Tax Day was a good kick in the rear to clean up all the recurring payments that have accumulated over the years. Here are a few notable cancellations:
- Netflix, which I tend to picked on even as I commend its better offerings. Turd to diamond ratio is still too high, and with the most recent price increase it is not worth it any more.
- Paramount+, because there are better things to do in one’s life than watch Star Trek reruns.
- Disney+ would have been a cancellation as we rarely ever watch it. But for some reason we have been grandfathered into the Disney+/Hulu/ESPN+ 4K plan for $80 per annum and at that price it is worth it to have Gravity Falls available at a moment’s notice.
- All iOS weather apps, because my weather-related needs just aren’t that sophisticated and the default app serves them fine, thank you very much.
- Hookmark, previously known as Hook, a MacOS productivity app that (1) pissed me off by brandishing the tag line “Buy Once, Own Forever” even as it kills you with notifications that the new version 3.2.1.3.2.5 is out and you need to pay $30 for an “Updates license” all while (2) I am trying to move away from MacOS anyway. Yes, technically this is not a subscription that needs canceling but the toughest attachments to part with are those that exist only in my mind (see also: Tinderbox, DEVONthink, OmniFocus, MailMate, etc.)
- Epsilon Theory, a more esoteric platform which never quite recaptured the time they first grabbed my attention.
So with all of that deadweight removed, I felt that I could splurge on a Digital+Print subscription to Nautilus, an even more lay audience-friendly version of Quanta Magazine. Both of those are, of course, wildflowers growing out of the compost pile that was Scientific American. Thus Nautilus joins the Financial Times as the only print editions we subscribe to, all other magazines that come in the mail being hoisted on us as members of various medical societies.