We've come a long way from the "pay once and use for life" model. The internet and cloud computing have made subscription-based pricing an incredibly profitable model for businesses.
Earlier, subscriptions were limited to essentials like water, electricity, and rent. Beyond that, there were only a few: phone bills, TV cable subscriptions, and so on. Now you can add a subscription to practically any piece of technology. Businesses have realized this goldmine, so you now see subscriptions for accessing your fridge, your car, and countless other physical products that you should practically own.
But I'm not even talking about software products yet. Kindle sits at the cusp of both physical and digital products, and we've seen how Amazon betrayed their users by deleting their purchased books while claiming that you don't own an ebook, you're only given a license to read it. What kind of dystopia is this?
Look at Adobe and Microsoft Office. These used to offer one-time licenses that you could use for practically a lifetime. That model is largely gone now. Very few services still offer lifetime licenses; most want consistent monthly revenue. The same applies to music, movies, news, and practically everything else; everything requires a subscription.
I understand the frustration, and I don't want to keep paying for endless subscriptions. That said, there are services worth paying for rather than going without them entirely.
Cloud and photo storage is one area where I believe subscriptions make sense. I don't have much data beyond my personal photos and videos, but a local hard drive backup alone isn't enough. A dedicated photo storage provider offers a better experience than generic cloud storage. My choice is Ente.com.
I actually pay for multiple cloud storage services to maintain redundant backups. My primary providers are Filen, iDrive, and Proton Drive. Client-side zero knowledge encryption is non-negotiable for any service I use.
Domain names are another necessary subscription. I maintain multiple domains for this blog and other projects.
I also rent a VPS on Hetzner Cloud for quickly hosting projects that require a server backend, though I generally prefer building serverless projects.
In the future, I'll likely subscribe to Tutanota Mail or Proton Mail, but their free plans currently meet my needs.
Beyond what I'm already paying for, there are several services I'm currently using on their free tiers but will likely upgrade to paid plans when needed:
Bitwarden is my password manager of choice. The free tier handles my needs now, but I'll upgrade to the premium plan if I need advanced features like TOTP authentication (for which I currently use a seperate app), emergency access, or priority support. Honestly the free version suffice me for Bitwarden, but I may start a subscription just to support the company.
VPN services are another area where I'm exploring options. I use Proton VPN on its free tier. Proton VPN has a solid free tier, and I'll consider upgrading when I need faster speeds, more server locations, or streaming access. Mullvad is another option which I might consider against Proton VPN.
NextDNS provides DNS privacy and filtering. The free tier is generous (300k queries per month), and I'll only upgrade to their paid plan if I exceed that limit or need advanced analytics and filtering features. And I have exceeded this limit multiple times, and I haven't seen much real difference. But again, since I use this service on all my family members devices, I think I might start paying for its subscription for supporting the company.
As I mentioned, Tutanota Mail and Proton Mail are also on my radar. I'll switch to a premium plan when the free tier no longer suffices; whether that's due to storage limits, lack of custom domain support, or other advanced features.
As you can see, I pay for as few subscriptions as I possibly can. My philosophy is to use free tiers until they genuinely become a bottleneck rather than a limitation, then upgrade only when the service provides clear value. I'm selective about which services are worth the recurring cost versus which are exploitative attempts to extract maximum revenue. Client-side zero knowledge encryption, privacy, and data redundancy are my non-negotiables; everything else is negotiable based on actual need.