Why Get It For Free When You Can Pay?
Updated: November 1, 2025
I choose to pay for several web things that I could easily get without spending a dime.
But why, ask DNA? Why would you do such a thing?
The biggest reason for this is privacy. While email is kind of inherently not secure, at least my personal conversations are not being tracked, sold to literally anyone who will pay, or used to train the next big AI model. Yuck!
The secondary reason is I'm a nerd with a few domains and I like having an email address that doesn't include "@giantevilcorp.com". It brings me some joy to see my own domain in my email address.
Domains
Of course I could live without domains. Most people do. But again, nerd. It's fun! It gives the online things I do a bit of personality and it's functional for things like this website and my email.
Search
I recently started using Kagi. So far, so good. It's nice to have search that actually works, doesn't track me, and has no advertising.
Social Media
Like many, I used to use Twitter, Facebook, Instagram... and like many, I grew increasingly frustrated with the enshittification and left. But I missed the good aspects of these things: connection, fun, silliness, sharing photos and stories.
When I gave Mastodon an honest try, I instantly liked it and was happy to shell out a few bucks to the real, cool, normal-bill-paying people who are willing to provide a service to the internet that isn't a steaming trash heap.
Websites
When I moved away from big social media sites, I figured I'd get back into running a personal website. WordPress seemed like overkill, and I'd been out of the game for a bit, so not really knowing what platforms exist, I just made a static site in plain text and pushed out an update from time to time. There was honestly nothing wrong with that, but when I discovered Bear, I switched and have been posting happily ever since.
Bear can be used for free and is built to last, but I opt for the paid upgrade to access features I find useful.
VPS
I run my own calendar, contacts, and a handful of other stuff on a small, inexpensive server. Sometimes I use it to share a file with multiple people or post a little notice for a family get-together. It's Low-maintenance, fun, and easy.
All together, I pay something like $30 CAD / month for this stuff. While that's obviously more than $0, it's still not that much in a world where a cup of coffee costs $6. And if my financial situation changes, I can scale back any of this temporarily or permanently at any time.