💾 Archived View for chesteryang.flounder.online › subscriptions.gmi captured on 2023-11-14 at 07:32:42. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
⬅️ Previous capture (2023-11-04)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Here are a few things to which I subscribe. The total price ends up being $82.72 USD a month.
1. Mailfence.com
$3.00 USD a month
I've been using Mailfence.com for my e-mail for over a year now, and I love it. The layout is basic; it has generous storage space and comes with a cloud drive, calendar, multiple email aliases, and encryption capability. I ditched Gmail a while ago and haven't looked back since. However, when you want to give a foreigner your e-mail and you say XYZ@mailfence.com, they're often like, "What?" and I end up having to spell out MAILFENCE letter-by-letter. It's time consuming and confusing for them. They're accustomed to everybody having a Gmail account, so giving them information outside of their pattern recognition blows their mind.
2. The New Normal LLC
$11.00 USD a month
This dates me a bit, but I've been a fan of Tom Leykis since his syndicated "shock jock" radio show back in the 1990s. My favorite segment of his show is Money Monday, where he shares "for entertainment purposes only" financial information and literacy from a bona fide self-made multimillionaire. Today his niche has been replaced by guys like Andrew Tate. My favorite era of his was the 2010s when he had the call-in show with Gary, Dino, and Mike T. Listeners, and society in general, changed during the 2010s; they're more introverted, and interacting with strangers makes them uncomfortable. Instead of a call-in show, people now prefer soliloquy-style podcasts. It's the same reason Amtrak trains removed their dining cars on some lines; sitting at a table, chatting it up, and breaking bread with strangers mortifies the new generation. I don't always agree with him, but I've been a subscriber for so long that if I unsubscribe now, I'll miss him when he's gone one day. Blow me up, Tom!
3. Amazon Prime
$11.58 USD a month
I don't even know if I should bother subscribing anymore. I never use any of the services; I'm just in it for the >$50 per order for free international shipping. I can't get a clear answer on whether I need to be a Prime member for that. I remember when I first moved overseas twenty years ago, I had to have my mother and grandmother box up care packages and send them to me. They'd arrive a month later, maybe, if at all. Now, I can lazily click on whatever and have it on my desk waiting for me in a few days. I don't take the service for granted, but I question whether I need it anymore. I don't even shop much anymore; I have everything that I need.
4. Private Internet Access VPN
$2.03 USD a month
Telecom companies cannot be trusted in general, and more sites are blocked or censored every day. Maybe PIA is trustworthy, maybe they're not; who knows. I tried my best. But I'll take my chances with them over any of the local state-run telecom companies. Plus, they help me get around the [redacted]. VPNs are so cheap; I don't see the downside to having one.
5. Morningstar.com
$13.86 USD a month
I use Morningstar to evaluate my stock purchases and do research. Apparently, they're going to increase the price to $400 USD PER YEAR once my current subscription expires. I don't know if I can justify that anymore. My portfolio is kind of set at this point and I probably won't be buying any new positions. I'll just keep adding to what I already have until I hit my goals.
6. CHATGPT
$20 USD a month
This is a lifesaver. I use it at work every single day to take care of menial tasks. "Create a thirty-five-minute oral lesson for students using these vocabulary words: [word 1, word 2, etc.]. Each lesson should incorporate gerunds and cater to students who are X years old with A2 English ability. Their L1 is X, and their L2 is Y". Lesson created twenty seconds later. It saves me hours of labor and is well worth the money.
7. American Express
$8.25 USD a month
Every year I spend enough to earn enough points for a free flight. It pays for itself. One time I had to cancel a flight on a middle-man booking site (e.g., kayak.com) that was nonrefundable. I called American Express and they said, "don't worry about it; we've got you." They were able to get the flight canceled and my money refunded. This is something I wouldn't have been able to do myself. I was very grateful to them and have been a subscriber ever since.
8. Signal
$10 USD a month
I started donating to Signal. It's my main means of communication. I like its simple design and desktop accessibility. It handles multimedia files very well, and the conversations are smooth. Is it the most encrypted app ever? Tech types will say, "check the source code yourself, bro!" I honestly don't know about all that stuff, but if it's good enough for The White House, it's good enough for me. In 2019 or 2020, there was a mass exodus from WhatsApp, and everybody switched to Signal. I made the switch too and deleted WhatsApp. After constant use, I decided to put in my fair share and chip in. I'm very pleased with my decision and hope Signal continues its good work.
9. Telegram
$3 USD a month
This is my latest subscription, and probably my favorite. I was eating lunch one day. It was nothing special. Just some noodles, egg rolls, and some milk tea. The bill was $30 USD. I thought, "damn, for the cost of a meal, I could just subscribe to Telegram for a year." I decided to skip lunch the next day and purchased Telegram Premium. It's way better than I thought it was going to be. Downloads are lightning fast, which makes a big difference. Also, a lot of channels are in Russian, Chinese, or Arabic. The automatic translation service makes these otherwise inaccessible channels accessible. Very nice! I hate how people say, "But Chester, Telegram isn't REALLY encrypted by default!" Just push SECRET CHAT, and it is. Done. It's that easy. I always set my chats to twenty-four-hour auto-delete. Anything I have to say is stale twenty-four hours later, anyway.
I was surprised to learn that Americans only make up 2% of Telegram's users. Telegram's reputation stateside is, "it's full of crypto scammers, bots, smut, drugs, and criminals!" That can be true if you're looking for that kind of thing. Meta has such a grip on the United States' social media scene; I suspect they spread this kind of disinformation about their competition to maintain their dominance.