I commented earlier on a few apps that I currently subscribe to. But I've now gone through the entire list of my app subscriptions, and I've actually cancelled all but 2 of them.
A few of them were on yearly renewals, so they won't all end immediately. But I've decided that, at least for now, the value they provide me isn't enough to warrant any extra money.
Here is my previous list of subscriptions:
- Apple One
- Castro
- Glass
- Halide Mark II
- Tweetbot
- VSCO
- Ulysses
I have to note that VSCO was already expiring. I used to use this for photo editing, but I've since moved away.
As of right now, the only subscriptions that aren't expiring are:
- Apple Music
- Ulysses
I don't use Apple TV or Arcade, and I already pay for 2TB storage, so Apple One was useless to me. That's been reduced to Apple Music.
And to be honest, I'm also thinking of unsubscribing from Ulysses. I guess I write a fair bit compared to most people. But I don't do anything complex. I write relatively small markdown files, and upload them to my Ghost blog. And £5.99 a month might be a bit too much for my use case.
Forgetting VSCO, a year of my previous subscriptions would have looked like this:
- Apple One - £239.40 (19.95 monthly)
- Castro - £33.48 (£2.79 monthly)
- Glass - £25.99
- Halide Mark II - £9.99
- Tweetbot - £5.99
- Ulysses - £71.88 (£5.99 monthly)
That's £386.73 in a single year. Admittedly a bit portion of that was going towards Apple One. But even the smaller prices can add up after a while.
And after my adjustments, it sits at just £191.76 yearly:
- Apple Music - £119.88 (9.99 monthly)
- Ulysses - £71.88 (£5.99 monthly)
A big jump, and like I said earlier, it may be slimmed down even further if I decide to move away from Ulysses.
I don't mean to single out these apps as being objectively bad apps. But for me, they just didn't provide enough value to warrant a subscription fee. £5.99 to use a good Twitter app for an entire year doesn't sound particularly bad. But when the app hasn't received an update in 6 months, and there's free options available, you may start to question it.
Maybe other people feel differently. But as much as I think people should be paid fairly for what they produce. It's got to actually provide value to me. So, as much as I appreciate Glass as a platform, if I don't find myself using the app, I'm just wasting money.
I guess that means I'll have to be a bit more cautious when subscribing to new apps and services, and maybe not jump into a yearly fee so soon.
I'll have to analyse and evaluate my other subscriptions at some point, such as Netflix, YouTube, etc. But for now, I can at least say that my outgoings have been slightly decreased.