while taking stock of my digital subscription expenses I realized I was paying for:
iCloud ($9.99/month)
Netflix ($7.99/month)
Hulu ($9.99/month)
Max ($9.99/month)
Amazon Prime Video ($14.99/month)
Lastpass ($3/month)
Siteground ($50/month)
Spotify ($11.99/month)
and in spite of paying for all that stuff, iCloud didn’t sync all my devices since I also use Linux on my PC and laptop, I was still being forced to watch ads on almost every streaming service and I didn’t own any of the music I was paying monthly to access. I got really fed up with the shitty experience of being a customer to these huge companies and decided I was going to find open source replacements for these services. In the end I replaced all these services with a $50/month Linode plan that hosts my private nextcloud, plex media server and cyberpanel which hosts all my websites.
Nextcloud is an open source cloud server that also has the same functionalities as Microsoft Teams and completely replaced iCloud, Lastpass and Notion for me. it can be used as a personal cloud like iCloud, Google Drive or Dropbox. or it can be a collaborative team server like Notion. it also has the same functionalities as Zoom so you can host your own video calls on a Nextcloud server. It has apps for every operating system so you can use it on all your Apple and Android devices, Macs and Windows PCs.
Plex is an open source media server that gives you an ad free netflix/hulu/max style streaming experience with your own media and gives you access to Plex’s media library which you can watch with ads, you can also share access to Plex Media Servers so you can let your friends watch your Plex and you can also watch your friends’ Plex libraries. Plex also has apps for every operating system so you can use it on any device.
Cyberpanel is a really fast open source web server that you can host websites on. I migrated all my wordpress sites from Siteground without any issues and I’m happy I did.
it took time and effort to build my super server but it was so worth it. now all my devices sync seamlessly – Apple and Linux, no ads during my tv binges, and I’m spending less on crappy digital subscription services. granted now I download all the media I want to consume but it doesn’t bother me at all – at least I own the stuff I love and aren’t forced to watch ads while I enjoy it. anyone toying with the idea of doing it, I highly recommend taking the plunge. it’s worth it to get free of companies who make their profits by paywalling once free features, a part of planned enshittification.
Enshittification is the process by which services become worse over time. They attract people initially with features that they slowly take away and paywall. We saw it with Netflix and HBO. at first there were no ads, then they slowly introduced ads and put a price premium on ad free versions of their services. All of this serves to further the business profits at a cost to us, the end users. I don’t want to give money to companies that are purposefully making my experience worse to make more money.