We have a gas Jeep from 2003. Our big TV is from 2008. Our computers and phones are all mostly from 2021 or before. We intentionally buy used and analoge devices (pressure cooker with a weight, scales that keep our secrets, etc.) when we can because my partner is a engineer and a security nerd. It's not that I don't like new things - I do - but its more that we value our privacy more than the latest and greatest. It is not a sacrifice many people are willing to make yet, but we can see where this is going... and its nowhere good. The SmartWorld is a sleezy, extractive place, and we do not wish to live there.
My partner is - I probably wouldn’t have even noticed the prevalance of the trend if he hadn’t gotten twisty knickers about it back in the early 2000s. I said he was paranoid at the time and have apologized many times over since. This shit is everywhere and it is a cancer we must eradicate.
I, too, plan to keep my older car. It's a 2014 and has less than 100,000 miles. 🤞 With good, regular maintenance by my independent mechanic I might be able to drive it the rest of my life. I'm 63. 😬
Same! And the dealership keeps spamming me about trading it in, even when I tell them I intend to drive my 2014 until the heat death of the universe rather than go into debt for an over-teched new model with hidden subscription fees. (Might make an exception for an EV if it doesn’t require a stupid app to function.)
Outrage is exhausting me! I just heard refrigerators are going to charge a monthly fee for icemakers. They usually break down after a couple of years anyway. Maybe they are programmed to do that to soften us up. Can a person still buy MS OFfice on disk? I pay $159 a year to use it. But of course mt Mac has no disk slot to install the software.
You can buy a DVD writer from LG, for instance, that connects to a computer via USB. I'm running a standalone version of Excel in MacOS Tahoe (which I downloaded). Have to Force Quit the update program every time I open Excel. Don't know if it's still available. But then, I'm kind of in that "hacking" category and expect that I'll eventually lose.
There are other open source suites like LibreOffice (I haven't tried it, but would go there rather than to Google since I only log onto my Google account when it's absolutely necessary.)
Thanks for explaining why HP has hijacked my printer. Probably also explains why many newspapers and other media sources are demanding a subscription before allowing access to articles they post on Google news. Everyone seems to want more of our dwindling supply of money.
I have an Epson EcoPrint. Only need to get new ink cartridges about once every 18 months. They cost about the same as the HP cartridges, but they last easily 4-5 times as long, maybe more.
It's infuriating. I will say, however, that my Peloton was a godsend during the pandemic and I didn't mind paying for access to online classes. To me, it was essentially the same as having a monthly gym membership and a lot less expensive. I recently re-joined a physical gym because I was ready to be back in the physical world again and I have more time to go now that I'm retired.
But all that said, it's really annoying that everything has become a subscription model. I even resent having so many devices that have to be charged--phones, laptops, iPads, headphones, watches. It's crazy-making.
The Norwegian government has an entire campaign against this, and there's a guy in the US collecting info on companies doing this, so as soon as laws allow, we won't be behind the ball in prosecuting. Here's a link to his YouTube video with information on both of those forms of resistance. https://youtu.be/ii-D9LaitUw?is=U9-0w5vJE7k-8SLA
Even though I'm downsizing and I've cut my print book collection by 90% - lugging 5000+ volumes of print around was getting to be a real drag after six moves in 12 years - there's a very good reason I've kept the core of my library and my music collections in physical media. I also still have (well, my daughter has) my great-grandmother's 1901 treadle sewing machine and all its attachments. . . and she uses it regularly. Gas car - bought it right before the COVID lockdown, and it gets 43 mpg on the highway, so I felt it was a good option.
We have a gas Jeep from 2003. Our big TV is from 2008. Our computers and phones are all mostly from 2021 or before. We intentionally buy used and analoge devices (pressure cooker with a weight, scales that keep our secrets, etc.) when we can because my partner is a engineer and a security nerd. It's not that I don't like new things - I do - but its more that we value our privacy more than the latest and greatest. It is not a sacrifice many people are willing to make yet, but we can see where this is going... and its nowhere good. The SmartWorld is a sleezy, extractive place, and we do not wish to live there.
Very smart!
My partner is - I probably wouldn’t have even noticed the prevalance of the trend if he hadn’t gotten twisty knickers about it back in the early 2000s. I said he was paranoid at the time and have apologized many times over since. This shit is everywhere and it is a cancer we must eradicate.
I, too, plan to keep my older car. It's a 2014 and has less than 100,000 miles. 🤞 With good, regular maintenance by my independent mechanic I might be able to drive it the rest of my life. I'm 63. 😬
Same! And the dealership keeps spamming me about trading it in, even when I tell them I intend to drive my 2014 until the heat death of the universe rather than go into debt for an over-teched new model with hidden subscription fees. (Might make an exception for an EV if it doesn’t require a stupid app to function.)
Outrage is exhausting me! I just heard refrigerators are going to charge a monthly fee for icemakers. They usually break down after a couple of years anyway. Maybe they are programmed to do that to soften us up. Can a person still buy MS OFfice on disk? I pay $159 a year to use it. But of course mt Mac has no disk slot to install the software.
Wow. That's terrible.
You can buy a DVD writer from LG, for instance, that connects to a computer via USB. I'm running a standalone version of Excel in MacOS Tahoe (which I downloaded). Have to Force Quit the update program every time I open Excel. Don't know if it's still available. But then, I'm kind of in that "hacking" category and expect that I'll eventually lose.
Shift to the Google office suite, if you can. That's still free and works almost exactly like Office.
There are other open source suites like LibreOffice (I haven't tried it, but would go there rather than to Google since I only log onto my Google account when it's absolutely necessary.)
I'm considering moving to LibreOffice; I've heard good things about it. I absolutely detest the Google Suite.
We are paying Google with our data
Thanks for explaining why HP has hijacked my printer. Probably also explains why many newspapers and other media sources are demanding a subscription before allowing access to articles they post on Google news. Everyone seems to want more of our dwindling supply of money.
I have an Epson EcoPrint. Only need to get new ink cartridges about once every 18 months. They cost about the same as the HP cartridges, but they last easily 4-5 times as long, maybe more.
Brother Laser printers are the general answer here.
Yep, me too. Years of preferring HP products. One update and I had to buy HP cartridges. The off brand ones I just bought were now junk.
I will never buy another HP product. I will forever zero-star HP
No matter what you do, the companies will always win simply by bribing trump to allow them to force their agenda on you.
We can start to repair the broken system by expunging the republican horde in November.
It's infuriating. I will say, however, that my Peloton was a godsend during the pandemic and I didn't mind paying for access to online classes. To me, it was essentially the same as having a monthly gym membership and a lot less expensive. I recently re-joined a physical gym because I was ready to be back in the physical world again and I have more time to go now that I'm retired.
But all that said, it's really annoying that everything has become a subscription model. I even resent having so many devices that have to be charged--phones, laptops, iPads, headphones, watches. It's crazy-making.
The Norwegian government has an entire campaign against this, and there's a guy in the US collecting info on companies doing this, so as soon as laws allow, we won't be behind the ball in prosecuting. Here's a link to his YouTube video with information on both of those forms of resistance. https://youtu.be/ii-D9LaitUw?is=U9-0w5vJE7k-8SLA
Even though I'm downsizing and I've cut my print book collection by 90% - lugging 5000+ volumes of print around was getting to be a real drag after six moves in 12 years - there's a very good reason I've kept the core of my library and my music collections in physical media. I also still have (well, my daughter has) my great-grandmother's 1901 treadle sewing machine and all its attachments. . . and she uses it regularly. Gas car - bought it right before the COVID lockdown, and it gets 43 mpg on the highway, so I felt it was a good option.
https://rs.bot/6y7d5F