No, most definitely not. I'm not talking about the sum (although we have to talk about it too), I'm talking about the recurrent obligation.
> for the most part these aren’t strictly subscriptions since you pay for what you use
which is where the obligation comes in. I prefer setups where I show up with a sum of cash in my hands and I can go home and use up whatever I bought. The utilities have an idea about what I might be using going forward so they set a price point for me to pay up for; each year there's a round of reckoning where I get back money or have to pay extra (Ukraine War -> both gas and electricity get more expensive), and they set a new price point for me. I cannot influence that in any meaningful way; should prices soar, I'm left with swallowing it or terminate the contract altogether. I could live by candle light (in theory) and use computers with a hand crank and battery setup (in theory), but I cannot save energy now and be the master of my expenses, now. When I was a kid we did have an electricity gauge with a coin slot in the vacation apartment but that's fifty years ago. Something like that would be great. I manage to use my phone like that, and my cooking gas; now that we all must have smart meters, I want the same for electricity too. Toss a coin, get some light, stay out of subscription, great.