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> I'm even getting my cooking gas as 'prepaid' (i.e. I buy bottles) and I wish I could do the same with electricity and so on. Gas and electricity do have smal

> I'm even getting my cooking gas as 'prepaid' (i.e. I buy bottles) and I wish I could do the same with electricity and so on. Gas and electricity do have small fixed components (“hookup fees”) but for the most part these aren’t strictly subscriptions since you pay for what you use. > So I'm totally fine with getting a gift card or whatever you call those thingies in the supermarket where you can throw a lump (20€, 50€) at some provider (Google Play, whatever) and then get to eat up that amount (over the course of at least one year, hopefully). So you are okay with subscriptions as long as they won’t charge you more than X? You might like privacy.com. They let you create credit cards with unique codes and defined spending limits. You don’t need to worry about cancelling anything since your billing just won’t go through after a certain amount is spent.

DemocracyFTW2 3y ago
> So you are okay with subscriptions as long as they won’t charge you more than X? 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.
- chadash 3y ago
  You can 100% do this in many states. But solar, create your own energy and the state will force the electricity company to buy the excess capacity away from you.
  - DemocracyFTW2 3y ago
    I don't live in the states and it's not a regulatory but a technical problem, living in a rented flat that has hardly a good spot for a PV panel to hang to...

DemocracyFTW2 3y ago

> So you are okay with subscriptions as long as they won’t charge you more than X? 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.

chadash 3y ago
You can 100% do this in many states. But solar, create your own energy and the state will force the electricity company to buy the excess capacity away from you.
- DemocracyFTW2 3y ago
  I don't live in the states and it's not a regulatory but a technical problem, living in a rented flat that has hardly a good spot for a PV panel to hang to...