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It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

calpaterson.com

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Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#211

Post by isoprophlex »

zumu wrote: post #65
Waterluvian wrote: post #2

A lot of good thoughts in here. The one I personally want everyone to take away is that most plastics are not recycled. Unless it’s glass, fibre, or aluminum, you are lying to yourself if it’s going into the blue bin. Glass-contained milk delivery seems great. Someone needs to start a company. Sure it won’t be sexy or use AI but it’s useful. I have a local co-op that delivers local produce. It’s amazing to see a pile…

> Unless it’s glass, fibre, or aluminum, you are lying to yourself if it’s going into the blue bin. PET Plastic (#1) is recycled very commonly. Don't lump it in with the other plastics.

Locally, we have a dedicated PET recycling process. PET bottles are sold with a deposit.

I guess this is the only way to properly recycle plastics: incentivize customers to sort them out. The 'assorted plastics bin' is a lie.

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#212

Post by skinkestek »

tempest_ wrote: post #11
askvictor wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the older double-edged safety razors were designed around such a model, but at least there is a 'standard' for those, with plenty of different companies producing interoperable consumables. Would it be fair to say that any product with consumables that are proprietary to the vendor, is a subscription?

I actually shifted to using a double edged safety razor when the cost of the disposable blades felt like too much. It isnt quite as easy, and I still cut myself from time to time but I also am still using the variety pack of 100 blades that I bought two years ago for like 10$.

I switched too a few years ago.

I think I have faster shaves and less cuts now since I change blades more often.

Tried a few. The Feather ones I tried and Bluebeard still cuts me. Others I have tried including Gilette works better for me.

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#213

Post by lostlogin »

NortySpock wrote: post #21
dsr_ wrote: post #16

Printers. Yeah. Herewith, my standard advice. Buy a Brother monochrome laser with duplex, an ethernet port, and BRScript/3 (their PostScript clone). Even if you're sure you will never need one or more of those features, get them all. Wifi and Bluetooth and NFC are strictly optional, and probably not worthwhile. If you need color printing, send it to a printing company. There might even be a local one. It will be done…

Great advice, and I echo 95% of it. My observation is that I have found Wifi useful when I need the printer in an odd location in the house, and color is useful for non-professional usage like "the kids need to print out their report for school" and "the med school student needs anatomy diagrams in color" My trusty color Brother laser HL-3170CDW cost ~$300 at the time and has been trucking along for 7+ years now with…

> if all you are ever going to do is print your taxes and financial documents once a year

I get that you’re making a point about printers being rarely used. The exact detail though - are there places where printing of your tax documents is still required and they can’t be digital?

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#214

Post by the_pwner224 »

gordon_freeman wrote: post #36

This would sound strange but the biggest subscription I pay annually (which does not seem like a subscription) is my DMV registration renewal fees. It comes around $300+ every year out-of-the-blue in my mailbox and I realize then that is indeed a subscription for a product which is my Car that I never thought about.

From a practical persepctive you are indeed correct. In 99.9% of cases - the DMV are effectively a subscription expense you need to pay to use your car.

But they're not actually a subscription to your car; the fees are a subscription to the roads and associated infrastructure, which do need constant upkeep.

If you had a vehicle which was only used off-road (for example, on privately owned racetracks) and was only transported on a trailer then you would not need to register or insure it. For track motorcycles it's even relatively common to buy/sell them used without a title - so $0 fees to the government. Obviously exact laws on this may vary depending on location.

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#215

Post by lelanthran »

NortySpock wrote: post #21
dsr_ wrote: post #16

Printers. Yeah. Herewith, my standard advice. Buy a Brother monochrome laser with duplex, an ethernet port, and BRScript/3 (their PostScript clone). Even if you're sure you will never need one or more of those features, get them all. Wifi and Bluetooth and NFC are strictly optional, and probably not worthwhile. If you need color printing, send it to a printing company. There might even be a local one. It will be done…

Great advice, and I echo 95% of it. My observation is that I have found Wifi useful when I need the printer in an odd location in the house, and color is useful for non-professional usage like "the kids need to print out their report for school" and "the med school student needs anatomy diagrams in color" My trusty color Brother laser HL-3170CDW cost ~$300 at the time and has been trucking along for 7+ years now with…

> The article is right: if all you are ever going to do is print your taxes and financial documents once a year, a ~$100 monochrome laser printer is fine.

$100? I've got a xerox phaser 3140 that I got off the returns table at a major store chain 10 years ago here in SA for 350 ZAR (about 25 USD). I've printed enough to exhaust the toner twice.

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#216

Post by bbojan »

paulfurtado wrote: post #155
PostOnce wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to keep milk and bread fresh as long as other things, so you don't buy as much in advance, and therefore run out sooner. I can buy several weeks of stuff in advance, but not several weeks of milk and bread, or it'll expire, especially bread without many preservatives in certain climates. Nevermind the fact that a lot of people live in an on-demand, last-minute world. A lot of people do a lot of things last-…

As someone who hates making frequent grocery trips and drinks milk too intermittently to ever finish a normal bottle before it goes bad, I highly recommend buying UHT (Ultra High Temperature) pasteurized milk which does actually often have 3+ week shelf life. In the US, typically the organic brands are all UHT since they often come from farther away and need longer shelf life, but some of the cheap brands like Hood a…

To me UHT milk tastes significantly worse than pasteurized milk.

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#217

Post by slezyr »

opheliate wrote: post #185
dsr_ wrote: post #16

Printers. Yeah. Herewith, my standard advice. Buy a Brother monochrome laser with duplex, an ethernet port, and BRScript/3 (their PostScript clone). Even if you're sure you will never need one or more of those features, get them all. Wifi and Bluetooth and NFC are strictly optional, and probably not worthwhile. If you need color printing, send it to a printing company. There might even be a local one. It will be done…

For colour printing, I found an Epson EcoTank on Gumtree that a local business was giving away for free, having found the process of replacing ink too tedious. For those who don't know, the EcoTank line don't use cartridges in the traditional sense, you just pour ink directly into tanks on the printer. It's a bit of a hassle to fill compared to just putting cartridges in, but for just printing stuff off for around th…

EcoTanks have a DRM chip on the ink dump container instead.

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#218

Post by checkyoursudo »

derefr wrote: post #52
zizee wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even for those non-professional uses it's probably better to put the PDF on a flash drive, walk into Staples and print it on their machines I'm not trying to be argumentative, and what I'm going to say might be a "well obviously, duh" comment: This advice is really only applicable to those who have convenient access to a "staples", which is probably only 20% of us here. It is also only convienient if you don't have…

> which is probably only 20% of us here Uh. Shops offering printing-as-a-service are one of the most common things found in every small town, all over the world. They're one of the first entrepreneurialist ventures to be developed in developing countries after electrification (just buy a printer and a computer, and charge $1 to print a page.) Every Internet cafe offers printing. Every parcel shipping store (UPS, FedE…

I'm not sure my little hole-in-the-wall Deutsche Post shop offers printing.

Re: It looks like a product but is secretly a subscription

#219

Post by yunohn »

berkes wrote: post #201
TeMPOraL wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the article fell into this trap. There's a good reason to own at least a B&W printer even if there's a Staples downstairs: your home printing needs will predominantly fall outside the business hours. After all, during business hours you are most likely at work . The need to print something is usually a result of some chain of actions. You noticed an interesting paper. You have a stack of documents to sign. Your…

My "local" print shop allows me to email the docs and will have them ready to pick up first thing in the morning. It's all about planning. And when -like me- you live outside urban area's everything is about planning. I can't order a pizza when I forgot to buy groceries. I can't have a Gorrilla cyclist deliver some beer when I ran out. So I need to plan (and have a larger storage). Sure, I've been in the spot where I…

I’m not sure why you’re dismissing life as “poor planning”. Shit happens, things need to be done, you can’t plan everything.
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