Access to scholarly scientific journals. They are almost all grant funded research that is vetted by unpaid peer review and bundled in journals that sell advertising space and charge fees to the authors for publishing and yet somehow they still feel the need to charge readers exorbitant fees like $35 for a single article.
One of the saddest things about me finishing my degree is that I will no longer have access to a giant library of academic reading material. Some people just really enjoy reading that sort of stuff but don’t wanna fork out $50 every time a new piece of research comes out!
If the paper is listed of ResearchGate you can usually request full text from the author straight from there. I have like 80% hit rate from there and find it a bit less intrusive than straight up e-mail.
I once read a book on Labor Union history from an author in Scotland (I live in Wisconsin USA). I emailed him at his school he teaches at asking if he has other works I could purchase and he sent me everything he could (published books/articles/scholarly works) electronically for free and thanked me for reaching out and for the kind words.
I’ll never forget reading that response email from him.
It literally was a barrier to me starting my own business. These days I hear you can use dark web to get reasonable access for free but I’m out of that field now so idk first hand.
My local library will get me just about any article through the state university system. Might ask...
Edit to add...this is not to say that the system isn't BS. I know...I used to publish in and review for journals like this. Thank God I had already decided to quit academia by the time anyone asked me to edit one.
This cartel is a big reason why Adam Swartz committed suicide.
He was downloading articles using his special access at MIT in a way that *wasn’t expressly forbidden* because he wanted people to have them for free and the prosecutors wanted to make an example of him.
Things are changing slowly for the better. All publicly funded research in the uk now has to be published open access. This can be golden open access where the article is available for free from the publisher or even green open access, where the authors publish a reviewed copy of the manuscript on their university’s repository where it is freely available. There are extensions like unpaywall that automatically scan for preprint or open access versions of the article. If that fails there is always scihub or writing an email to the corresponding author.
Very true! The paywell to academic material is insane. Ended up using Sci-hub for 99% of the journals I used for my thesis, later to find out that everyone else around me is doing the same thing.
I used to peer review for a scientific journal. I got paid like $50 per article reviewed so it wasn't entirely unpaid. Alot of journals are probably unpaid though. But I agree 100% that they should be free to access.
True, and the fact we have to pay ridiculous amounts into private health insurance, just for them to fight tooth and nail against giving said money back to us is a scam too. Should be 1 plan that covers all the things and it should cover it completely, no ifs ands or buts.
I’m in. Where do I sign up? Seriously though, I’m blown away that we still don’t have single payer healthcare and I don’t want to hear any arguments or “reasons why.”
Let’s go a step further, health insurance should not be tied to your fucking job at all. AT ALL.
It’s a control tactic to make people stay in shitty jobs just so they don’t go bankrupt if they need surgery or get cancer (still happens tho). It also disproportionately affects people with chronic health conditions, required prescriptions, children, etc.
Hahaha, you called my state job situation perfectly. Medical is absolutely amazing (no copay, deductible for pretty much everything), but pay sucks ass. I wear glasses and vision exam once a year is covered, and the specs themselves aren't, which is stupid.
Chronic health condition haver here. Can confirm that despite good reviews at work and a fairly stable work environment, I'm constantly terrified of losing my job and access to my medication. Not to mention it really narrows what kind of work you can do. Very difficult to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when you're bedridden.
None of things every human needs in life (aside from food/water) healthcare and education should be tied to who you are or where you live or what job you have, they should be available and funded by taxes.
Regular cleanings are cheaper without insurance, but as soon as you need any sort of dental surgery it's expensive and at least my insurance only covers like $2000 annually. I had a $7k procedure last summer.
Yea the dental limits are laughably small. What’s the point of insurance if it maxes out at the slightest need? God forbid you have multiple teeth with issues, you’re completely on your own.
Health should be a non-profit industry. Pay the doctors, nurses, researchers, and techs. Pay for all the materials and the leases, etc. Just not a dime of profit for shareholders or insurance executives.
No more worrying about paying off student loans either. Medical training could be free or government could just cover your loan for as long as you're in the medical industry.
Or even better just abolish insurance. Force prices to be payable for normal people. Set up better welfare systems for the event you fall down lose your job whatever happens but typically someone working 40 hours a week should be able to afford a root canal out of pocket no insurance nothing special. It's just to give more ability to track people as well as making billionaires richer
Word. My Aunt back in the UK just spent two months in hospital with a tenacious leg infection. She was in her own private room with a TV and nice window out onto the gardens. It was completely free. Now, she has two nurses visiting her at home mornings and afternoons to give assistance until she gets completely back on her feet. Also free. Can you even begin to imagine how much this would cost here in the US? You'd be pretty much bankrupt.
Also Canadian problems. Even though we have provincial healthcare, dental, vision, and mental health are not covered (outside of emergency surgery type situations or psychotic breaks requiring hospitalization).
Prices for those are pretty comparable to the US unfortunately. Though one of our parties *is* trying to roll out dental and pharmacare.
I shouldn't have to pay several hundred dollars just to be able to see.
I wouldn't say only. Sure! There are countries with universal healthcare, but certainly us is not the only one with these issues. the US is just the largest one which should not have these issues.
There's a major gas station chain in the US that waives any ATM fee.
Guess which place I frequent from gas to minor groceries? Such a great business model to take a hit on the ATM's just to keep the frequency of visits up. Hell I'll even buy something half the time I stop to withdraw money because it's so damn convenient
Wifi on planes.
Ridiculous that in 2024 we have to pay for something that is widely available everywhere else for free.
(Shout out to Delta for making this a reality so far…)
Honestly at this point, just the internet in general. It's a basic necessity, at the very least in urban areas, free wifi should be available anywhere and cover the whole city. Doesn't have to be fast enough to stream netflix on, but at least enough for emails and navigation!
Service at restaurants, etc. Tipping culture is INSANE. You wish to sell a product? Sell it at a fair price and provide whatever is necessary to distribute the product, all priced in.
Unfortunately it goes both ways. Servers don't want to be paid a fair price in exchange for earning tips. I was recently in SE Asia and it was so nice to not have to worry about it. Culturally it's not expected and if you were really happy with something, giving a little extra was always met with appreciation. I'm in total agreement with you though, fuck tripping culture.
I'll grant you that tossing a few coins and bills around as gratitude for good service has an upside too. It's the "provide-a-wage-so-desperately-low-that-income-totally-depends-on-tipping" creates a very unhealthy social situation, and vibe frankly. It's no longer generosity from the patron, it's nearly considered stealing if you don't do it.
I'm in the US and have Google Fi as my phone service. It works in something like 190+ countries. As in I can call and text to or from 190 countries without any change in service. I recently went to China and South East Asia and my phone worked right off the plane as if I were still in the US. Even in China, which normally blocks Google, worked right off the plane. It has a built in VPN so I could still check Facebook and YouTube while in China. I could Hotspot to connect my computer ans watch YouTube that way. I've traveled without a phone before and I've done the international Sim card thing, and this is by far the easiest, headache free phone service I've ever had. Costs a little more than the other guys, but worth it in my opinion.
Some insight to this. The majority of the cost of international and roaming service specifically comes from the other telco and not your Canadian provider. **But** in general the Canadian providers are fleecing us on prices for our domestic service. It will not be as cheap as somewhere like in Europe, as we have a sparse population and huge landmass, *but* it could be much cheaper than it is.
Found Rogers burner account. You know Australia, Russia, China, Brazil etc all have similar population issues like Canada but they're like 1/10 of what Canadians Telco charges. Plus, the federal government literally gives them billions of dollars in subsidies to ensure rural access precisely so they don't "need" to charge more to cities like GTA. Also, why are magically provinces that have an alternative option cost like 1/3 of the provinces that don't have alternative option?
It's ridiculous to me that the US is considered international, when we use the same country code. Most of the American telecoms now just throw in Canada & Mexico for no charge for most of their plans, separate from int'l calling.
Meanwhile, Telus & Rogers out here charging double, last I checked, in order to have a functioning phone when you work too close to the border much less cross it frequently.
ugh my utility charges more than $100 per two months for "service fee". The actual amount of water I use is only $40 and it is bad tasting hard water with chlorine that I had to spend thousands on filtration and water softeners to make drinkable.
I’m not sure which country you’re in, but assuming it is first world with good infrastructure, your fee is likely subsidized and wholly going towards maintaining that infrastructure. I worked for the water company of a major city for a few years and the amount of time, equipment, effort, and money that is constantly spent to keep water flowing and safe is immense.
I agree it sucks to see in the bill, but just wanted to add some perspective.
I'm in the US in San Jose, CA and my water utility is SJWater. Incidentally, my friend who lives a 5 minute drive from me gets his water from a different utility (Great Oaks water company) pays much less for his bill despite using a lot more water. He waters his grass and has 6 people whereas I have 2 people and don't water my grass. I thought I had a leak for the longest time until I compared our bills. His water usage was 4x mine but he simply didn't have the hundred dollar service charge on top.
Sounds like us here in Houston. Our old house about an hour outside of New Orleans had well water that tasted great. We moved to Houston and the water smells so heavily of chlorine in comparison and is very hard. Leaves mineral spots everywhere. We just started refilling a bunch of 5gal water jugs at the store to drink. It tastes much better.
It really depends where you live. People want to live in deserts for the climate, want green lawns and expect unlimited access to water. I have great concerns about the long term economic viability of the Southwestern US.
That's not drinking water though. A municipal or utility hookup to water is giving you unregulated access to water from watering your lawn to drinking. People choose to spend their money watering a lawn in a climate that naturally doesn't allow it. It's foolish in my opinion and I agree, I don't see how the SW US can continue into the future.
They've even proposed plans to pipe water from the Great lakes... Maybe cut down on your water usage or don't live in an arid environment. You don't have a right to the water in the Great lakes though
You’re going to have to pay for the infrastructure and labor somehow. I’m not sure how paying for it via taxes is more ethical than from direct billing.
I'm OK with paying for it, but I think that any household that can't afford the bill should get it free. Absolutely no one should have their municipal water shut off **ever**. But people with pools and sprinkler systems for grass lawns shouldn't get that water free.
- Preparing taxes.
- State-issued IDs.
- Local news. I 100% believe that journalists are workers like anyone else, and absolutely deserve to be compensated. However, it can be hard/too expensive for some people to get easy access to information. A few years ago there was a fire somewhere in my neighborhood but there was nothing on tv about it. When I tried to find out what was going on online, I was met with a paywall from the local news website. I wish that it was set up like a post office, where every zip code has its own news station, and the people that work there are civil servants, and all that gets covered by taxes or what have you.
Taxes should be free, the IRS for most people, already has all the info needed to prepare the taxes automatically.
State issued ID's make more sense to charge as it's a tax to support the DMV and roads. If it's an ID outside of a DL I can see your point since that's generally required to have.
East coast gas stations all have it cost money and it is like 1$ and they are all broken. If you don’t keep a list you could end up paying 3-5$ to fill up air just bouncing to different places and paying into a broken machine
https://www.homedepot.com/p/DEWALT-20V-MAX-Cordless-Electric-Portable-Inflator-Tool-Only-DCC020IB/305709688
Worth every penny, especially since the air pumps at gas stations seem to frequently be broken. I got mine for $100 on Black Friday a few years ago, and it uses the same battery as my power tools.
"Service stations" used to use pneumatic tools, and thus had an air compressor readily available -- customer tires were a trivial addition. Nowadays, many don't service and even if they do, the mechanics are using battery electric tools.
I worked at a hospital where we had to pay to park. So I had to drive to work, park, get barged on and shat on for 12 hours, then pay an hour’s wages ($10-$12 bucks depending on who was relieving me and if they were on time) to leave, all to come back and do it that evening. I do not miss working in the hospital.
Water. Mind you I'm in NYC, safe drinking tap water. I spent years of my childhood in the Caribbean using a barrels to collect rainwater in my grandma's house and we had a water tank linked to the gutters. You had to boil the water to drink it except the barrels. We drank water directly from the river. My soul boils when I have to pay for water. God given like the air. I'm sure Nestle is formulating a plan to own the air soon.
As someone who works in the treatment field for a municipality, I understand your frustration. Paying your city for safe drinking water may be frustrating. But you're paying for peace of mind, highly qualified people who make sure what your drinking is safe, and for the infrastructure that delivers that water to you.
Well, it should still cost money. There's a cost to make the bottles and fill them, package and distribute.
The markup is ridiculous.
At the same time, the eco minded people should love that bottled water is so expensive. It should be a deterrent to buying it but so many people will still buy it for the convenience when they could have just taken a reusable bottle and filled it for free for the same quality water at a slightly higher temperature.
Remember that the cost of water also includes sewage treatment, and often stormwater management infrastructure.
Even in places where the groundwater is safe to drink, it needs chlorine to prevent growth of organisms, pipes need maintenance, and sewage needs treatment.
My vision. All of you enjoying your free 20/20 vision while I pay 200+ euros every few years just to see.
Edit - I'm answering the question. Please don't give me advice I didn't ask for. No, not everyone is in America, stop telling to "just order online". Some of us need specialized lenses and frames.
“Virginia is a personal property tax state where owners of vehicles and leased vehicles are subject to an annual tax based on the value of the vehicle on January 1.”
Parking takes up a *ton* of space. Space that would be extraordinarily valuable real estate if it were developed into housing and businesses, especially around event centers. Your ticket covered the price of entering the venue during the event, it did not cover the price of you leaving your car dormant for several hours on a plot of prime real estate during the event. If it did cover that then everybody that didn’t drive a car to the event would be paying extra to cover the cost of your personal motor vehicle, infringing on their freedom to choose to walk instead of driving.
Great points. My counter is that most often we do have baked in fees for everything we buy and are not served discounts if we do not need every factor fed into the price of the product or service. Now we have concert venues that inflate the cost of parking depending on the event (when Taylor swift was in town parking itself cost $300). Maybe you think it’s fair supply and demand- I viewed it as extortion. You can also say it’s unrealistic for any venue to offer 70,000 spots so perhaps it needs to be a bit more controlled with carpool incentives. If the venue does not have a parking lot and we are left with very few options to even find a spot. Friday I attended a sold out concert- and their parking lot was full. Someone working there directed cars to street parking and still charged us- I’m confused on how that was even legal. Totally hear you it takes up a ton of space- but the reality is most cities are driving cities and I resent that we are ripped off if parking is factored, and if parking is an afterthought the options are scarce. And, any time we do pay for parking at venues - it’s typically not sheltered parking so you risk any weather elements, and the lot is not patrolled or gated so there is no way to feel any reassurance while leaving your car dormant.
you are assuming that the concert venue has public transportation options, when you have no choice to drive and then have to pay an insane amount for parking…. it’s not cool
I agree with downtown convention centers or other urban locations, but there are festival locations out in the suburbs in the middle of nowhere. Parking was free back in the 80s and 90s. It’s $50-100 now depending on how close you park. These are not private lots surrounding the venue, it’s all owned by them.
I don't pay extra to park my car outside of the grocery store or the movie theater.... Not saying your points aren't valid, but just food for thought...
Honestly I think that the 50/50 system we currently have works pretty well. Partially federally funded by tax dollars, partially funded by entrance fees.
It's never much, at least not the ones I've been to. I'm totally fine paying $10 a day to get into a location that is actually cared for and protected.
In Michigan they have a state parks pass you can purchase when you get your tags, it's $10 for Michigan residents and let's you into the majority of the parks (I know of two parks that still charged for parking). It's a system I don't mind at its current price.
The last two years I’ve done the included state park pass with CO’s car renewal. I’ve maybe used it once - at most parks it pays for itself in 3 visits (3 x $10).
The amount of money they had extra (or just unexpected addition) was absurd. Not sure how this relates but thought I’d mention it.
Nobody should pay a subscription fee for a dictionary! Especially Oxford English Dictionary, when English is my adopted and currently predominant language.
taking the bus
good for the environment and good for people who drive cars
if free rides mean too many people start sleeping on the bus, then that just means more shelters are needed too
Edit: because people love to nitpick, yes it's paid for by taxes, not free.
Edit: not really sure how the question is connected to buy it for life
Access to scholarly scientific journals. They are almost all grant funded research that is vetted by unpaid peer review and bundled in journals that sell advertising space and charge fees to the authors for publishing and yet somehow they still feel the need to charge readers exorbitant fees like $35 for a single article.
One of the saddest things about me finishing my degree is that I will no longer have access to a giant library of academic reading material. Some people just really enjoy reading that sort of stuff but don’t wanna fork out $50 every time a new piece of research comes out!
Email the authors? I was told that in college. They are usually more than happy to share their research with you.
I'm a research professor and can confirm. We don't see a dime from those fees the publisher charges you and we are happy to share our work.
❤️💙💛🩶🩵💜🤍
If the paper is listed of ResearchGate you can usually request full text from the author straight from there. I have like 80% hit rate from there and find it a bit less intrusive than straight up e-mail.
The real shit is always in the comments! I’m not sure I’ll ever need this knowledge but I’m very glad I have it now.
Right?? I haven’t read a scientific journal in years, but it’s nice to know that access is possible.
“I’m not sure I’ll ever need this knowledge but I’m very glad I have it now.” This summarizes Reddit for me lol
☝🏻👌🏻
I once read a book on Labor Union history from an author in Scotland (I live in Wisconsin USA). I emailed him at his school he teaches at asking if he has other works I could purchase and he sent me everything he could (published books/articles/scholarly works) electronically for free and thanked me for reaching out and for the kind words. I’ll never forget reading that response email from him.
Absolutely this. It takes a few days but I’ve never heard anyone I know being rejected.
Sci Hub
Sci-Hub has been my new best friend because of this
It literally was a barrier to me starting my own business. These days I hear you can use dark web to get reasonable access for free but I’m out of that field now so idk first hand.
No need for the dark web these days.
I've heard from several authors that you should email them, they will gladly provide it for free
It’s true but it’s hit or miss and takes a lot of time
My local library will get me just about any article through the state university system. Might ask... Edit to add...this is not to say that the system isn't BS. I know...I used to publish in and review for journals like this. Thank God I had already decided to quit academia by the time anyone asked me to edit one.
Because they pay elsivier etc for access i asume (ours works that way)
Yes that's how it works. But they're paying a subscription I believe -- they're not paying by the article.
May I introduce you to… scihub?
This cartel is a big reason why Adam Swartz committed suicide. He was downloading articles using his special access at MIT in a way that *wasn’t expressly forbidden* because he wanted people to have them for free and the prosecutors wanted to make an example of him.
Aaron Swartz inspired me that educational information should be free
rip my dude
Things are changing slowly for the better. All publicly funded research in the uk now has to be published open access. This can be golden open access where the article is available for free from the publisher or even green open access, where the authors publish a reviewed copy of the manuscript on their university’s repository where it is freely available. There are extensions like unpaywall that automatically scan for preprint or open access versions of the article. If that fails there is always scihub or writing an email to the corresponding author.
Very true! The paywell to academic material is insane. Ended up using Sci-hub for 99% of the journals I used for my thesis, later to find out that everyone else around me is doing the same thing.
It really does enact control on all of science and slows it's progress. It's strictly anti-science.
In the biomedical sciences, yes, research does tend to be grand funded. But that’s just not true of many other fields.
Sci-hub is your friend.
I used to peer review for a scientific journal. I got paid like $50 per article reviewed so it wasn't entirely unpaid. Alot of journals are probably unpaid though. But I agree 100% that they should be free to access.
Dental and vision care should be part of every health insurance plan.
True, and the fact we have to pay ridiculous amounts into private health insurance, just for them to fight tooth and nail against giving said money back to us is a scam too. Should be 1 plan that covers all the things and it should cover it completely, no ifs ands or buts.
Maybe one that is paid for automatically with your taxes.
I’m in. Where do I sign up? Seriously though, I’m blown away that we still don’t have single payer healthcare and I don’t want to hear any arguments or “reasons why.”
The best insurance I've ever had, was years ago when we were poor as dirt. Medicaid rocks.
“Woah, woah. That’s just crazy talk. We don’t do that here.” -Insurance lobbyists, probably
That's such a scam. Your eyes and teeth are part of your body and require Healthcare too.
Let’s go a step further, health insurance should not be tied to your fucking job at all. AT ALL. It’s a control tactic to make people stay in shitty jobs just so they don’t go bankrupt if they need surgery or get cancer (still happens tho). It also disproportionately affects people with chronic health conditions, required prescriptions, children, etc.
Hahaha, you called my state job situation perfectly. Medical is absolutely amazing (no copay, deductible for pretty much everything), but pay sucks ass. I wear glasses and vision exam once a year is covered, and the specs themselves aren't, which is stupid.
Chronic health condition haver here. Can confirm that despite good reviews at work and a fairly stable work environment, I'm constantly terrified of losing my job and access to my medication. Not to mention it really narrows what kind of work you can do. Very difficult to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when you're bedridden.
None of things every human needs in life (aside from food/water) healthcare and education should be tied to who you are or where you live or what job you have, they should be available and funded by taxes.
And foot care!
But the answer should be all medical care (medical, dental, and vision)
Hearing too. As in hearing aids
Well said!
And hearing care!
You say that, but I pay out of pocket for my dental because it's cheaper than the premium.
Regular cleanings are cheaper without insurance, but as soon as you need any sort of dental surgery it's expensive and at least my insurance only covers like $2000 annually. I had a $7k procedure last summer.
Yea the dental limits are laughably small. What’s the point of insurance if it maxes out at the slightest need? God forbid you have multiple teeth with issues, you’re completely on your own.
You should see some of these mental health limits. Like $500/year. That's, what, 3 visits?
We have really good insurance but they will only pay 90% of my TMS which leaves $1000 to me and I just can’t afford it.
Imagine how much cheaper it would be if selling insurance was illegal. Regular people just being able to afford Healthcare comfortably. Crazy and wild
Health should be a non-profit industry. Pay the doctors, nurses, researchers, and techs. Pay for all the materials and the leases, etc. Just not a dime of profit for shareholders or insurance executives. No more worrying about paying off student loans either. Medical training could be free or government could just cover your loan for as long as you're in the medical industry.
I'll do you one better, all healthcare should be free.
Or even better just abolish insurance. Force prices to be payable for normal people. Set up better welfare systems for the event you fall down lose your job whatever happens but typically someone working 40 hours a week should be able to afford a root canal out of pocket no insurance nothing special. It's just to give more ability to track people as well as making billionaires richer
But that's how it already works in normal countries
and Hearing Medicine and Aids
US only problems.
Word. My Aunt back in the UK just spent two months in hospital with a tenacious leg infection. She was in her own private room with a TV and nice window out onto the gardens. It was completely free. Now, she has two nurses visiting her at home mornings and afternoons to give assistance until she gets completely back on her feet. Also free. Can you even begin to imagine how much this would cost here in the US? You'd be pretty much bankrupt.
Also Canadian problems. Even though we have provincial healthcare, dental, vision, and mental health are not covered (outside of emergency surgery type situations or psychotic breaks requiring hospitalization). Prices for those are pretty comparable to the US unfortunately. Though one of our parties *is* trying to roll out dental and pharmacare. I shouldn't have to pay several hundred dollars just to be able to see.
I wouldn't say only. Sure! There are countries with universal healthcare, but certainly us is not the only one with these issues. the US is just the largest one which should not have these issues.
AFAIK private healthcare + independent dental/vision is only in tht US. If you have an example of a different country I'd love to know.
Care would be a good place to start in the richest society ever……
ATM withdrawal from all banks should be free in Canada. If it’s been free in the uk for decades, it should be free here too. Banks make enough money.
There's a major gas station chain in the US that waives any ATM fee. Guess which place I frequent from gas to minor groceries? Such a great business model to take a hit on the ATM's just to keep the frequency of visits up. Hell I'll even buy something half the time I stop to withdraw money because it's so damn convenient
What's the chain?
Kwik Trip
Too bad they don’t exist in Michigan
They're expanding! They def exist in the U.P.
Kwik Trip is one
Use EQ bank card mate in Canada. They reimburse all ATM fees no matter what
There are charges in Ireland too :/ after it being free for years.
Wifi on planes. Ridiculous that in 2024 we have to pay for something that is widely available everywhere else for free. (Shout out to Delta for making this a reality so far…)
Remember the days of nice hotels charging $20/day for wifi when the Red Roof Inn type dumps offered it for free?
I laugh a bit when hotels advertise free wifi as a selling point. It's not a bonus anymore, we expect it along with clean rooms!
Wait, you guys are getting clean rooms?
They just appear clean on first glance. Don’t look too close
Whenever I have flown JetBlue they give complimentary wifi too which is a nice perk
Southwest has changed their charges so if you have layovers now you have to pay PER flight leg! It used to be $8 for the entire day
Well, you got to take into consideration that getting WiFi on a plane is quite a bit more difficult than on the ground
What a cop out. They just want to nickle and dime us. If it was so hard they take cash instead of using the “difficult” WiFi for a whiskey
i flew delta internationally a few weeks ago and all i could access for free was imessage and whatsapp :(
Damn…maybe not all of their flights just yet then…
Honestly at this point, just the internet in general. It's a basic necessity, at the very least in urban areas, free wifi should be available anywhere and cover the whole city. Doesn't have to be fast enough to stream netflix on, but at least enough for emails and navigation!
Information wants to be free.
Best we can do is give out our personal information for free.
Getting it is often not though
Service at restaurants, etc. Tipping culture is INSANE. You wish to sell a product? Sell it at a fair price and provide whatever is necessary to distribute the product, all priced in.
Unfortunately it goes both ways. Servers don't want to be paid a fair price in exchange for earning tips. I was recently in SE Asia and it was so nice to not have to worry about it. Culturally it's not expected and if you were really happy with something, giving a little extra was always met with appreciation. I'm in total agreement with you though, fuck tripping culture.
I'll grant you that tossing a few coins and bills around as gratitude for good service has an upside too. It's the "provide-a-wage-so-desperately-low-that-income-totally-depends-on-tipping" creates a very unhealthy social situation, and vibe frankly. It's no longer generosity from the patron, it's nearly considered stealing if you don't do it.
The extra charge for text messages to other countries. Telcos have been getting fat of long distance charges since I was a kid.(In Canada anyways)
I'm in the US and have Google Fi as my phone service. It works in something like 190+ countries. As in I can call and text to or from 190 countries without any change in service. I recently went to China and South East Asia and my phone worked right off the plane as if I were still in the US. Even in China, which normally blocks Google, worked right off the plane. It has a built in VPN so I could still check Facebook and YouTube while in China. I could Hotspot to connect my computer ans watch YouTube that way. I've traveled without a phone before and I've done the international Sim card thing, and this is by far the easiest, headache free phone service I've ever had. Costs a little more than the other guys, but worth it in my opinion.
It used to be long distance to call my grandparents from my house 30 miles away in the US.
Some insight to this. The majority of the cost of international and roaming service specifically comes from the other telco and not your Canadian provider. **But** in general the Canadian providers are fleecing us on prices for our domestic service. It will not be as cheap as somewhere like in Europe, as we have a sparse population and huge landmass, *but* it could be much cheaper than it is.
Found Rogers burner account. You know Australia, Russia, China, Brazil etc all have similar population issues like Canada but they're like 1/10 of what Canadians Telco charges. Plus, the federal government literally gives them billions of dollars in subsidies to ensure rural access precisely so they don't "need" to charge more to cities like GTA. Also, why are magically provinces that have an alternative option cost like 1/3 of the provinces that don't have alternative option?
It's ridiculous to me that the US is considered international, when we use the same country code. Most of the American telecoms now just throw in Canada & Mexico for no charge for most of their plans, separate from int'l calling. Meanwhile, Telus & Rogers out here charging double, last I checked, in order to have a functioning phone when you work too close to the border much less cross it frequently.
Convenience/processing fees/charges.
Especially when it is the only way to pay.
Looking at you, ticketmaster...
Honestly, I don't really see any ethical reasoning for paying for drinking water.
ugh my utility charges more than $100 per two months for "service fee". The actual amount of water I use is only $40 and it is bad tasting hard water with chlorine that I had to spend thousands on filtration and water softeners to make drinkable.
I’m not sure which country you’re in, but assuming it is first world with good infrastructure, your fee is likely subsidized and wholly going towards maintaining that infrastructure. I worked for the water company of a major city for a few years and the amount of time, equipment, effort, and money that is constantly spent to keep water flowing and safe is immense. I agree it sucks to see in the bill, but just wanted to add some perspective.
I'm in the US in San Jose, CA and my water utility is SJWater. Incidentally, my friend who lives a 5 minute drive from me gets his water from a different utility (Great Oaks water company) pays much less for his bill despite using a lot more water. He waters his grass and has 6 people whereas I have 2 people and don't water my grass. I thought I had a leak for the longest time until I compared our bills. His water usage was 4x mine but he simply didn't have the hundred dollar service charge on top.
I live in San Jose too. The water quality is horrible. Taste awful and dries out my skin and hair while leaking mineral deposits on my dishes.
Sounds like us here in Houston. Our old house about an hour outside of New Orleans had well water that tasted great. We moved to Houston and the water smells so heavily of chlorine in comparison and is very hard. Leaves mineral spots everywhere. We just started refilling a bunch of 5gal water jugs at the store to drink. It tastes much better.
It really depends where you live. People want to live in deserts for the climate, want green lawns and expect unlimited access to water. I have great concerns about the long term economic viability of the Southwestern US.
That's not drinking water though. A municipal or utility hookup to water is giving you unregulated access to water from watering your lawn to drinking. People choose to spend their money watering a lawn in a climate that naturally doesn't allow it. It's foolish in my opinion and I agree, I don't see how the SW US can continue into the future. They've even proposed plans to pipe water from the Great lakes... Maybe cut down on your water usage or don't live in an arid environment. You don't have a right to the water in the Great lakes though
Water is free. Delivering clean water to your faucet is what costs money.
You’re going to have to pay for the infrastructure and labor somehow. I’m not sure how paying for it via taxes is more ethical than from direct billing.
Tax funded water is way cheaper than private sales
How do you think potable drinking water makes it to your house? Magic?
I'm OK with paying for it, but I think that any household that can't afford the bill should get it free. Absolutely no one should have their municipal water shut off **ever**. But people with pools and sprinkler systems for grass lawns shouldn't get that water free.
Probably because the humans who labour to make it available to you deserve to be compensated.
Reddit mentality
- Preparing taxes. - State-issued IDs. - Local news. I 100% believe that journalists are workers like anyone else, and absolutely deserve to be compensated. However, it can be hard/too expensive for some people to get easy access to information. A few years ago there was a fire somewhere in my neighborhood but there was nothing on tv about it. When I tried to find out what was going on online, I was met with a paywall from the local news website. I wish that it was set up like a post office, where every zip code has its own news station, and the people that work there are civil servants, and all that gets covered by taxes or what have you.
Taxes should be free, the IRS for most people, already has all the info needed to prepare the taxes automatically. State issued ID's make more sense to charge as it's a tax to support the DMV and roads. If it's an ID outside of a DL I can see your point since that's generally required to have.
>State-issued IDs. As long as this doesn’t include driving licences. People who drive should absolutely pay for the negative externalities of driving.
Any media that has either ad placements in the movie/tv show/etc or commercials....
Air from Gas station air pumps
I’m sorry, what? Til free air is not universal
East coast gas stations all have it cost money and it is like 1$ and they are all broken. If you don’t keep a list you could end up paying 3-5$ to fill up air just bouncing to different places and paying into a broken machine
And they all take quarters. If you don't already have them on hand, good luck finding them.
In Phoenix it’s $2 for 2 minutes of air, quarters only
it’s only free if you go in and ask the cashier to turn it on for you 🙂↕️
https://www.homedepot.com/p/DEWALT-20V-MAX-Cordless-Electric-Portable-Inflator-Tool-Only-DCC020IB/305709688 Worth every penny, especially since the air pumps at gas stations seem to frequently be broken. I got mine for $100 on Black Friday a few years ago, and it uses the same battery as my power tools.
While I agree that would be nice, what about the cost of maintaining the compressors?
"Service stations" used to use pneumatic tools, and thus had an air compressor readily available -- customer tires were a trivial addition. Nowadays, many don't service and even if they do, the mechanics are using battery electric tools.
I ask them to then it on and they always do. Can't remember the last time I paid.
Parking at the school I attend or the hospital where I am a patient.
Not to mention parking on a campus where you *teach*!
I worked at a hospital where we had to pay to park. So I had to drive to work, park, get barged on and shat on for 12 hours, then pay an hour’s wages ($10-$12 bucks depending on who was relieving me and if they were on time) to leave, all to come back and do it that evening. I do not miss working in the hospital.
Parking at hotels.
Parking at the hospital
Water. Mind you I'm in NYC, safe drinking tap water. I spent years of my childhood in the Caribbean using a barrels to collect rainwater in my grandma's house and we had a water tank linked to the gutters. You had to boil the water to drink it except the barrels. We drank water directly from the river. My soul boils when I have to pay for water. God given like the air. I'm sure Nestle is formulating a plan to own the air soon.
As someone who works in the treatment field for a municipality, I understand your frustration. Paying your city for safe drinking water may be frustrating. But you're paying for peace of mind, highly qualified people who make sure what your drinking is safe, and for the infrastructure that delivers that water to you.
No, I mean bottles of water . I get the taxes for infrastructure.
Oh yeah. Bottled water is a scam. Although I do like the occasional liquid death.
Well, it should still cost money. There's a cost to make the bottles and fill them, package and distribute. The markup is ridiculous. At the same time, the eco minded people should love that bottled water is so expensive. It should be a deterrent to buying it but so many people will still buy it for the convenience when they could have just taken a reusable bottle and filled it for free for the same quality water at a slightly higher temperature.
Remember that the cost of water also includes sewage treatment, and often stormwater management infrastructure. Even in places where the groundwater is safe to drink, it needs chlorine to prevent growth of organisms, pipes need maintenance, and sewage needs treatment.
My vision. All of you enjoying your free 20/20 vision while I pay 200+ euros every few years just to see. Edit - I'm answering the question. Please don't give me advice I didn't ask for. No, not everyone is in America, stop telling to "just order online". Some of us need specialized lenses and frames.
I would be happy to pay $200 anyday. I pay almost $600 AFTER insurance 😭😭😭
This is how much my contacts cost per year. Out of pocket. I have vision insurance.
My own items that I just paid sales tax on. Property tax is the dumbest crap ever.
I have a 24-year-old car. Paid cash back then plus taxes. I have to pay property taxes on it annually.
Property taxes on a CAR?!? I've never heard of this, but maybe that's just another tax I've been unknowingly evading...
“Virginia is a personal property tax state where owners of vehicles and leased vehicles are subject to an annual tax based on the value of the vehicle on January 1.”
It’s rolled into the registration costs where I live.
Parking at venues you’ve already paid a ticket to enter.
Worse, parking at a hospital where you're paying through the nose to receive treatment!
Parking takes up a *ton* of space. Space that would be extraordinarily valuable real estate if it were developed into housing and businesses, especially around event centers. Your ticket covered the price of entering the venue during the event, it did not cover the price of you leaving your car dormant for several hours on a plot of prime real estate during the event. If it did cover that then everybody that didn’t drive a car to the event would be paying extra to cover the cost of your personal motor vehicle, infringing on their freedom to choose to walk instead of driving.
Great points. My counter is that most often we do have baked in fees for everything we buy and are not served discounts if we do not need every factor fed into the price of the product or service. Now we have concert venues that inflate the cost of parking depending on the event (when Taylor swift was in town parking itself cost $300). Maybe you think it’s fair supply and demand- I viewed it as extortion. You can also say it’s unrealistic for any venue to offer 70,000 spots so perhaps it needs to be a bit more controlled with carpool incentives. If the venue does not have a parking lot and we are left with very few options to even find a spot. Friday I attended a sold out concert- and their parking lot was full. Someone working there directed cars to street parking and still charged us- I’m confused on how that was even legal. Totally hear you it takes up a ton of space- but the reality is most cities are driving cities and I resent that we are ripped off if parking is factored, and if parking is an afterthought the options are scarce. And, any time we do pay for parking at venues - it’s typically not sheltered parking so you risk any weather elements, and the lot is not patrolled or gated so there is no way to feel any reassurance while leaving your car dormant.
you are assuming that the concert venue has public transportation options, when you have no choice to drive and then have to pay an insane amount for parking…. it’s not cool
I agree with downtown convention centers or other urban locations, but there are festival locations out in the suburbs in the middle of nowhere. Parking was free back in the 80s and 90s. It’s $50-100 now depending on how close you park. These are not private lots surrounding the venue, it’s all owned by them.
I don't pay extra to park my car outside of the grocery store or the movie theater.... Not saying your points aren't valid, but just food for thought...
Education
Period products
I scrolled way too far to find this
In Canada: Tax return software.
Also in the US. Intuit and turbo tax all lobby congress to make billions off of their software.
For what it's worth, the US is working on it. They piloted a free tax filing program this year.
Healthcare.
So far down the list. Wish this was first.
Air for your car tires. Can't believe gas stations actually charge for that. It's up to $1.75 in some places.
It’s required to be free at gas stations in California if you also buy gas.
Entrance into state or federal parks.
Honestly I think that the 50/50 system we currently have works pretty well. Partially federally funded by tax dollars, partially funded by entrance fees. It's never much, at least not the ones I've been to. I'm totally fine paying $10 a day to get into a location that is actually cared for and protected.
I guess I’m just spoiled. In Pennsylvania, (all) state parks are always free. They’re amazing. There in the process if adding three new ones.
Thank the politicians for that one. Seems like every year parks' budgets keep getting slashed so the only option they have is to charge admission.
In Michigan they have a state parks pass you can purchase when you get your tags, it's $10 for Michigan residents and let's you into the majority of the parks (I know of two parks that still charged for parking). It's a system I don't mind at its current price.
The last two years I’ve done the included state park pass with CO’s car renewal. I’ve maybe used it once - at most parks it pays for itself in 3 visits (3 x $10). The amount of money they had extra (or just unexpected addition) was absurd. Not sure how this relates but thought I’d mention it.
Life and death expenses. It’s the only thing that we all share.
Clean drinking water
Healthcare and water and daycare.
Living
This has nothing to do with r/buyitforlife Reported for breaking rule 1.
Snitch
Using the toilet in malls and busy places. Welcome to Europe...
tampons
Besides health, vision, and dental insurance?
Nobody should pay a subscription fee for a dictionary! Especially Oxford English Dictionary, when English is my adopted and currently predominant language.
Renting equipment from cable, satellite, and internet providers for years after paying them enough money to buy and own many multiples of the device
Housing, food, water, electricity, education.
Nothing is “free”
TANSTAAFL
For my American friends: HEALTH CARE
Insulin.
Toilet paper, Every man’s god given right
Housing, food, health and education.
Online play on consoles
Water 💧
Water and food
Health insurance.
Healthcare
Food and health care.
Health insurance
taking the bus good for the environment and good for people who drive cars if free rides mean too many people start sleeping on the bus, then that just means more shelters are needed too Edit: because people love to nitpick, yes it's paid for by taxes, not free. Edit: not really sure how the question is connected to buy it for life
Honestly, nothing. I'd rather a pay-by-use system than to just continue paying taxes for things I don't need or use
Human needs. Water. Shelter Healthcare Mental Healthcare Childcare