this post was submitted on 14 May 2025
567 points (98.6% liked)

Technology

69999 readers
5647 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related news or articles.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 hours ago

nope, nope, nope! buy a business, own it's debt and contracts. CLASS ACTION SUIT!

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

I'm still salty about Cerberus' 'lifetime' subscription

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Me TOO!! i sent emails to support, posted on a google forums thread, this was like what, 13 years ago already?, eventually the thread got deleted, reach out to google support, they told me to take it with them, they never ever replied. so since then i never purchased a "lifetime" of anything

fuck them.

the app was very good though, and while typing this i got myself worked out and realized im still livid

edit: bought cerberus un 2015, got the

Hi xta, Your Cerberus license will expire soon. If you want to continue to use our services please consider buying a license. Click here to buy a license through secure payment! Thank You The Cerberus Team

email on late dec 2019.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 hours ago

I had forgotten about that. Now I'm angry again.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

Hellgate London Lifetime sub owner here. Also lifetime plex pass.

Can pretty much guarantee they will make sure not to honor this. Lifetime subs for things are always a cash grab, if it goes too much in favor of the purchaser they will find ways to make the deal better for them.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

What happened to plex’s lifetime sub?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 20 minutes ago* (last edited 18 minutes ago)

It's not that it's gone, it's that the platform continues to enshittify.

It's really hard to remove all their bloatware garbage, and features seem to get worse all the time. Subtitles had a big change and they really don't do a good job of supporting them anymore, as an example. Had one show that no matter what I did the subtitles just wouldn't work after updating to a modern version that had the modern 'updated' subtitle handling. I've continued to update but it's still questionable.

When I got it they never had 'ad supported plex tv', now they do and they promote it everywhere. All I want to do is keep supporting what they have, newer modern codecs, squash bugs, and act as a crappy dynamic dns so I can not setup a domain that goes to my home network connection which is a dynamic ip.

What I don't want is to have to go into settings to disable or hide all their garbage ad revenue supported services everywhere in my private media library I paid a lifetime license fee for. It didn't have that advertisement when I bought it, they shouldn't be adding it afterwards, and I shouldn't have to keep updating my config just to stay on a version that supports evolving hardware.

I tried Jellyfin but it's even worse for subtitles which are unfortunately mandatory in my household.

Edit: this literally just popped up in my lemmy feed. https://lemm.ee/post/63954487

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 hours ago

Still there

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Hell yeah, diablo with guns.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Yep, two years before Borderlands delivered a much superior experience.

At the time I had spent six years playing EverQuest, Ultima Online, Anarchy Online and World of Warcraft in various capacities, and this was looking like an MMO borderlands like thing. Few MMOs had gone under so soon after release.

Apparently the same devs are making a sequel, and I think i'll make sure to pirate it unless they give it away to lifetime Hellgate London subscribers.

Nowadays I know better than to trust any kind of weird offer like this announced before launch. They'd only do it if they knew they were going to win... or were so worried they were going to go under.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 hours ago

Yeah it was a different time. The gameplay was solid though imo.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 9 hours ago (3 children)

Why would anyone be stupid enough to not honor them? Now, even if they backtrack, their name is mud. It's so stupid.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

I mean it seems to happen pretty often. The Curiosity Nebula mess, Crunchyroll had a $10 for the lifetime of your account thing but when Sony bought them they started messing with it. Even Google tried it with Google App domains free tier which they promised for life. I think everyone said fu to the buyout and just waited for the class action until Google blinked at the last minute.

I assume Plex will find a way to start charging lifetime purchasers any day now.

At this point I look for them just to see what sort of train wreck it'll turn into.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 hours ago

Especially when we are talking about VPNs. The reason so many companies are sprouting out of the ground to offer VPNs is because the margin they have is huge.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Damn straight. I never heard of this company before but you can bet your life I will never do business with them.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

They will just change their name in 6 months. They all just get bought and sold non stop so you cant research if they are good or not. Kind of like those one apartments near a college that always change names and colors to trick freshmen into leasing with them.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 9 hours ago

It’s BS they didn’t know about it. They got the financials before the deal. Even if it wasn’t directly listed as a line item it would have been a part of the expenses.

They still thought the deal was worth doing as it was based on incoming revenue and outgoing expenses.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

This is going to be Plex Pass in a few years if Plex sells out even more

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 hours ago

I’ve had a lifetime Plex pass for many years. I have converted completely over to Jellyfin after trying it.

It’s more involved to set up for secure remote access, but once in place it is so much smoother to use.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 hours ago

This is why the first question is, is it open source?

[–] [email protected] 133 points 15 hours ago (3 children)

This is also why if you hit the lottery, you should take the discounted upfront cash payout, and not get it paid in an annual annuity for 20 years. You never know if the government is suddenly going become moral about gambling, and cancel all lottery payments.

Take the money and run.

[–] [email protected] 69 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

To be fair, it's best to not participate in the lottery.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 14 hours ago (3 children)

True but that is a situation that doesn't really apply very often in the "if you hit the lottery" situation mentioned in the post you replied to.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 42 points 15 hours ago

Also because that lump sum is all there is. If you take the annuity they put the lump sum into an investment account and then pay you out of the proceeds (from which they take a cut, of course), and you can get the same returns they get, without losing their cut, doing it yourself.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 14 hours ago (6 children)

Absolutely. However, if you are not the best with money, or on the irresponsible side; it might be best to take the annuity. Mathematically it makes no sense to do so, but if it stops you from blowing it all on hookers and coke in two years then its for the best. In other words, if you having it all is riskier than the state keeping track of it.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

Even if you're bad with money, take the lump sum and go get a fiduciary advisor to handle it and give you a regular payout. Being a fiduciary advisor is important since it means they are legally obligated to work to the benefit of your money, not lining their pockets. Using something like a trust is another good way to protect you from yourself.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 hours ago

I mean more like someone who is irresponsible and maybe dumb. I was trying to be polite. Someone that doesnt even know what a fidicuary is.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] [email protected] 105 points 16 hours ago (2 children)

I learned my lesson about “lifetime” thanks to SiriusXM.

When Howard Stern got lured to SiriusXM they offered a deal where you buy the receiver and pay $500 for a lifetime subscription with unlimited transfers to different receivers. Fat forward to 2017ish when I bought my last car that had the receiver built into the radio and tried to transfer to the new one. I was told that was the last time I would be able to do that and in the future I’d be paying a $75 transfer fee and be forced into a monthly subscription.

Lifetime is a hoax.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 hours ago

This may be your lucky day then! You can likely use that lifetime sub now!

I did the Sirius lifetime deal a few years offered before the one you did (in 2003 I think?). At the time they called it the "Friends and Family" promotion. It was only $300 at the time for lifetime sub, and they gave you the hardware for free. I'm still using that same lifetime sub today.

I was told that was the last time I would be able to do that and in the future I’d be paying a $75 transfer fee and be forced into a monthly subscription.

This was absolutely true this was the rules at one point. However there was a rule change (via lawsuit maybe?) that allows UNLIMITED TRANSFERS and the fee is only $35/transfer. Its even on the SiriusXM website FAQ:

"Please note: You may transfer an active Lifetime Subscription to another radio an unlimited number of times. For each permitted transfer of a Lifetime Subscription, you will be charged a $35 transfer fee, and the transfer must be effectuated through your Online Account." source

Your account is likely still alive with your name on it! Contact them and get back into it!

Further, back when you and I bought our lifetime subs the SiriusXM streaming service didn't exist. It is actually pretty robust now. With your lifetime sub (even without it being on a vehicle), you have full access to unlimited commercial free streaming in their best quality bitrate (there was a time that they offered reduced bitrates for lifetime users but that's gone now too).

For me, because of a further discount I only paid $230 for my lifetime sub because I got a credit for my previous monthly service and I've now had it for over 22 years. So if you do the math, I'm paying 87 cents per month for full in-car and streaming SiriusXM. Lifetime deal was SO worth it!

[–] [email protected] 115 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

Lifetime is a hoax.

No, it's fraud.

The difference is that one is a funny joke and the other is a criminal act that ought to land corporate executives in prison, if the US weren't an oligarchy too corrupt to prosecute.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 hours ago (4 children)

Is this even legal? I mean people paid for the lifetime version.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

If the new owners purchased the assets, name, and technology and not the company itself, then it's beholden on the remains of the old company to honour the deal... Good luck with that.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 hours ago

Which is a problem of the legal system around it.

Within most(or all) EU countries this would count as a continuation of business and all previous liabilities (e.g. employees contracts, customers contracts, etc.) would need to be honored.

Why it is done this way? To prevent people from doing exact that.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

How many people start companies, rack up a bunch of debt, then create another company that buys everything except the debt?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 hours ago

This is the exact reason GM still exists.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 hours ago

NOW you're getting it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 hours ago

They should be refunded tbh.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 362 points 21 hours ago (11 children)
load more comments (11 replies)
[–] [email protected] 84 points 19 hours ago

Yes, name and shame the suckers already in the headline so they get what they deserve! VPN SECURE , yeah, right.

load more comments
view more: next ›