Things I Pay for Even though I don't Have To

Courtesy of Myself

News Services -- e.g., New York Times

There is frequently no reasonable substitute for knowledge on the ground.

Image Services -- e.g., shutterstock

Why not let A.I. do it? Or just use whatever you can find on the internet? If you sidestep concerns about theft, you're still spending a lot of time searching through reams of materials of dubious quality. A.I. can help automate that search, but getting it to generate exactly what you want is, I suspect, an art itself.

Text Services -- e.g., Wikipedia

The text is free and open, so why pay for it? Well, it has to be hosted and distributed, and that costs something. And I want to do my part. (I am currently donating $5/month to Wikipedia.)

Password Protection -- e.g., TunnelBear (until they ceased support)

Security in the modern age apparently means hairy lists of diabolically long passwords across multiple devices, and you've got to be able to trust someone to keep those passwords secure.

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Counterexample: Internet

A large part of our citizenry has formed a dependency on access to basic internet services. Like Housing and Transportation, I see Internet as an essential service, so having access to it is not really optional.

Even nomads have tents and camels and cell phones.

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Streaming Services -- e.g., Netflix and Disney+

I enjoy content that meets a certain quality level. And for those of us whose modus operandi is to watch things whilst laying on a couch, where else are we going to get our stories when we're too exhausted by linear text to read novels? 😁