On Subscriptions (Fall 2025)

Well, it’s been a while since my last update when it comes to my subscriptions, and things have changed quite a bit since then.

At the time, I was still doing my internship, so I had money, but not the kind of money I would get now that I’m a full time employee. The amount of time and my interests have shifted slightly, things I used to care about I don’t care much for anymore, and life changes, I guess.

I am more conscious about the where I want my money to go, as well as how people deserve to get paid and such.

Or that’s what I would like to say, as I tend to be the polar opposite of myself.

Streaming

Most of my subscriptions for this are still being paid for by others, so most don’t count.

I am no longer subscribed to YouTube Premium, haven’t been for many months. At some point my billing info changed and they were unable to process the monthly payment and I never fixed it and I haven’t missed it at all. UBlock Origin does the job.

I used to be on a Spotify family plan for free, but it’s been ages since I stopped using it and someone else took my place, I’m good.

Disney+ got into some trouble in the US, but here’s just normal, I am still in a family plan and I don’t pay a cent either way. Same goes for Netflix.

I’ve been using Tubular more than ever, Nintendo Music (which comes with Nintendo Online) works extremely well, and I listen to a lot more local music, as I’ve grown my digital collection and purchased some albums from Bandcamp.

The only streaming service I pay for is HBO Max, mostly for my family to use it, but I’ve been watching anime there from time to time.

Fitness

I pay a gym membership now, it’s part of what makes me feel like I should go more or else I’ll be wasting money, and it somewhat works, although as I said yesterday, I am considering to quit the gym and commit to excercising at home and maybe running, it’s not that expensive but I could buy a couple videogames by not paying for it.

Gaming

Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack once again takes the crown as the most expensive subscription I pay for, and they even increased the price this year (and then lowered it again for the next year, after I got billed, oof). However, I’m still splitting it up between some friends, so it’s not too bad.

Also, against my better judgement, I got a subscription to Humble Choice, for some reason (I wanted a certain game and then I kinda kept it going for a bit). It’s a pretty good value for the money but this could go at any time and I could actually buy games I 100% want to have, maybe.

Web Services

A while back I started to pay for my own email provider, I decided to go for Zoho Mail since Amin recommended it to me. It’s super cheap and it’s been nice to have a separate email that I only use for personal conversations (whenver I remember to reply to them, sorry everyone!).

Of course, I also pay for the domain name of this blog! As well as a couple of others via Porkbun.

I hadn’t taken my time to check this, but recently, .xyz domain names raised in price, I paid a couple more years in advance when I got them, but after doing the sum of all the domains I have, and since I only really use two of them, I am spending way too much money on unused domains. I could buy a videogame by not paying for those…

Other

Well, there’s been a couple of additions now that I had mentioned in that older post… yeah, not only do I keep supporting my Mastodon home, I have now subscribed to the Into The Aether podcast as well as Backloggd, the videogame tracking website I prefer.

Into The Aether did a bit of an oopsie earlier in the year and they joined a podcast network that proceeded to inject ads, which also ruined podcast chapters. I couldn’t stand it—so I subscribed to their Patreon and got a new feed and extra bonus episodes! A few months (maybe weeks?) later they preferred to stay indie and abandoned that podcast network. They still have “ads” that are for more personal things, like birthdays and shout-outs to projects, indie bands or whatever, which you can pay for, I stayed on Patreon anyway and moved to the yearly tier because it’s cheaper.

I use Backloggd to literally journal everything I do when it comes to videogames (just look at my Silksong journal), so I think it’s only fair to support the developer of this one.

And last but not least, Clarkesworld is a monthly sci-fi magazine that features… Science Fiction stories, of course. I have read a grand total of half an issue from these so… I blame Amin, again.

Totals

Without any further to do, here’s the table. The domains haven’t hit as much because a lot of it was paid for in advance, but still, looking at the numbers hurts…

In total per year that amounts to 867 USD… Ok, that’s like 16 Nintendo Switch games, I really need to check my priorities.

But really, those domain names gotta go, and maybe I should lower my Patreon tier of ITA, and given how many issues of Clarkesworld I’ve read, I should probably stop until I catch up. But I really like those EPUB files…

Well, maybe I’ll cancel some of these in 2026.