We have now entered the age of Life-as-a-Service

.. and the story is locked behind paywall that needs a subscription to unlock.

But seriously, those "payment required for smart toothbrush" laments are getting old. Yes, there are people who will happily sell you a smart toothbrush which requires payment. But there are also very good non-smart toothbrushes which need neither payment nor the internet! If you got a smart toothbrush for some reason and don't want to pay, then throw it away and get a dumb one. And if you are getting value of the internet connection, then go use it and stop complaining.

This goes for many other things - if you don't want to pay google to store screenshots, delete them, the button is right there. If your playlist is "20 songs on repeat" , Amazon sells unlocked MP3's now for $1.29, buy them and organize them like we used to. If you don't want to pay hosting provider, self-host.

(There are some cases where subscription is the only choice, but that's not what this post talks about)