literally everything. Probably the two dumbest business things I've seen recently are HP's printer subscription nonsense, and being prompted by payment machines to tip when I'm purchasing a gift card.
You too? I never signed up for Netflix or anything else.
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- 9,716
I got rid of Netflix in 2023. Up until that time there were some programs that I enjoyed until a lot of them took a huge woke plunge. For example, the Supergirl series was actually pretty good until they stressed lesbian behavior just about every episode. Arrow was like that as well, that they kept becoming more and more woke, until they finally reversed course in the final season.
Aside from the Cobra Kai series, there simply wasn't anything that I really felt I wanted to watch, not when there are free options such as Pluto TV and especially Tubi TV.
I'll admit, that cancelling it was more of a financial decision, but I don't miss it at all, since I was able to watch the most relevant parts of the Cobra Kai series' season 6 on various Youtube clips. If anything, most of the shows I enjoyed that were on Netflix could be found on Pluto (Into the Badlands, for example).
The only streaming service I have right now, is a Disney+ / Hulu / ESPN package, since the Disney stuff is mostly for my daughter (enjoys the Disney Princess animated movies, as well as some of the cartoon series), and I do enjoy watching some of the Star Wars and Marvel stuff on occasion when I actually have time (which is very rare).
Aside from the Cobra Kai series, there simply wasn't anything that I really felt I wanted to watch, not when there are free options such as Pluto TV and especially Tubi TV.
I'll admit, that cancelling it was more of a financial decision, but I don't miss it at all, since I was able to watch the most relevant parts of the Cobra Kai series' season 6 on various Youtube clips. If anything, most of the shows I enjoyed that were on Netflix could be found on Pluto (Into the Badlands, for example).
The only streaming service I have right now, is a Disney+ / Hulu / ESPN package, since the Disney stuff is mostly for my daughter (enjoys the Disney Princess animated movies, as well as some of the cartoon series), and I do enjoy watching some of the Star Wars and Marvel stuff on occasion when I actually have time (which is very rare).
DukenukemX
[H]F Junkie
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China along with Russia have become the scapegoat for any bad actions USA does. Not to get too much into a tangent with other countries influencing America, because it has certainly crept into tech news lately. The thing is that social media websites are fickle in that they can be replaced very easily. Youtube could easily block adblockers if they wanted to, but haven't because they know that people can quickly switch to their competitors. Same can be said about TikTok in that once restrictions are put in place then people will quickly jump ship. When it comes to online services, nobody is faithful as you can obviously see. This isn't like World of Warcraft where you've been farming achievements and are afraid to leave the game. It's a service and once that service is bad then people will leave. The people who are buying TikTok are really stupid people.
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2014
- Messages
- 1,195
As of a few years ago, I've dropped all subscriptions but the following:
- Mullvad VPN
- PLEX
- Spotify (12+ year user, massive playlists and whatnot)
- Qobuz (the HD equivalent to Spotify I need to finalize cutting over to)
- Freaking MS Office....
Other then that, I'm out. Tired of the lease model everyone's moving towards. I would have GLADLY paid for piece of software as is, and even maintenance, but nope. I'm not doing SaaS for virtually anything. I'll move to an alternative.
On the music side, I buy vinyl and CDs regularly. Obviously my 2018 vehicle won't accept anything but my phone, but Im a music guy. 10 bucks for millions of songs a month I can stomach.
EDIT: Once you get over FOMO, its honestly incredible the savings you can incur. Goes for gaming too of course.
- Mullvad VPN
- PLEX
- Spotify (12+ year user, massive playlists and whatnot)
- Qobuz (the HD equivalent to Spotify I need to finalize cutting over to)
- Freaking MS Office....
Other then that, I'm out. Tired of the lease model everyone's moving towards. I would have GLADLY paid for piece of software as is, and even maintenance, but nope. I'm not doing SaaS for virtually anything. I'll move to an alternative.
On the music side, I buy vinyl and CDs regularly. Obviously my 2018 vehicle won't accept anything but my phone, but Im a music guy. 10 bucks for millions of songs a month I can stomach.
EDIT: Once you get over FOMO, its honestly incredible the savings you can incur. Goes for gaming too of course.
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I'm also using Veeam. It works, I've got regularly scheduled backups to smb, and I've done enough restores to trust it. I'd rather have something open source, cause then I wouldn't have to get sales calls (which I ignore) if I have to login to their site to download a new client, etc... But the open source things I tried were perhaps more confusing and also didn't actually work. Working but sometimes annoying is better than not working.
StoleMyOwnCar
2[H]4U
- Joined
- Sep 30, 2013
- Messages
- 3,526
I used to do both Crunchyroll and Funimation for anime for quite a while, but the utter fragmentation of the anime market is too annoying. Like, I want to pay for one service to have all the shit. Not pay for several services just to have the full catalogue. That's just too much nickle and diming. That's the problem with a lot of entertainment subscription services imo.
One of the only subscriptions I have right now is Xbox Gamepass, and I really don't regret it for how much it costs. The catalogue is really good right now, and they're hitting it out of the park. Even if I don't use it every month, I can always generally find something on there to play for so much time that it way offsets the cost of the subscription for several months. Even has Metaphor: ReFantazio. Still need to sink my teeth into that.
I also have Spotify, but have been contemplating switching to something else. It kind of seems shitty lately.
One of the only subscriptions I have right now is Xbox Gamepass, and I really don't regret it for how much it costs. The catalogue is really good right now, and they're hitting it out of the park. Even if I don't use it every month, I can always generally find something on there to play for so much time that it way offsets the cost of the subscription for several months. Even has Metaphor: ReFantazio. Still need to sink my teeth into that.
I also have Spotify, but have been contemplating switching to something else. It kind of seems shitty lately.
Twisted Kidney
Supreme [H]ardness
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- 4,762
Good for Americans.
Clonezilla has been free for years. I've never had any issue I couldn't figure out for backup/ restore activities. Transferring to a larger drive is also doable with minor preparations. Transferring to a smaller drive is a bit involved, but again doable. Really now that SSDs are larger sizes, I haven't had to work on transferring to a smaller drive in the last 8 years.
OKC Yeakey Trentadue
2[H]4U
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- 3,559
Amazon just charged me $140 for my yearly prime. Still probably worth it for me on shipping cost savings, but man has it gone up!
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- Aug 31, 2009
- Messages
- 4,591
This is 100% the result of people's incessant need to make everything as humanly convenient as possible. I've used food delivery services a few times. They always take forever and my food is soggy or lukewarm when it gets to me. I can't stand it. Groceries? How hard is it to go to the store? I mean when I have a list I don't go perusing. I just grab the crap I need and I'm out. I'm usually out of the store in 30 mins. Why pay more?
We share Disney+ with my sister in law for now until they start pulling a netflix and forcing "one household" only.
We have Netflix, Philo for a few cable channels, and watch local channels over antenna through Tablo.
I will have Youtube Premium for the foreseeable future. The family plan is well worth it.
If people don't start putting their financial future before their conveniences now, they'll be those old people who need Social Security to survive.
We share Disney+ with my sister in law for now until they start pulling a netflix and forcing "one household" only.
We have Netflix, Philo for a few cable channels, and watch local channels over antenna through Tablo.
I will have Youtube Premium for the foreseeable future. The family plan is well worth it.
If people don't start putting their financial future before their conveniences now, they'll be those old people who need Social Security to survive.
Don't forget about OTA TV. I get a solid 30 channels for free!
Check out www.rabbitears.info and it will tell you what you can expect, then check out some youtube videos to find an antenna. If you can mount it on the roof you're golden. Next best place is the attic.
Check out www.rabbitears.info and it will tell you what you can expect, then check out some youtube videos to find an antenna. If you can mount it on the roof you're golden. Next best place is the attic.
Ur_Mom
Fully [H]
- Joined
- May 15, 2006
- Messages
- 20,917
I hear a lot of people say those payment terminals have the tip part and it can't be removed. It's part of the payment processor. I don't know how the backend works (I've used the front end and support the networking for the terminals, but that's it), but with all the pushback from the massive tipping culture being forced everywhere, I kind of call BS. And then you have those that say "it's going to ask you a quick question, no worries if not...". But, attitude changes when you put "No Tip". Sorry, I already paid for my stuff, you didn't do anything other than sigh and hand it to me.
Subscriptions and tipping started out ok. Now, everything that shouldn't be a subscription and shouldn't have a tip are now being pushed in that direction for continuous income. Just stop. It's really pushed me into other sources of obtaining things. I'll just steal my food from the Grubhub driver now...
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Everyone loves to complain about HP's ink business model, but the truth is there is a very good reason they do it.
When people walk into a store to buy a printer (at least the few who still do) they look at the sale price.
Low purchase prices tend to get the most attention from shoppers.
Because of this, HP sells most of their printer hardware at a loss. They charge way less for the actual printer than it costs to make.
They expect to earn back those losses, and turn it into a profit based on charging a higher markup on ink/toner.
This helps get the customer in the door at a lower price up front, and then spreading the cost of the printer across every ink/toner purchase. This makes it easier for customers to pay for it.
Quite frankly, if retail customers had to pay the full price for a printer up front, many would just balk and not buy a printer at all.
It's similar to the traditional Gilette razor blades model. The handle is free with the purchase of a handful of heavily discounted blades up front, and then the expect to make up those losses by selling the blade cartridges at a higher markup.
Its a pretty common pricing model in industries where you think customers might be turned away up front by charging the actual cost of a product up front.
As much as I don't like subscription models, and as popular as it is to complain about HP, I totally understand where they are coming from, and why they price things the way they do.
Like all businesses, HP exists to make profits, but I don't think they are any more or less "greedy" than any other PC/Office hardware manufacturer.
No when a full set of HP cartridges are almost $200.
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I guess I haven't bought inkjet cartridges in a while.
Last time I did, they cost nowhere near that.
I switched 100% over to laser 10-15 years ago and haven't looked back.
The black and white toner cartridges for the LaserJet P2055dn were pretty reasonable last time I bought one.
The full 4 cartridge set for the Color LaserJet MFP M277c6 come with a serious sticker shock whenever I have to order them, but then they last for bloody ever.
I print more than most people, due to working mostly from home in a startup that doesn't have validated software business systems for everything, so a lot of stuff I have to actually print, sign and scan. (how quaint, I know, but such is small business/startup life)
The low capacity trial cartridges that came with the M277c6 lasted a shockingly long time, approximately from when I bought it in 2016 to mid 2020 in the midst of "work from home" during the pandemic. Though granted, prior to 2020 it saw very low use.
Because they wanted us to work from home, I was able to expense a full 4-way set of toner cartridges in 2020, but I remember that costing over $400 at the time.
But 5 years of well above average printing later, I still have 20% left on the black cartridge (and over 60% left on the Cyan, Magenta and Yellow cartridges).
So when you factor in how long these things last, the price is less of a turnoff. At least from a rational perspective. It still stings a little when you need to replace them, especially when you need to replace all at once.
This is a good reminder that I should probably order a black cartridge to have on hand for when this one runs out.
Looks like the 201x black cartridge has gone up a little bit compared to what I remember, from the last time I looked, but still, I'm buying toner that will last me 6 years. $134 isn't terrible.
I've experimented with 3rd party toners in the past. They are much cheaper, but I have also found them to print with less quality, often streaky or faded looking, so I generally don't tend to do that anymore,
In general - however - I am very happy to no longer be using ink based printers. They are a non-stop shit show. The cartridges are expensive when they need replacement, and they always need replacement. If you print a lot, they run out fast. If you print infrequently, the ink dries on the head, and needs cleaning cycles which consumes even more ink. Inkjets are a lose-lose proposition from every perspective other than up-front cost.
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DukenukemX
[H]F Junkie
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2005
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- 11,788
You don't get conveniences because you pay, which is the reason so many people are leaving. YouTube premium is only convenient if you use an iOS and Chromebooks. On a PC and Android phones you can just install Ublock and Revanced and it's far more convenient. Does YouTube Premium skip sponsors? Does YouTube Premium skip intros? You can even get SmartTube if you have an Android TV and Firestick. Netflix being a dick about sharing? Just use one of the many streaming pirate sites that exist. They don't care what household and if your device supports HDCP. A quick Google with the word "Reddit" in it and I was already able to find a few dozen streaming sites.
It doesn't pay to be a legit customer. You could setup a private VPN and connect to your home and stream Netflix anywhere without paying extra, but that's still more work than visiting a pirate streaming site.
View: https://youtu.be/9CunwUs08og?si=8_BLfm8uWSoJg5bq
This the set of ink my printer at work uses. A $300 AIO printer.
https://www.staples.com/hp-910xl-bl...k-cartridges-5-pack-6za558an/product_24422094
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That right there is the main problem.
When services make things as convenient as possible, they tend to nearly kill piracy because people generally want to pay for what they consume. In general most don't like the idea of just taking what they want.
Spotify - for instance - almost entirely turned music piracy into something that was universal and everyone did into a relatively uncommon "warez dweeb" thing.
Video streaming was well on its way to doing this to video content as well, until they got too greedy, started removing shows, started pulling their content from existing streaming services so they could start their own instead, forcing people to have multiple different services with multiple different bills and multiple different apps with multiple different user interfaces. Not to mention enforcement of password sharing.
As for the password sharing thing, I think if it was implemented in such a way that it only affected those who were obviously sharing passwords with other households, people would probably have been like "fair enough, I guess I should pay for my own". But the way it hit even legitimate users who were just traveling, or visiting a friends house or something like that, that just pissed people off.
When they killed the convenience of it all, piracy came roaring back.
And now Piracy is WAY more convenient that legitimate paid streaming. And until that changes, things are going to go badly for them.
The downside - of course - is that in a shrinking streaming market without the fight for streaming market share much less money is going to be spent on developing new shows. It might just end the "new golden age of TV" we keep hearing about. Why would they risk millions on new TV shows if the returns aren't there?
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Wow, that is pretty bad.
How long does that pack last you? At those prices I bet a laser printer pays for itself quite fast.
About 2 months maybe? I rarely even print in color and they empty out for no reason. I use to have a nice laser printer with $25 toner cartridges off Amazon that last me a year. It broke and the company decided to buy HP inkjets for some god damn reason to replace the laser printer we been using for ages.
God forbid people want to actually own something or pay a one time fee. I still buy Blu-rays to watch movies. I expect eventually I'll put them all on a NAS so i can watch them in my bedroom (or just get another player). I have 1 subscription to crunchyroll, i might cancel that as well. Frankly, most of this shit needs to go.
SecretStash
Gawd
- Joined
- May 27, 2017
- Messages
- 929
Are people finally waking up? Everyone's been happy not to own anything for the past several years.
Ive always hated this shit, netflix was cool when it first became a thing and you could get dvds in the mail still. But it became pretty clear where it was headed and now we're fully there. The consolidation is happening where different services are packages from a mega corp. Im at the point where I'm ready for the AI slopification of all of these services so this current shit hole of the internet dies off. Social media and subscription services need to go, we'll all be way better off without them.
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- Oct 29, 2000
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- 42,476
I'm with you. And as much as I hate this modern trend where everything is going subscription, I kind of understand where it is coming from.
A lot of it stems from the "always connected" convenience nature of what the typical consumer wants today.
For a dumb, offline product, it costs the manufacturer once, they sell it, and they get a return on that cost of goods sold.
In the always connected internet era, you need a large department of software/firmware/whatever maintainers to maintain and patch the software for all sorts of problems, but particularly security vulnerabilities over the lifetime the product is used. So now, the product costs the manufacturer the entire time you use it, and since software departments are expensive, that cost is huge. In many (most?) industries the continuing cost of maintaining software is easily larger than the manufacturing cost of the physical hardware.
This is why almost every business is shifting to the subscription model. They don't want to sell a product once, and then lose money on it over time in software maintenance. They also don't want to charge the true cost that covers a lifetime of software maintenance costs upfront, because if they do most consumers will balk at the pricetag and just not buy it.
Add to that that they can further monetize data when you are forced to have an online account tied to your subscription for your hardware, and it pretty much explains why absolutely everything has wifi connectivity and an app these days.
Inside auto manufacturers they have already been talking about the car as a service for a decade now. There is a reason you get pushed towards buying data connectivity from your car manufacturer for life, and they try to make it as inconvenient as possible for you to not have the data connectivity service. I recently got an Audi. Even if I provide my own data with tethered Wifi, many of the cars services (app store, software updates, remote manageability, etc. etc.) will not work unless you pay for Audi's premium "Audi Connect" service. It is their intent that part of the car is a service, and unless you subscribe to it, you do not get it.
And to add insult to injury there several parts of the data connectivity that cannot be disabled. They left them in there, but they are greyed out. They claim it has something to do with some contract or something, but what contract (and importantly with who) they don't explain.
I'm beyond frustrated with the experience. It's a pretty good car, but the privacy implications of my inability to disable GPS and data completely have me livid. Not to mention how they are preventing me from "bringing my own connectivity" when I want it by ensuring the cars connected services only work when using Audis' Connect subscription.
I don't even know why they include Wifi capability when nothing works over wifi. Maybe it is just so the sales people can lie by omission like they did when I asked about it. I specifically asked if I could connect it over wifi, and they said of course and showed me. They of course failed to mention that 90% of everything doesn't work when you do.
All of this will only keep getting worse, as the market forces push businesses across every market segment in that direction. The only thing that can help here is regulation, and regulation never seems to have enough support.
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its always been that way though. subscriptions: cable, magazines, newspapers, cd/record clubs, club stores. Sure there are more now but the goal has always been to try to get a little bit of money from you at regular intervals for the rest of your life lol.
What changed and soured it was now when the subscription ends, you have to give the stuff back.
What changed and soured it was now when the subscription ends, you have to give the stuff back.
BMWs heated were a subscription until 2023. I bought a pretty cheap new jetta, wireless car play is all i need and it's good enough. Luxury brands are always going to try and find ways to extract more. I agree that software that's always online has to be maintained, but there are example of software that just work for decades. The car stuff I'm not so sure, but theres no updates (maybe I'll need to bring it in some day?)or subscription except if i wanted satellite radio. Stuff like cars should just work and have self contained software, but that sweet, sweet geolocation data is probably hard to ignore. I know one thing, no one should be paying a subscription for heated seats (glad its over). Maybe consumer expectations are too high for tech in their cars, or auto manufacturers are out of touch with the consumer base. Im not sure what thr answer is there but thanks for telling me about, sounds incredibly frustrating.
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Well, the auto industry is notoriously one of razor thin margins. They are complex engineered systems with many parts, and quite fr4ankly, there is an enormous overcapacity of production of vehicles in the world keeping the pressure on.
This leads Automakers to do really silly things like these near-forced subscription plans, or only manufacturing tiny numbers of base model cars (enough to actually claim the base price) while making most with a ton of premium options, in the hope of getting more of that margin, only for them to age on dealer lots as no one buys them.
Still it feels kind of ridiculous that if you buy a $5 "smart" light bulb you get connected services included for life for free, but if you buy a $60k (seriously, that's what most decent cars cost now) car, you are expected to spend ~$200 for essentially the same thing.
I mean, sure, they can argue that the software services that come with a car are somewhat more critical than those that come with a lightbulb, and thus require more expensive development, but still. I mean, everything related to the safety of operating the car on the road is supposed to be air gapped from the connected services anyway...
Geolocation data, accelerometer data, speed data, you name it.
And they use that to determine what kind of businesses you frequent, who your family and friends are, who you are sleeping with, etc. etc. etc. It's utterly insane. Not that most of this stuff wasn't already done via your phone, but still...
It used to be that insurance companies would offer you a discount if you agreed to install one of their spying devices in your OBD2 port to monitor your driving habits. Now they just buy that data from Lexis-Nexis who have entered into agreements with almost every automaker to just collect it from peoples new connected cars whether they like it or not.
Looks like you suddenly stop, hitting the brakes hard more frequently than the average driver. This must mean you aren't paying attention when driving. Lets up your premium by 35%.
In my neck of the woods, the most affordable pool store I frequently have to go to to buy chemicals shares a parking lot with a strip club. I can only wonder what kind of conclusions they are drawing about me, and who they are selling them to...
I was a little bit less offended by that one than most people were, but I do understand where they were coming from.
Managing multiple variations of cars with different packages in them both during manufacturing and down the line in distribution is very expensive. The number one rule of manufacturing is that if you can, you want to keep your number of SKU's as low as possible, as they inflate costs to a surprising degree.
For something as trivial as a seat heater, it simply wound up being cheaper to install it in every car, and charge a fee to those who want to use it in software than it was to predict how many cars to install it in, which other packages they would be more likely to be ordered together with, and in what colors, and then manage the very complex downstream distribution chain. Simply speaking, most of the cost in heated seats is neither the heated seat hardware itself, nor the cost to install it, but rather the costs introduced due to planning overhead, and the inventory management both on the supplied parts side and on the finished car side to make sure the customers who wanted heated seats got them.
Installing the heated seats in every car, and only charging those who wanted them to unlock them was a much simpler and more cost effective solution.
Where they lost me was when they made it subscription. I would have been OK with a one time unlock fee that stays with the car when you sell it, but maintaining it as a subscription really rubbed me the wrong way.
But I can easily see how many would be bothered even by the onetime unlock fee. People who don't understand how manufacturing operations work could easily see it as being charged to use something they already own, which would be enough to piss most people off.
I've heard that as well, but even if that were the case, no business owner is going to shut that feature off anyway. When you slap cash in a server's hand, you know exactly where the tip goes. When you put it in a machine, you trust the owner will choose to redistribute it. Do they? Who knows.
Tipping is over the top now. It used to be a reward for good service, but even crappy service has a tip-guilt associated with it, so at that point, just pay your staff a proper wage and bake the costs back into the product. If you're going to insist on something like 18% now being the "standard tip", then tips are no longer an incentive to provide a service, you're just expecting me to pay your staff for you.
HP uses a subscription model because they're a publicly traded company and Wall Street has a boner for all things subscription. Investors associate it with a predictable revenue stream and assume most customers don't remove a subscription once they start it. Largely, they're likely correct. There are services to help people cancel subscriptions they forgot they even have. When we're talking about printers, I don't need a subscription, and neither does anyone else. It's a printer. You buy it, use it, and then buy more paper, toner, or ink when it runs out. Your pace is dependent on how often you print, it is not dependent on regular deliveries from HP.
You also don't need a subscription service to cover for the printer being a loss-leader. Printers have been loss-leaders for years without a subscription service. Generally, they made it up in ink sales, although it's fair that HP needs something to counter third-party ink refill services.
Anyway, I really have no issue with HP doing what they think they have to do to maximize profits, but a subscription model for a product like that, from a consumer perspective, is just dumb.
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As far as I'm concerned tipping is mandatory if and only if the employee works at the alternate minimum wage for tipped employees. They often work for as little as $2.13 an hour, and thus depend on the tips or it can literally cost them more to get to work (between driving, parking, etc) than they earn in a days work.
For these employees, I'll always tip 20% (on the total bill including tax) as a starting point. I'll subtract some if the person was nasty or bad in some way, and add some if the person was really good. I try to not adjust my tip based on things that are outside of the servers control. If they were the only one there that day because their lazy no good co-workers didn't show up for work and because of that, they have a workload that is impossible for any one person to handle, it doesn't seem right to penalize them for it.
As for everyone else who is already earning at or above the regular minimum wage, tipping should be very much optional, and reserved for someone who really goes out of their way for you, above and beyond the call of duty.
Unfortunately I feel like because the recent laws passed omitting tips from taxation, there is going to be more and more of a push to shift more income away from wages to tips. So this is only going to get worse. :/
What we really ought to do is what the rest of the world does. Require all employees to work for the same minimum wage and remove tipping all together (except for those beyond the call of duty optional cases)
sharknice
Supreme [H]ardness
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Tipped employees make the standard minimum wage no matter what. If they don't make enough in tips to meet the standard minimum wage employers are required by law to make up the difference. I see sob stories all the time on social media where they purposely make it seem like they don't.
Also only 1% of people in the USA make minimum wage, and that official number includes tipped employees hourly pay, but NOT counting their tips. So whenever people use minmum wage as their reasoning they're really weighting their argument on 1% of the population, or have no idea what they're talking about, or are just dishonest.
That being said I still tip 20+% just because that's expected.
But I almost never go eat at restaruants anymore or get deliveries or anything where tips are expected because it just seems like a massive waste of money to me.
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- Aug 29, 2025
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Did you post this before the news of the price hike for gamepass hit? Ultimate is now $30 a month 0.0
Gamepass was an unreal deal before, and it was solid even after the many price hikes, but this most recent one puts it to the point that I don't think I'll keep using it
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- 42,476
This is how it is supposed to work, but in practice most bar and restaurant owners out there are pretty sleazy, and it doesn't actually happen.
This is further exacerbated by how most cash tips are never reported.
That, and even if they get paid up to the minimum wage as required by law, in most markets if you actually had to hire a competent server or bartender, you'd have to pay more than minimum wage. Right now in my town starting salary with no experience at all at Target is $17/hr. That's way above both the state and federal minimum wage. And its also required for these people to afford to live anywhere near here due to rents being so crazy.
Many bars and restaurants lure in servers and bartenders with the promise of tips, in exchange for the alternate minimum wage pay. When people actually do tip, it usually works out it usually works out OK for them, but when they don't, especially if it is a large bill that the server has spent a lot of time working on, that can sting badly, up to and including "I don't know how I am going to make rent this month" kinds of badly.
Even if the business owner follows the law (in many places it is taboo to even talk about), and they get paid up to minimum wage, they are still making significantly less than they signed up for, and it can potentially result in hardship.
Years ago when we met, my better half was working as a server at a restaurant in the seaport district while she was going to school. When she got lunch shifts (usually no alcohol, so smaller bills, and lunch portions are usually smaller and cheaper) there were many days when if someone stiffed her she paid more for parking than she made that day.
Tipped employees make min wage if their tips + their hourly don't add up to atleast min wage (when I was a server, hourly was $2.83 + tips, state min wage was the same back then (like 15 years ago)) . My state it's still $7.25. I think that's what you're saying but I just want to make sure we're clear. $7.25 is too low for basically any state in 2025, definitely here.
DukenukemX
[H]F Junkie
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- 11,788
I haven't seen any new good shows come from it lately, other than Amazon. The last season of The Boys kind of went to shit. The stuff I really cared for were on YouTube already, and are now on Amazon. There was a while when Netflix was making good shows and movies, but now it's all crap. Who knows how long before Amazon just turns to slop for content? The Mandalorian was good but now I gotta wait for a movie? The Witcher was good, until it lost Henry Cavill.
View: https://youtu.be/jvb6b-9vq2U?si=T5pClKuysH1JqHRH
This is free and good. Don't have to pay money to watch.
View: https://youtu.be/KFgU_Rtta2w?si=uSIfVGVgh8AJOtDO
So is this.
View: https://youtu.be/MCAdbUaMlAE?si=UjKKKRopQAhdJxqK
And this.
View: https://youtu.be/m2nZKiK9Xlw?si=F_MlBhFOZHR3GdYa
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That's just HP being greedy bastards. The ink for the Epson printer I used from ~07-21 is $90 for all 4 cartridges (up from $70 the last time I bought it).
I replaced it because it died mid-pandemic. There were no good normal inkjets in stock at the time (only recommendation from consumer reports/etc in stock was an ink tank model that only made sense if you were doing a ton of printing). A little as I print, the color Brother laser I ended up buying will have to last at least 15 years without needing new toner (or anything else) to break even vs a $150 inkjet and ink at the rate as my old one. Probably more like 20+ since my printing rate is more likely to keep going down than stay the same or increase.
To be fair, I had much better luck with the Epson than I did with its predecessors. I had a fancy HP photo printer with 7 or 8 colors of ink that lasted about 13 months (just enough to avoid the warranty), followed by a free with laptop purchase scamter whose $40 ink carts only printed 25-50 pages.
The Epson was good enough to me that if MS hadn't screwed its software by badly attempting to ingest its config and admin screens into the control panel and bricking the tray aplet it shipped with (not all features were present, I had to do 1 or 2 things via magic button combos on the printer itself) I probably would have gambled $25 or $45 to see if it was my few years old but new in box ink cart that was bad instead of the printer. The software stack was broken enough at that point that if I could have replaced it for like I probably would have instead of trying anything else.