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   Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 14-Jul-2026 21:48:24 JST Rich Felker

   in reply to

   • Graham Sutherland / Polynomial

   @gsuberland LMAOWUT??? People *pay* for Ring? I thought it was something they get for "free" paid in surveillance. 🤡

   • Embed this notice
     Graham Sutherland / Polynomial (gsuberland@chaos.social)'s status on Tuesday, 14-Jul-2026 21:48:27 JST Graham Sutherland / Polynomial

     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.

     Rich Felker repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 14-Jul-2026 22:49:54 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • Graham Sutherland / Polynomial
     • Dan Lyke

     @danlyke @gsuberland A $50 raspberry pi is a suitable server for this.

   • Embed this notice
     Dan Lyke (danlyke@researchbuzz.masto.host)'s status on Tuesday, 14-Jul-2026 22:49:56 JST Dan Lyke

     in reply to

     • Graham Sutherland / Polynomial

     @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

   • Embed this notice
     Graham Sutherland / Polynomial (gsuberland@chaos.social)'s status on Tuesday, 14-Jul-2026 22:49:58 JST Graham Sutherland / Polynomial

     in reply to

     @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).

   • Embed this notice
     Graham Sutherland / Polynomial (gsuberland@chaos.social)'s status on Tuesday, 14-Jul-2026 22:50:00 JST Graham Sutherland / Polynomial

     in reply to

     @dalias it's a monthly subscription on top of the cost of the units and the install fee.

     it's batshit.

   • Embed this notice
     Graham Sutherland / Polynomial (gsuberland@chaos.social)'s status on Tuesday, 14-Jul-2026 22:51:37 JST Graham Sutherland / Polynomial

     in reply to

     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.