Subscription services 

How much do you spend on subscription services? The average consumer spends $219 a month on subscription services. More things than you expect end up being subscription based. For example you get a new IPhone and you start making videos and taking pictures. You find yourself having to constantly delete the old videos as you run out of space on the phone. So what do you do? You buy an ICloud plan. It’s only $1 a month for another 50GB, right? Well just as quickly that runs out storage. You’ll end up with the full 2TB plan paying $10 a month. This is a common theme among all sorts of different services you end up paying more than expected. And there’s so many services, home security systems, Google Drive, Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Spotify, VPNs “virtual private networks”, and so much more. No wonder why consumers pay so much.

Lies, lies, lies…

A lot of these subscription services are based in the security and privacy sector. These things make you more secure by storing your data safely and encrypting your internet usage. But these same services consistently have proven themselves wrong. VPNs “virtual private Networks” remotely connect you to a server in a data center. These data centers are everywhere in the world. What this is supposed to do is make it so people who are connected to the same Wi-Fi as you cannot see what you’re looking up on the internet. But what’s funny is that almost all VPNs actively log your data and everything you look at. If the VPN’s servers were to be hacked by someone, everything that you’ve looked at while on the VPN could then be public. Websites are secure and have been done for a very long time. The https:// in front of whatever website you’re connecting to like https://www.youtube.com/ means that people cannot access the connection, it’s secured. http:// means the website is not secure and you should not connect to it. VPNs should only be used for one purpose: For connecting to foreign countries’ internet, to access content that is not normally available in your country. 

How home labs can save your money 

Home computer labs are cost effective way to save you money and teach you Computer Science. You can take old computers and using a linux-based operating system like Debian, host your own services on them, and not have to pay monthly fees. Now not all services you can self host. However you can host a lot like, home security system, home streaming service, home automation, data storage, internet filter, ad blocker, and all the stuff is very secure because it’s on your home network. The problem is with your home network you can only access it when you’re home, but there’s a solution, you can use VPNs for what they’re actually meant for: Connecting to a network you cannot normally access. Which you can also self host. There’s limitations to these things but there’s also no monthly fee. You will have to learn how to use the Linux based command lines. Which isn’t that hard considering there’s line for line tutorials for every service you’ll probably use. 

How to get into it

There are two people that I highly recommend to watch to help you get into this, Jeff Geerling www.youtube.com/user/geerlingguy and NetworkChuck www.youtube.com/@NetworkChuck/. These people have made amazing tutorials and more in-depth explanations about Home Lab. Also it is best to have a friend who knows quite a bit about computer science and can help you along the way. Surplus stores are great for buying old computers and where I got a lot of my equipment. And most importantly be patient, you will have roadblocks and errors that will get in your way.

Source

O’Brien, Sarah. “Consumers Spend an Average $133 More Each Month on Subscriptions than They Realize, Study Shows.” CNBC, CNBC, 2 June 2022, https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/02/consumers-spend-133-more-monthly-on-subscriptions-than-they-realize.html.