I’m always interested to learn how others use their computers. In that spirit, here’s a list of the services that I find valuable enough to pay for online. I think of it as a few dollars here and there, but with exchange rates it adds up to around $70/month Canadian.

The basics

• Netflix Standard Plan $14/month CAD
  I started with the cheaper “basic” plan, as the “HD” resolution didn’t matter much to me, but with a family of five, we wanted out of the 1-screen at a time limit and bumped up to the “Standard” plan.
• Spotify Premium $10/month CAD
  I got this originally to listen to music while I work, but it soon became a favourite with the kids. We limit screen time, but they can listen to music all they want. Apparently I’m too cheap to pay for the Family or Duo plans, so occasionally the my music will switch from Radiohead to the Frozen soundtrack when the kids get home from school.

Some extras

• BackBlaze Personal Backup $6/month USD
  This keeps a cloud backup of everything on my laptop. Most of my work is already backed-up elsewhere, but my photos and some personal documents weren’t. This is set-it-and-forget-it easy. I haven’t had to rely on it yet, but like most types of insurance, I hope never to have the need.
• Dropbox Plus $10/month USD
  We use Dropbox to share files in the family and to collect and share our family photos from my and my partners’ phones. I also pay the extra $39/year for the “Packrat (unlimited version history)” feature. Otherwise, if you upload a file, and then delete it, after 30 days, it’s gone for good. I don’t need this, but $39 for a reduction existential angst seems fine.
• Feedbin $2/month USD
  RSS feeds didn’t die with Google Reader! I love the Feedbin RSS feed reader service. It works as the backing for a bunch of apps, but lately I’ve found myself just using their fast and simple Web interface. I think the price has gone up to $5/month, which is still a good deal, but I seem to be grandparented-in at $20/year (thanks!).
• Washington Post ~$8/month USD
  I got tired of hitting paywalls while following the disastrous political drama in the US over the last four years. I also wanted to actually pay for some of the people holding politicians to account (as a Canadian, I can’t contribute to better alternative politicians in the US). I started with a cheaper first year, and stuck with it, as the political disaster never ended. I’ve cancelled my subscription for next year, as I find it an unhealthy consumption pattern (checking too often, worrying, not doing anything constructive about the news).
• TorGuard Anonymous VPN $5/month USD
  Sometimes you want to appear like you’re browsing from the US so you can watch a region-limited YouTube video. Sometimes you just want to be more anonymous. I’m looking forward to switching to the Mozilla VPN service when it is available on macOS and Linux.
• The American Values Club crossword $20/year USD
  Born from the ashes of The Onion crossword, which I loved, this is probably the most value I get from anything I pay for online. There’s a new crossword puzzle each week. They’re fun, funny, and sometimes include rude words.

Odds ‘n Ends

While not a regular contribution, I have donated a few dollars to the Slashfilmcast film/tv podcast on occasion as I’m often delighted by their podcast.

I had paid for Amazon Prime for a while, but decided I didn’t need to pay to make it easier to buy things online. Breaking news: I’m back on a free one-month trial around pre-Christmas shopping. I don’t plan to continue it beyond that.

Work stuff

There are also a few services that I get through my work at silverorange. Some of these I might pay for myself if they weren’t covered by my company:

• 1Password Teams $4/month USD
  I was a password-manager skeptic for a long time, having had concerns about creating a central weak link for all accounts. Once we introduced this at work, I was quickly won over by the convenience, especially now that my laptop and phone have fingerprint sensors.
• CodePen Pro $8/month USD
  CodePen is a handy services for prototyping and demo’ing front-end Web development concepts. I find it the quickest and easiest way to quick go from an idea to something working in a Web browser.
• Notion Team $10/month USD
  We use Notion for all of our meeting notes and internal (and soon, some external) documentation at silverorange. It would be overkill for me personally, but since I’ve already got it through my job, I use it to manage drafts for this blog.
• Figma Professional $12/month USD
  My primary design application, after moving through Photoshop to Sketch (both of which we still use and pay for), Figma gives me hope for the future of the Web as the primary application platform.