I’d also be willing to pay for YouTube, if it ever splits from Google.

Definitely not giving Google any money.

The same kind of folks who refused to accept the reality of MP3 and punted Ogg Vorbis.

Is it really worth $13.99 to die on - nope it is not.

That's $13.99/mo, so it's $168/yr or so. I don't even spend that much on games every year. Youtube is stupid if they think I'll pay $14/mo for access to anything.

But how much you spend eating out/DoorDash/Uber Eats in a month ???.

You are mistaken. I may be on the Orange Site, but I am in fact not an entrepreneur or a techbro pulling $100+K/yr. I'm not rich enough to waste money on delivery services.

I recently got mad that the Wendy's biggy bag went to $7 and eat out less because I'm not paying $10+ for a single meal unless it's something I can't (easily) make at home. You can't get Subway for less than $12, and it's a fucking sandwich.

Most of my frivolous spending is on caffeine and THC. If I manage to cut those two out I'd save a bunch but then what would I have fun with? :(

When we switched to WFH during Covid I bought a bean expresso machine as a Nespresso pods really did not do it for me - saved a fuckton of money - now I just need to get an icemaker for making iced coffee in summer.

It has been a decade since we had a TV in our household - it just laptops, tablets, phones and a PS5 for my gamer kid - so it's just Spotify/Youtube for them plus TikTok for downtime.

I rarely watch movies - think Spiderman No Way Home was the last one.

If you can afford it after cutting those two out, YouTube.

What's your local price for weed? Is the hours of entertainment from YouTube not worth a joint or whatever?

No, not really. I don't use Youtube as much as other people. I'm not getting "hours of entertainment" out of it. I don't check out what's recommended to me, I don't follow any influencers or monetized channels, I don't even have a Google account for anything except buying apps on the Play store.

Youtube is a place for me to listen to game OSTs. A weekend with VPN access and the right protocols could make my entire usage of the site obsolete.

Google simply doesn't do anything worthy of my money. Google and all its properties could disappear tomorrow and my personal computing would barely be affected. Same for Microsoft. There are ways to insulate yourself from being treated like a wallet to dip into at will.