Say NO to subscription plans

[aidan o driscoll]

Well I must be irredeemable so. I subscribe to

- Vodafone mobile ( €60pm  bill pay for biz ), Vodafone gigabit BBand/Phone ( €50pm for biz ) , Sky tv ( €32pm ),

- Spotify ( €9.99pm ), Netflix ( €14.99pm HD1080 ), Prime ( €8.99pm ), Loopcloud ( €55 pa ), Quickbooks online for my biz Accounts ( €20pm )

Yip thats about €200pm

Edited May 22, 2023 by aidan o driscoll

[Wibbles]

5 hours ago, aidan o driscoll said:

Well I must be irredeemable so. I subscribe to

- Vodafone mobile ( €60pm  bill pay for biz ), Vodafone gigabit BBand/Phone ( €50pm for biz ) , Sky tv ( €32pm ),

- Spotify ( €9.99pm ), Netflix ( €14.99pm HD1080 ), Prime ( €8.99pm ), Loopcloud ( €55 pa ), Quickbooks online for my biz Accounts ( €20pm )

Yip thats about €200pm

I get Netflix for £6pm through my Sky TV subscription.

I take it Sky don't offer that deal in your locality.

[aidan o driscoll]

17 minutes ago, Wibbles said:

I get Netflix for £6pm through my Sky TV subscription.

I take it Sky don't offer that deal in your locality.

Nope and most likely if they did its for new subscribers.

However I investigated further tonight and found there is NETFLIX STANDARD and NETFLIX BASIC

Standard is €14.99pm while Basic is €8.99pm. Seems like the same thing except for two differences .. Basic is HD 720 while Standard is HD 1080, Basic allows you to Download on 1 device while Standard allows you to Download on 2 devices .. something we never did, always watch on the main TV screen in sitting room.

So the thing is HD 720 vs HD 1080 and save €6 a month, Is it that  noticeable?

[Byron Dickens]

https://www.businessinsider.com/companies-software-legal-tricks-subscriptions-customers-money-pay-death-ownership-2023-5?utm_source=pocket_discover

[Wibbles]

13 hours ago, aidan o driscoll said:

So the thing is HD 720 vs HD 1080 and save €6 a month, Is it that  noticeable?

The more pertinent question is "Is €6 a month noticeable to you"? 

[aidan o driscoll]

50 minutes ago, Wibbles said:

The more pertinent question is "Is €6 a month noticeable to you"? 

You might say that when I am paying out €200pm on various subs. I suppose it all counts because we are also looking at the sky sub and whether its worth it vs our FTA/FREEVIEW. I have dumped spotify already, just was not using it much. So if sky goes also and NF reduced, thats €48 a month less.

Its something i notice happens - Subs just get left there and never looked at for many. A client of mine said he found 8 subs for various software etc that he was no longer using and still paying for .. for years. It seems many people dont bother looking at there statements

[craigb]

20 hours ago, aidan o driscoll said:

So the thing is HD 720 vs HD 1080 and save €6 a month, Is it that  noticeable?

What's noticeable to me is that I wouldn't want to watch movies (provided I actually did watch movies) on such old resolutions!  4k 2160p is required!  (8k and 16k are completely unnecessary since humans can't tell the difference except on a stadium-sized screen!)

[Shane_B.]

15 hours ago, craigb said:

What's noticeable to me is that I wouldn't want to watch movies (provided I actually did watch movies) on such old resolutions!  4k 2160p is required!  (8k and 16k are completely unnecessary since humans can't tell the difference except on a stadium-sized screen!)

It's all about the compression. I'm talking about physical media, not streaming. Streaming compresses everything and degrades it.

An uncompressed 1080p video is every bit (hah!) as good as a 4K video. Side by side you couldn't tell the difference if both were full uncompressed files. HDR disc's have better compression and hold more data than a Blu-ray's so whenever we watch a Blu-ray, it's compressed, a lot in some cases.

What they seem to be doing is, on older movies shot on film, they are using software to restore them after scanning them in 4K. But the benefit you are actually getting is from the restoration. If they did two scans, one in 1080p and one in 4K, set up the software to do the exact same thing to both, then released the uncompressed version of both files, you couldn't see a difference, unless you tried to watch them on a ridiculously sized monitor. On our typical home screens up to 70" you couldn't see a difference.

Same thing with new movies shot in digital. If you had two cameras side by side or two different resolutions built inside the camera, one at 1080p and one at 4K, then viewed the uncompressed files side by side, you couldn't tell the difference. 

I actually have a couple movies that look better on Blu-ray vs. the 4K release.

That said, the second 8K becomes mainstream, I'll be lusting for an 8K player and TV. 😁

[aidan o driscoll]

In my case we have a Plasma Panasonic HD 42" 3D TV .. best buy ever at the time, about 10 years ago i would say. Quality of picture still great, no noticeable difference from day one.  Black Blacks, Grey Greys and smooth picture where sport is concerned and a ball in flight which I think is why many pubs had/have plasmas. At the time this was the TV of choice for Panasonic Engineers apparently

"But in terms of overall picture quality, it simply leaves the competition in the dust and justifies the premium over Panasonic's own, cheaper ST50.

This is largely down to its black levels, but it's also thanks to excellent contrast performance, smooth motion handling and gorgeous colour reproduction. "

https://www.cnet.com/reviews/panasonic-tx-p42gt50b-review/

So its on this we watch Netflix at HD 1080 ( €14.99 pm ). Just curious is that still worth it vs the €8.99 NF HD 720. Would one notice much difference?

Edited May 24, 2023 by aidan o driscoll

[Technostica]

I don't like it when software companies only offer a subscription with no option to buy.

As for non software services that I pay for monthly such as Netflix, I am glad they offer such things as the cost of buying Netflix the company outright, just to stream the odd film would be prohibitive.
It would be cheaper to actually buy the rights for each film that I watch than to buy Netflix.

The real downside to buying Netflix though is that it would reduce the money available to pay my monthly GAS bill.

[Notes_Norton]

8 hours ago, Technostica said:

I don't like it when software companies only offer a subscription with no option to buy.

Agreed. If that's the case, I try to find an alternative.

I have an old, paid for, and owned version of Microsoft Office. There is nothing in the new, rental plan, that makes me want to subscribe. If there was, I'd try Open Office, Libre Office or something else.

I don't mind paying for the tools I use, I just don't want to pay again and again and again and again and again and again.

 

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

 

[Shane_B.]

1 hour ago, Notes_Norton said:

Agreed. If that's the case, I try to find an alternative.

I have an old, paid for, and owned version of Microsoft Office. There is nothing in the new, rental plan, that makes me want to subscribe. If there was, I'd try Open Office, Libre Office or something else.

I don't mind paying for the tools I use, I just don't want to pay again and again and again and again and again and again.

 

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

 

OpenOffice for documents and spreadsheets and Gimp for photo editing are just as good as MS and Adobe for my needs. I did buy Adobe Light room for RAW editing. I have the last version you could buy.

I have nothing against subscriptions as an option. Most times it's actually cheaper if you are one to always upgrade to new versions when they are released. I just don't like the idea of being locked out if I don't keep paying a fee monthly. 

 

 

[Notes_Norton]

I have the last Quicken you could buy, and never went to subscription. It's worked for well over a decade that way, so I saved a lot of monthly fees. For my simple business bookkeeping needs, it works just fine.

Notes ♫