Friday Fun: What Services/Subscriptions can't you live without?

[Peter Van de Voorde]

For me it's just my internet connection, although I do love my Netflix and Disney+ subscriptions but I can do without them if needed. I don't think I could live without an internet connection anymore.

[Darryl Lee]

Due to some intense windstorms on Tuesday, many of us in the SF Bay Area were without power for at least 24 hours, and some friends STILL do not have power coming up on 48 hours, and for some of them the estimate from our utility provider PG&E (yes, the one you may have heard about) is that their service may not be restored until Friday or Saturday!

SO yeah. #1 Service I can't live without: Electricity.

I'm very grateful that back in 2021 my wife convinced me to invest in Tesla solar panels and a PowerWall (battery), as it covered us for almost all of the 26-hour outage we went through. And impressively, our Internet also stayed up, as I guess AT&T's fiber goes back to the CO with a generator (and somehow doesn't need repeaters? Or maybe we just got lucky with repeaters unaffected by the outage.) (Friends who are on Xfinity cable Internet still do not have it, despite also having Tesla solar+PowerWalls. My understanding is that Xfinity relies pretty heavily on UPSes to power their infra, so those are eventually going to run out.)

One regret was that we didn't think earlier to check in with our neighbors. Yesterday morning (Weds) our neighbor across the street rang our doorbell asking if she could charge her phone. I had some full powerbanks to lend her. Then I texted our older next-door neighbor to see if they needed anything charged. He brought over his powerbank, but it was actually still nearly full. He's well-prepared.

[Chris K]

What a cool discussion for the weekend! As I am scrolling through this thread, I already saw some apps, which I'll definitely check out ;) Goodbye emergency fund 💸💸💸

Here are my favorite apps, I couldn't live without:

1. Spotify: I need my daily dose of epic and classic music for deep work! And also some Slim Shady for the 20-minute ride home 🤙🏻
2. Audible: Podcasts and audiobooks, my most recent is the boy, the mole, the fox and the horse from Charlie Mackesy, which I can highly recommend. It lasts only about one hour, but it has deep messages and Charlies voice is so calming and heartwarming. There is also a film of the story (on apple +), which just won an Oscar as best animated short-film - well deserved in my opinion! 🏆
3. Komoot: I love hiking and mountainbiking and komoot is the perfect app for planning tours and interact with like-minded people. The premium content of komoot includes detailed hiking and biking maps, which gets bigger and bigger through the activities of the community. 2 years ago, I used the app in malta, and I was really surprised that even the smallest trails were in the app. We ended on a really rough climbing over a huge sand dune, but we made it to the beach, so it was worth the effort 🌟

Greetings from Germany

Chris

[Paul Wiggers]

There are two subscriptions that are never doubted:

1. Apple Music. Even with the recent price increase, I get a ton of value out of it. If I have to purchase every single album I add to my library, I would have to pay a lot more
2. MyFitnessPal. Tracking what I eat helps me understand food better and shows me how it impacts me in both mood and weight.

Other subscriptions that have made the recent culling

• Disney+
• Amazon Prime
• NFL GamePass (EU based so no NFL+ branding)
• Medium
• Netflix

I would love to have a newspaper subscription but analog ones are quite expensive. Reading online newspapers just isn't for me.