guy who came to clean my car has a friend overseas who runs a business around a glitch that lets you bypass Ring's monthly payments while still using the platform. charges a one-off fee and you get a lifetime account without paying. I lol'd hard. couldn't happen to a nicer company.
@gsuberland my brother has one and they make me 😬 so much. The convenience is really useful for him but ugh it gives me the squick
back in Ye Olden Days there were people at the local market that could chip your PS1 or give you an address to write to if you wanted knock-off satellite TV smartcards, and some bloke down the pub who could reflash your cable modem's customer ID to get faster internet for free.
I love that this same cottage grey/black-market industry still exists but for online services now, and people are happy to do it because greedy rentseeking pricks made everything a subscription.
Edited 22h ago
@gsuberland you are forgetting that you are paying with your data that they "anonymously" resell to data brokers.
The subscription fee is just another bonus for them.
@gsuberland LMAOWUT??? People *pay* for Ring? I thought it was something they get for "free" paid in surveillance. 🤡
@dalias it's a monthly subscription on top of the cost of the units and the install fee.
it's batshit.
@dalias not a small fee, either. guy was telling me he got quoted over £1000 for an install, and £60 a month in subscription fees. actual insanity. especially when you consider that the market is now saturated with cheaper alternatives that have the same specs and features, and don't come with quite as awful a reputation for selling surveillance data (although I wouldn't trust any of them regardless).
Edited 22h ago
@gsuberland whaaaaa? I'm on Ring, yeah, I wanna migrate away, but it's like $10/mo or $100/yr for cloud video storage for "unlimited" devices (I haven't pushed the definition of that, we have 5 cameras).
The replacements I'm looking at will have on-site storage (which I hope doesn't get burgled), but the server for that will cost well over its lifetime in subscription fees (part of why I haven't jumped yet).
Cc @dalias
@jeroen oh I'm not forgetting at all
Ring cameras are the fucking devil and you couldn't pay me to install one
(and I still wouldn't touch Ring with a bargepole even if it was free)
@gsuberland The funny thing is, to watch it withdraw in areas where customer friendly services at acceptable prices exist. (E.g. Steam, or the early Netflix.)
@gsuberland ah....I fondly remember my Dbox2, for getting all the Virgin Media/Diamond Cable/NTL channels for free.
Cable modem hacking was fun, too. You just had to find the MAC address of someone with the service tier you wanted on a different UBR, as they only checked for duplicates on the same UBR, and the FTP server gave out a config file based on your MAC address.
Happy days 😀
@WiteWulf ehehehe yeah I remember that too. the old Surfboards.
@gsuberland also: hacking TomToms to get newer maps and software/features on them without paying for a new map pack or subscription
@WiteWulf oh I forgot about that! TomTom Go. that's a name I haven't heard in years
@gsuberland yeah, I had a mate who worked for Clueless & Witless over in Liverpool who turned up with a box of brand new, unregistered surfboard 3100s one weekend.
This was in the days when you'd get a discount off your bill if you bought your own CM rather than "renting" one off them.
@http_error_418 oh they're awful awful devices that should not exist
but lmao at Ring getting screwed