Every month I spend $220 on subscriptions, which I have categorized into four categories: digital, entertainment, hosting, and storage, and house. Let’s get into what they are and which ones are truly indispensable!
Digital
Digital could really be renamed “reading” since they are nearly all things that I use to consume things. The real indispensable one is Instapaper ($5), which has been my go-to read later app for years. A recent addition to the process is Readwise ($8) which I got as part of Tiago Forte’s Second Brain system, but frankly, I’m not utilizing enough. In theory, Readwise resurfaces highlights I’ve made in articles, books, and other sources, but if I don’t revisit it regularly, I’m not getting any value out of it. Oops, it just auto-renewed so I guess I’m using it for another year.
I also have 1Password ($3) and Pinboard ($1.50), the former which is an essential, and the latter which is mainly just to keep my bookmarks archived from a former web app that…stored bookmarks. I never look at Pinboard—or make new web bookmarks—but at such a price, it’s a legacy thing to hold on to. [Update: I actually just paid for a lifetime of Anybox ($40), which is just a bookmark storage service. I took one look at it over December and decided I’d find some use for it, if only to archive important bookmarks from Pinboard.]
Technically, a subscription to the New Yorker is more likely “entertainment,” but it’s in the digital category for some reason. For $14 a month, it comes with the paper subscription and access to all their digital stuff. After initially getting lured in by a red tote bag—and a low low introductory price—I now don’t know how I ever lived without the New Yorker. I love the articles, the writers, the (a little too frequent) physical copies, all of it. In theory one could skedaddle from introductory price to introductory price, but I want to support the New Yorker anyway so now just renew every year.
The newest addition to my digital category is a subscription to The Cut ($3), which includes all the digital brands under New York Magazine—including Curbed, Grub Street, Intelligencer, The Strategist, and Vulture. Mainly I found myself frustrated trying to read the few free monthly articles on The Cut and figured it was high time to get a subscription. I don’t regularly read those other sites but I added all of them to my RSS reader so maybe I’ll find some exciting stuff on them soon.
The Ringer—my go-to site—recently went through a redesign and their RSS links all died. People are aghast. If there was a subscription fee for just a RSS feed of the Ringer, I would pay big money for it. Big money!
Entertainment
As for movies and TV, it’s Netflix ($23), Max ($12.50), and until recently, Paramount and sometimes Peacock. Paramount was mostly for old seasons of The Challenge, and Peacock was purely for one show: Poker Face. Now both are gone and we’re down to just Netflix and Max.
Then there’s NBA League Pass ($13), Marvel Unlimited ($6), and Nintendo Online ($3), which are pretty self explanatory. I rarely use Marvel Unlimited actually, despite years of having it, but I just like to have it around. I also added Marvel Snap to the entertainment list as I’m dedicated to the game and also equally dedicated to not buying more stuff on it save for the ten dollar monthly season pass.
My Spotify($17) supports a family of friends, and obviously, is a must-have. Also, after Stitcher shut down, I moved to Pocket Casts, which has Plus for $1.25 per month. While Pocket Casts has some issues, I do love it and having a podcast app subscription is a must!
YouTube Premium
And the one life changer that I must discuss: YouTube Premium, which at $23 a month—for the family plan, which includes six accounts—has been the best thing ever. Before, I rarely used YouTube unless absolutely necessary, but with the ads removed, YouTube has transformed into an indispensable resource for anything and everything.
You don’t know how much ads hold you back until you don’t have them. Wait, that’s not true, you totally know. But for short form videos like those on YouTube, ads are a killer. So now, freed from even two seconds of ads, I can just surf from video to video, going wherever my mood takes me.
And as I’ve discovered, YouTube has EVERYTHING. That’s obvious but really, it has everything. Besides just content, YouTube has all the how-tos, the explainers, the supercuts, the coming soons, the tier lists, the icebergs, everything. Video creators are making content I never knew I needed, stretching back fifteen years or so.
YouTube has facilitated my deep dives into every subject—recent ones include Modern MBA, Real Science, the history of Godzilla, fourth generation K-pop, Chinese contemporary art, dance tutorials, and on and on. I YouTube how to pronounce things, I YouTube obscure animals, I YouTube history documentaries, a lot of history documentaries. Over time I’ve habituated to put anything into the YouTube search bar, confident that something useful and interesting will surface.
Initially, I had only gotten YouTube Red—which then became Premium—because my friend was getting it and asked if I wanted to split it. I used the no-ad experience for my at-home karaoke. (Which is great btw, and I still have this account open for your use, if you want to scream into microphones at your own house.) As I started to search more things, YouTube slowly morphed into my most utilized consumption app. It was taking over my time spent with podcast, with television and movies, with Googling random stuff, with books even.
Wherever your mind wants to go, YouTube can take you. That’s what YouTube Premium does, and all for the low low price of $15.
“When I meet fellow YouTube Premium people, we are so proud that we’re in this club. This is the one streaming service we’d never give up. YouTube just has everything.” Tim Heidecker Favorite Things 2024
“This is the best money you’ll spend. I love movies, I love television, but that world is kind of shifting its shape a little bit. So in the meantime, I’m devouring so much YouTube content. I have a crew of friends on YouTube that don’t even know me.” Andrew Kuo’s11 Favorite Things 2023
Hosting ($35)
Ah, all the holdovers of an internet life once lived. I have Bluehost for my web hosting, GoDaddy for my various URLs (just four these days), and Soundcloud Pro to store all my past, and past past, podcast episodes. All of these could probably go but it’s important that I maintain my own archives for future generations, don’t you think?
Storage ($18)
This one is easy: storage for Google and storage for Apple. I’m paying three dollars a month for 200GB of Google storage on my main account. There’s also a mystery twenty dollars I’m paying--as recorded on my spreadsheet—but that may be outdated. Seeing as I use Google Docs as my go-to for everything, this is a must-have item. Also I back up my photos on Google Photo here, but that’s low-res and free, I think.
As for iCloud, that most essential of services, I upgraded to 2TB awhile ago and now have four friends on my family plan. After backing up all our phones—and photos—we are still using barely half of the space. It feels luxurious to have so much room for everyone. It’s like I tacked on ADUs to my mansion. Also, I’m paying for my friend’s iCloud storage in Brazil still apparently. So it’s like a second home for me.
House ($9)
I used to pay for an alarm system for my house but after I got over my paranoia of strangers coming in, I decided to cancel it. Now there’s just two camera subscriptions—one of my house, one for my mom’s. I don’t understand the people who don’t have cameras set up at the house. Outside at least, if not inside. Don’t you want to see what’s going on?! Strangely, I don’t have a doorbell camera, but one in my kitchen and living room, covering the front door. Also, my physical door bell fell off a year ago and I never bothered replacing it because my rationale was that anyone needing to find me at home wouldn’t be using my doorbell anyway. So far, no regrets and a lot more quiet.
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