These days, I have added Typora — a markdown editor, markdown reader to my stable of plain text editors (BBEdit, Byword, and NotePlan). Typora’s appearance is very sharp and clean (I struggle with how best to describe its beautiful display!) Try selecting and copying some text and images from a website and pasting them into Typora to see its amazing display capabilities in a Markdown formatted document.
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None of my productivity apps are subscribed as I only use Apple Notes, Freeform, iA Writer, Pages, Keynotes and Affinity suites.
I have only iCloud 2TB.
The subscription usually includes 1Password (tried this year but won’t renew because I always got email of new login), Strava, Apple Music and MUBI GO (arthouse movies online and in cinema).
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Thanks, that might be useful for me.
I’ve also drastically cut my app subscription spend, at least with the ones I have to pay for out of my own pocket.
Before cutting down on spending, I was paying for SetApp (4 devices cost me €180 a year), Ulysses, DayOne, Drafts, Parcel, and MindNode. I’ve eventually adapted my workflow not to need any of these.
The only ones I was paying for recently were 1Password, Backblaze, Apple One, and YouTube Premium. I just canceled Apple One (Family) as I find YouTube Music a perfect replacement for Apple Music and it’s included with YouTube Premium (I went to the dark side!!). I only kept Apple Arcade as my kids love it (we never watch AppleTV or use any other services in the package). That alone saves me €336 a year.
My company provides all the other subscriptions I need: Adobe Suite, DropBox, TextExpander, SuperHuman, ChatGPT and Fantastical.
It’s a significant relief as I was spending a lot on apps I don’t need, and it’s greatly simplified my workflow.
Also, I use Pages for writing too. I don’t miss Ulysses, and I use Scrivener for long form.
Well, this will probably scare you, 
but aside from YouTube, you and I are very close in our app usage. In particular, I have also defaulted to Apple Pages and Scrivener. Regarding Scrivener, I went back and forth for some time struggling between Ulysses and Scrivener. My biggest hangup with Scrivener was using Dropbox for syncing, but I got over it. A key decision point came when I discovered the difference between Exporting and Compiling in Scrivener. I subscribe to Apple One, 1PW, and Backblaze. I keep Dropbox below the 5GB threshold, so I avoid the added Dropbox expense.
Welcome to the dark side! 
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If you have a subscription to the NY Times, here’s an article on subscription culture.
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Just to add, I downloaded it to try and it seems just right for my needs, thanks so much. I have to say that the pricing is a bit better than Ulysses, which I liked but really was overkill. Just out of interest why do you have the three you do. It might be interesting for other readers too?
Think of it as automated capitalism. Spending without the hassle of spending. Acquisition without action. Or thought … agreeing to this trade, we’ve become passive consumers who are allowing the balance of capitalism to tilt away from us. We have ceded one of our key powers as individuals: our agency.
That is an excellent summary of the problem.
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I’m in and out of my daily note in NotePlan all day, every day. Byword and Typora give me two different views of standalone Markdown-formatted plain text files. And BBEdit can do anything and everything with text files and even lets me poke around in most any file I’m interested in. I guess I just love text editors.
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Interesting. I might give BBEdit a try again one day then since you recommend it. I don’t write code, I did have it one time and quite liked it if I remember. I do like standalone text files that I can put, or end up in DEVONthink 3. I have to say though I put notes direct into that app with the sorter, it is my main way of taking notes, I don’t find it easy to actually write much in. I don’t know why. Recently I tried enlarging the written text for the print out: I left it after a bit, I couldn’t figure it out and went back to another writer. It will likely by Typora now; thanks again really. One of the pleasures of coming onto these fora.
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One of the joys of BBEdit is being able to take an entire folder of 825 HTML documents, and then format all of them at the same time.
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I’ve enjoyed reading this thread!
I am paying for Apple One Premier, YNAB, and 1Password. I just cancelled my ChatGPT Plus subscription based on this weekend’s events.
I also enjoy gaming as a hobby on Nintendo Switch and Sony PS5. Unfortunately, both of those have subscriptions required for even rudimentary online functionality like cloud save backup. The base tier of Sony’s plan went up to $80 this year from $60! It might be too much for me to pay considering I stay away from multiplayer games, although I hate not having saves backed up.
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It’s easy to forget about automated payments. I set the ones that my bank sends out each month to expire every 4 payments. My life insurance company sends me a reminder before they withdraw my quarterly payment. Apple, as I recall, bills me then sends a receipt.
My “solution” is a spreadsheet listing all my recurring payments (with the exception of water and power) linked to a task that alerts me on the first Saturday of each month. It does sting a bit when I see the yearly total, but it encourages me to think about what I am spending.
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Update on my subscriptions.
1Password - eliminating this when it’s up for renewal in Feb. iCloud Keychain is now good enough for my needs and the family sharing is great. It’s been a slog to move over but almost done.
Fastmail - I’m slowly leaving Fastmail and going back to Hey. I just love how I barely have to check email with Hey and all other email services I spend too much time touching. Spent last weekend changing emails everywhere to make this permanent so I can eventually cancel Fastmail and turn off the forwarding. Almost done.
Feedbin - was up for renewal and discovered BazQux Reader which is cheaper and I like their web version better than Feedbin. They’re just as fast and I’m saving some money. Win all around.
Banktivity - I still have but I’m testing CoPilot currently as Banktivity has given me issues lately. Not changing just yet but it might be a swap out from one subscription to another.
Apple One - I’ve tried to trim it down but just not in the cards. Too far behind the walled garden.
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