McDonalds. It used to at least be cheap. Now it’s both expensive and still tastes bad.
Any streaming service.
It’s not even about the money specifically, if that’s what it actually cost or if it was going to a good place. It’s the greed of constantly trying to find that line on how hard they can squeeze and at what price point people will keep taking it.
Yep. The Golden Age of Streaming was finished years ago. Once we had a whole pie. Maybe cut into a few slices. Now we have a fragmented pie, cut into tiny slices and it looks like Jim tried to fuck it again.
Streaming used to be cheap and a good deal. I remember when YouTube TV launched it was only $35/month and now it’s nearly $100
Holy hell, $35 is still crazy!
Streaming services of any kind. I’ve got a jellyfin server now that has everything I need.
It was fine when they were $5 a month, but this $20 a month bullshit is insane. And what do you mean I can’t share one account with the family if we’re not on the same network, get real.
Do you have any information that could help me understand how to self-host my own music streaming using jellyfin? I’ve been meaning to learn this as I’m over Apple’s last increase.
If you only want to stream music you might be better off setting up Navidrome. !selfhosted@lemmy.world is a good place to look for advice on this stuff.
You bet! If you only need to get it working on your home network then it’s really easy. The Jellyfin website has great documentation on the process and there are also great YouTube videos as well. It’s pretty much download the program and tell it where to look for the files, then visit the localhost link it gives you and bam you’re golden.
If you also want to be able to access it from outside of your home network then things get can get a bit tricky and you will need to set up a reverse proxy of some kind (Caddy, Nginx, Pangolin, etc).
Thank you so much! I should have just looked into it myself but it felt daunting as I’m new to it all but really want to own my own data and media again.
My family will rotate Steaming services. We sub for a month or two when we wanna see a show or something, then cancel in favor of something else.
yeah, this is the way. i got lectured yesterday buy some weirdo about how doing that is ‘too inconvenient and a massive waste of time’. and then doubled down when I pointed out it takes seconds to do this, and were like ‘it shouldn’t have to take me seconds’. OK buddy… like i guess if you feel you must be subbed to 8 different services at once and forever because you can’t ever cancel or swap, it must be really tough to be you.
I don’t have that problem. I share netflix/HBO with my sister who is across the country with little to no issue.
but we never sub up more than two services at once.
I’m in the US and have to watch a few seconds of something on my phone while connected to the wifi in each location for two houses less than 3 miles apart every single month or it gets signed out of every device at one of the two locations. I only do that ao my daughter can watch shows at two places.
I will most likely cancel this fall after catching up on my backlog. It isn’t the cost that will be the dealbreaker, it is the hassle.
yeah and i have to mfa for my work vpn once a month… that’s pretty standard stuff dude.
you seriously think once a month auth is awful burden you can’t live with?
It is an annoyance for a thing that up to a couple years ago required zero effort and at that time the company promoted sharing accounts. Now they are so against sharing that they penalize people who use more than one wifi network.
I’m not even sharing accounts, just watching it in two places. If I could just mfa once at either location to confirm it wouldn’t be so bad. I have to remember to take action in two places and track it so it doesn’t get cut off in the evening at the other place while I’m going to bed and my kiddo is trying to watch a movie.
Also I’m paying for Netflix. Your job is paying you to do that.
yeah the world changes. nothing stays the same. what seemed like a good idea 5-10 years ago seems utterly stupid today. that’s how life works, including business.
I mean, I get it, 1st world problem of mind inconvenience is a moral outrage. But I don’t own two homes, I can’t possible imagine how difficult and awful it must be to have to manage my netflix account across multiple properties…
oh wait, you could just create a vpn and network your two homes so they appear on the same network! wow… almost as if there is a solution to every problem.
I don’t own two homes, what the fuck are you talking about?
My daughter moves back and forth between two homes, like a lot of kids do. You do understand that family situations can be complicated right?
Netflix’s “solution” is to have a second account, but then if she watches something at my place and then at her mom’s it would require signing in and out of Netflix constantly to have access to her personal profile. Netflix tying accounts to wifi networks is stupid and frankly you would fit right in there.
I don’t work for netflix but I do understand a lot about tech and I do very well in my career, yeah.
Because I don’t tolerate entitled requests from users who think their convenience is all that matters. They have to sign into the account everytime they they move locations because it’s a necessary security precaustion and contractually obligated by our insurance.
but right, I’m a dummy and you know better. you know you can just setup your daughters phone with a netflix account and have her stream from the phone to any tv without having to re-auth right?
but hey sorry for trying to help you out, when clearly you didn’t want a solution, you just wanted to be embittered at netflix because how dare you be inconvenienced.
You could just… no longer subscribe to them. but that would be even more inconvenient.
Lol meanwhile I have to punch in a code if I want to watch Netflix at work because I’m not on my home network. Somehow Netflix invented landline streaming services.
Concerts.
In the 90s youd go to the record store that had a ticket kiosk. Tickets were 10 to 20 dollars, youd get a printed ticket.
Now it just sucks. Venues add fees, ticketmaster fees double the price, printing fees, sometimes you cant even get the digital ticket until the day of and hope nithing goes wrong.
It all just sucks now.
I go down to my local dive bar and watch some local guys play rock and blues…for tips.
Hard drives. I have a movie hobby and that takes a lot of storage and well, storage now is 3-5 times more expensive than not two years ago and I can’t afford it anymore.
But on the flip side, people can now finally nudify my daughter, so that is totally worth it!
Fuck everything about AI.
I am waiting patiently for the AI bubble to pop so that all of a sudden there’s an excess supply of ram, gpu’s, drives, etc.
Hate to break it to you, but that’s not at all how that will work out.
I guess we’ll see.
There’s nothing to see. Those datacenters run specialized server hardware. If the AI bubble bursts, they’ll likely just be sold to another hosting/saas company as is.
Even if the hardware gets back into the market, it’s not consumer hardware. There will be no Ryzens and RTXs flooding the market, but Epyc/Xeons, Reg ECC RAM and videoless GPGPUs.
I would have expected manufacturers to be increasing production due to the bubble, so when demand evaporates there would be an oversupply. EG - expanded memory production would lead to an oversupply of memory post-burst, leading to a reduction in prices. But a quick google shows at least memory and HDD manufacturers aren’t increasing output, possibly recognizing a bubble, and some things (e.g. GPU’s, SSD’s) are supply-constrained due to memory shortages. Others like CPU manufacturers seem to be increasing supply capacity. So maybe it’s more of a mixed bag.
Private islands. I started buying them and discovered I couldn’t even afford the first one, so I stopped immediately.
The fuel consumption of the helicopter from Valley Forge is a total bitch.
needs v wants and I live a simpler life.
Fast food is hilariously overpriced. You pay about as much for a sit down meal at a restaurant for some crappy burgers. I remember the days when they had a true dollar menu. Now they just call it a “value menu” or whatever.
Used to be able to get two double cheeseburgers for $2 at burger king. Add fries and a drink and you were sitting at about $8 after tax. That same order today will run you about $19 before taxes. I’m not even that old, this all happened within the last two decades or so - prices literally more than doubling and all the while the quality getting worse and portion size getting smaller and smaller.
It’s probably better for my health that I can’t stomach the idea of paying that much for greasy unhealthy food, so it’s an occasional treat to let me have that nostalgic taste.
Burger King is the worst offender of Restaurantitus.
They forgot they are fast food, so now try to sell 10 dollar burgers and other ridiculous shit at sitdown prices.
McDonalds is the worst offender for just plain price gouging. Their 99 cent menu doesnt exist anymore, all the shit that WAS on the 99 cent menu is now like 4-5 bucks.
Which is what a fucking bigmac used to cost, and we’d groan about the big mac being 5 dollars.
I got lunch for my mom and myself at Five Guys the other day. Two burgers, one order of fries, two fountain drinks, $44. I wouldn’t even have minded the price if it had been, y’know, fantastic food, but it was just mid. Burgers were bland, fries were limp and greasy – so greasy that the bottom of the bag broke open when I got it home – and even the drinks were watery. For $44!
I tried Taco Bell yesterday for the first time in years. At least it was “only” $11 for a mexican pizza, two tacos and a large drink. Unfortunately it was utterly disgusting, everything tasted like stale wheat flour which was weird because I don’t think the food actually had wheat flour in it anywhere.
Never eat out without a coupon!
i was about to try a new shake shack that opened last year at a mall, because i never had it, noped, overpriced for what is. also a new “tea shop” opened, people were still flooding to it. thier lowest cost “Tea” was like 7$ minimum(im guessing because its near a convention center/ the income of that area.)
Shakeshack is mcdonalds with hipster branding, it’s extremely overrated, people just pay for the excuse to get an extremely unhealthy milkshake with their burger.
Practically everything. My phone, garbage, insurance, food, gas, electric, internet, cable . . . everything went up seemingly at the same time. There are a lot of products and businesses I just outright boycott based upon GOP reasons. I pretty much eliminate grocery stores in the summer and buy from local farms. I partition my trash into small bags and deposit them in trash cans and eliminated my garbage pick up. I compost all scraps. Started a vegetable garden. Grow my own cannabis. Switched to USMobile for $10 a month unlimited. Torrent everything. Cut cable. I used to eat out about three times a week and that is now zero. Overall, I am eating better and even lost about 15 pounds. I discovered bin stores. I find myself buying more stuff that I don’t need but want. I found a $500 Garmin watch on dollar day. The only wrong with it was it was missing the band so I found one that fit and got that for a buck. On $3 day last week I found a pair of ar6 walkie talkies sealed. On $12 day I found a 32" TV and leaf blower, both sealed. I can’t see myself ever paying full price again, shopping in a store or even online.
Subscriptions 🏴☠️
I have one subscription that covers everything!
…it’s a vpn. 🤫
Beef, almost completely.
Red meat in general. Even pork has gotten out of hand.
My family is eating poultry two or three nights per week and entirely vegetarian the rest of the week just to cut spending.
Costco prices still seem reasonable compared to what I’m used to. regular grocery store prices for meat in any form are fucked. the prices they have on tiny hams or pre-packaged sliced meat are fucked.
Beef is price fixed in an illegal trust.
But, also, beef is pretty much the worst meat when it comes to environmental impact of producing it. So it probably should be the most expensive.
Beef is still to cheap IMHO, at least here in Europe.
Soda. Wtf are they even thinking at this point. Hell, I ran into a Dollar General to get carbonated water the other day and the only product they had was $9. For carbonated. Water. GTFO
soda is overpriced everywhere, people also stopped drinking them for the most part. i think some places have added tax too. i mostly drink sparkling water with flavours, of different brands. i usually dont mind stevia infused ones much. even in discount stores they are expensive asf. sparkling water is cheap compared to soda, like most of the time its half the price.
huh, i but carbonated water for like 50 cents a liter at the regular grocery store, and that’s not even the cheap shit.
Dollar stores are just large convenience stores. Very few products are cheaper than an actual grocery store.
A lot of items are more expensive per unit.
Like a roll of aluminium foin is half price at the dollar store, but only has 1/3 the foil.
That’s the poverty trap. Spend ‘less’ up front but way more over the long term whether we’re talking about aluminum foil or car loans.
its shrinkflationed to maximize the cost. and then larger chains started doing ti to. like with carbonated drinks 8pk vs 12pk, and fruit, energy, protein bars. 5 vs original 6-8. same goes with alot of toothpastes too. og is 8.2 to 5.4, and 5.1 to 4.6, and finally 4.3. i noticed that with foils too at the discount(grocery outlet) they used to have wafer thin for 200sqft, removed to 150max.
they play the same trick with TOILET paper too. try to trick people by reducing the ply and keeping the rolls the same, or the amount of paper the same.
target used to have very good instore brand thier up and up, i stopped buying it when they switched to"deal worthy"
You can pick up a used ball keg, probs $25-30, a cheap regulator, some tubing and a carbonating cap (you can skip the carbonating cap, which last I looked is some $25, just hook the CO2 line to the dip tube, it’ll take longer to reach carbonation saturation, but it works fine), and a hand faucet for $1 and rent a CO2 tank (last time I filled a 5lb cylinder it was $30 which includes the cylinder) and make gallons of the stuff for decreasing spend.
Upfront cost is moderately high, yes thats true, but the more you use it the less it costs per gallon. And no plastic bottles, no questionable water source, no shipping pollution. You just have on demand carbonated water. If you add fruit puree, you can make “Italian soda”, or you can buy the soda syrup businesses and such use if you want, though you’ll want something in a pump bottle and not a box that hooks to a big system…
One 5lb tank of co2 is enough for 5-10 batches, depending how heavily carbonated you like, and each batch is 5 gallons, assuming a standard 1/8 barrel keg, so the math is pretty appealing if carbonated water is a thing you like.
Italian what?!!
Please tell me more, I have tried lots of things in carbonated water (lemon or cucumber is good) but never fruit puree!
The way we made it at the place I worked was to puree fruit, then reduce it a bit over heat (no added sugar), then put like 2tbsp or so over ice and topped off with the carbonated water.
So it’ll only really work well with flavors that don’t degrade in heat, but you may also have luck with just straight pureed fruits like watermelon, not super sure how that’d turn out.
You can also use fruit syrups that you buy or make yourself, tons of recipes out there.
Thanks!
A pet. My dog died a few years ago. I’d love to get another, maybe adopt, but I couldn’t afford the healthcare now. It got pretty expensive towards the end of her life and I just couldn’t do that now. I also can’t afford the time that a dog deserves - I’m working more overtime and still feel like I have less money.
My cat had an enlarged heart near the end of her life and when I took her to a chain vet they quoted me $3500 to do what they could and she still would have been in pretty bad shape. I could tell the vet didn’t really want to do it and when I asked about euthanasia instead she immediately said “that’s the right thing to do” and went off to get the process started without asking me again about the expensive treatment. I will always be indebted to her for this.
I used to take my cats to my sister-in-law’s mother, but she had to sell her practice (to this very same chain, in fact) in order to have something for her retirement. The chain told her quite openly that they were buying her practice to shut it down and remove local competition. Corporations are such a fucking cancer.
oh yea pets are expensive, especially if it has chronic conditions, or is old. or if you rescue it with unknown health history. also certain breeds tend to be unhealthy= more expensive medical cares.
yep.
Even with the vet donating supplies and instructing me on how to do a lot of the work, the last month of my old pets life still ran up a 10k bill, which I am still struggling to pay down years later.
I don’t think I’ll ever have a pet again, the financials just dont work out.
Milk, cheese and butter.
My country produces 10x more dairy products than we need. But they’re sold to the highest bidder globally and that ain’t me.
Bob is not your uncle.
PC parts
my nephew build a pc this winter. he paid like 2K for roughly the same spec that my older nephew built in '23 and paid like $800 for.
only thing that wasn’t a massive price increase was motherboard, case and power supply.
Newegg was bundling other parts with video cards to deter scalping. I got a Sapphire Pulse 9070 XT 16GB and 750W power supply for $630 a few months back. It’s now “on sale” by itself for $790. Months before that it was closer to $500!
The Seagate Exos 20 TB hard drives I paid $350-$400 each for over a year ago are now $793.
It’s absolutely insane.
Yeah, I think the only new part my pc sees between 2025-??? is the case.
You’re lucky to have kinda the opposite of my situation.
I used a second hand office machine with a low power graphics card added, because that came out quite cheap. Until about 2 years ago, when I saw that really good looking cases, with the glass and LEDs and everything, are quite affordable now, got one for 60 bucks, I think.
The problem was that that office machine was not made to be upgradeable. Power supply that delivered pretty much exactly what the current parts needed and no more, with custom connectors to the mainboard.
So I thought ok, I do it in steps, after all that’s the whole point that that’s possible. Start by getting a nice modern bequiet PSU, and finding a more standard motherboard, that fit with my CPU and RAM. In some obscure webshop no less, because stuff is old, I’m working with DDR2 here.
And the plan was that later I would look at upgrading motherboard+CPU+RAM, because I’d have to do those together.
And then the data centers happened.
I’m just lucky that the old machine was a beast for its time - the back then impressive 16GB RAM are still decent now. Battlefield the WW1 one ran fine, that game where you upgrade your jeep was too laggy - gotta be a bit more selective about what I run now, because my upgrade plans are on ice until we storm the data centers.