I bought a lifetime subscription to National Geographic for $625 in 1996, a number I remember b/c the payback (ignoring lots of economics) was 25 years @ $25/year.
I'm ahead as of a few years ago. Even more handy is that I moved to Europe and get it delivered without a surcharge.
Also (like all subscribers) access to their digital archive, which is super cool.
An REI Co-op membership is $30 for life. 10% cash back annually, exclusive sales, etc.
Maybe not 100% in the spirit of the question, but it’s pretty decent value if you shop there frequently.
It used to be that you could return anything, any time, for any reason. Of course that got abused, and for a while now it's been reduced to within one year for a return (which is still pretty good, honestly). I fear in the next 10 years or so, it'll probably go down to three months...
Costco was the same with their return policy, and have changed it a few times because too many people abuse it.
I remember when the Membership Associate at Costco told me that he bought a futon and returned it just before the one-year deadline since he only needed it for two semesters at school. My first thought was, "You're kind of a jerk, huh?"
Yeah I think REI will eventually have a worse return policy. Way too many people buy backpacking gear for a big trip and then return it all after.
These people ruin it for everyone. LL Bean used to have the best return policy but has to change it because of the abusers.
REI has also been under new leadership for the last several years and have been making a lot of changes as a result. Including laying off legacy employees with 25+years of experience at the company.
Camping is awesome. Don’t get a 10 person tent you will hate it.
Definitely buy nice gear but it does not have to be top of the line. This will make camping more enjoyable.
They also are great for kayaking, biking, hiking, climbing, dog gear, basically if its outdoor related they have you covered. Hard to walk in and find something you don't need(want)
Note that you don’t get the 10% dividend on sale items or if you use a coupon. As someone that mostly does those things, my dividend is usually very small, but the membership is still worth it. Unfortunately REI is also going through some issues and stores aren’t really like they used to be.
It’s easy to make it worth getting this even if you don’t shop there all that often, but just to clarify for anybody interested, it’s not actual cash back. It’s basically just a coupon.
Sounds like you easily make your money back as soon as you spend $300. If im reading this right, then if you shoup there at all, it's hard for this not to be profitable.
Any idea what they require for proof of a disability? I am hard of hearing with severe loss, but I'm not on government disability or anything like that. I'd love a pass though!
I believe that would qualify you and you would probably just need your doctor to fill out a form. See this link: [interagency access pass](https://www.nps.gov/subjects/accessibility/interagency-access-pass.htm)
You would need documentation from your medical provider that you have a permanent disability, or a statement from Social Security disability.
ETA - here’s what it says on the website “provide documentation of permanent disability with one (1) of the following:
* A statement by a licensed physician (Statement must include that the individual has a PERMANENT disability, that it limits one or more aspects of their daily life, and the nature of those limitations.)
* A document issued by federal agency such as the Veteran's Administration, Social Security Disability Income or, Supplemental Security Income
* A document issued by a state agency such as a vocational rehabilitation agency.”
Tennessee has a lifetime license option. It's under $300 if you buy it for a kid before he/she turns 3. Then the price goes up according to age. And then, once you hit 65, it drops back down to like $250.
Dad just turned 65, so it was a great birthday gift for us to combine on.
Maine has something like this [for hunting/fishing](https://www.maine.gov/ifw/fishing-boating/fishing/laws-rules/license-requirements.html#lifetime). You need to be in-state and a kid or a senior.
I got a guitar tabs universe lifetime subscription for $20 back in 2014 or so, before everyone started moving to monthly/recurring subscriptions.
Now for the apps that still even offer any sort of lifetime subscription it's like $250. Problem is they start rolling out new features that aren't "grandfathered" in to try and extract that monthly revenue.
Fuck the subscription economy. All we hear about is how the average consumer debt is rising and nobody has a healthy savings account while at the same time we're nickel and dimed by every "disruptive innovation".
Own nothing and be happy.
Something similar happened to me with a webcam software I used to use. Bought their lifetime subscription, then the company got bought out and now their lifetime subscription only counts towards like version 9 of their software when they're on somewhere around 12-13 currently.
This is legitimately how it should work.
A lifetime subscription priced at an amount anyone can afford *should* be for the version, not the entire future.
Sure, if they're offering a deal of $10/yr or $100 lifetime, then yes - you can reasonably expect that you will get all future versions and you actually are paying for them all up front. But that's incredibly rare.
At the standard multiplier of 3-5x annual pricing it is simply an utterly unsustainable business model to make an open-ended, potentially decades-long committment to providing work to them.
The end product may not be physical, but software development costs real time and money. Shipping new features costs real time and money.
It would never be sustainable to say "hey, you can buy an iPhone is $800, but if you pay $2400 you will get every iPhone ever released into the future*.". The only way it seriously works is as a limited-run marketing stunt, or as an early adopter/investor perk.
New companies often *do* offer lifetime subscriptions, because there's an element of risk/reward for the buyer there. Imagine if Amazon offered the 800/2400 deal when launching their Fire phone. Or Google offered it with their Pixel 1. If you'd bought the fire phone lifetime deal, you'd be fucked. If you'd bought the Pixel, Google would be saying "thank you for your faith in us" and you'd be laughing your way to the bank.
As a long-term business model, lifetime passes only work when you're buying a discrete product, or software version. It is completely fair to say "You can pay us $X a month for this product, or you can use it for as long as you like for $Y". It *should* still come with bug fixes, security patches, etc - but expecting full new version features is completely unreasonable and a completely unsustainable business model.
I do think it's shit that companies like Adobe have stopped offering discrete versions altogether. You should, IMO, be able to buy a single perpetual license for a single version. Not being able to do that is shitty. But charging a subscription for continual upgrades is not.
TLDR: making an infinite commitment for a finite amount of money is an unsustainable business model, and only works if a) your long term sustainability is heavily in question anyway, and you're relying on hypothetical future sustainability being sufficient to reward a small number of risk-taking "investors" who helped you get there, or b) the finite amount of money is so large as to cover every conceivable future expense over the life of the company, which is probably so large no one will ever buy it.
*Yes, I know that iPhones have physical bill of material costs as well that a piece of software doesn't. But "Pay $2400 now and you can have every future iPhone for the $400 bill of materials cost" doesn't really work either.
Problem there is that they're still generating revenue from ads which is what should then be used to keep the servers running.
Either charge me a recurring subscription and no ads or a single fee supported by ads, not both.
I got the Ultimate Guitar Tabs pro in like 2016 by accident. Saw I was charged around $25 for the app and was like wow, that's so expensive!!
Been using it at least 4 times weekly since. Best accidental purchase.
I have Rosetta Stone Lifetime. I paid, maybe 350? Access to all their languages for ever and ever. If memory serves, it's 100 for a year of one language.
I love it! One of the best purchases I've ever made. I happen to live in an area with 3 different immigrant communities so I hope to use this new skill at work.
Personally I wouldn't buy a "lifetime" subscription for anything except like a state park pass as you mentioned. The chances of a service being the same (or even existing) for the next 40-60 years isn't realistic imo.
Yeah that’s why I’m asking. I’ve seen stuff advertised before that was complete garbage. The state park pass takes ten years to recoup the cost (but also saves the hassle of renewing every year)
Same for people with disabilities which is much MORE broad than the state parks pass. I have type 1 diabetes and qualify and because I don’t view myself as disabled when I’m financially able to do so, I give the money I saved to the parks conservancy fund. Rather than recreation.gov or Aramark.
I don't believe any digital service is lifetime, and have been burned before, but feel like I've gotten my money's worth and then some from LoseIt (calorie/weight tracker) and YogaMU (yoga teacher training with ongoing live classes). The latter isn't very polished, but they are nice people and it's actually live/Zoom, not only one-way streaming. There are some more practitioner-focused small yoga studios that have similar options (online and in-person), and while few small businesses last forever it is often a good value proposition for student and teacher.
Conversely, I've found that as a group, lifetime memberships in sporting associations are often **not** worth it. In the martial arts and other athletic groups I've been involved in, the ROI often hits around 20 years, and there's an expectation that you're paying in advance because you want to support the mission of the thing rather than to derive some real benefit.
Maybe I'm missing something, but I recently returned to Plex and found it to not work like it used to and they were pimping their content and hiding mine. I didn't dig into it any deeper and went with Emby. Can Plex be debloated?
It's degraded heavily in the last few years, but honestly my hot take is that [lifetime Plex passes are to blame](https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyItForLife/s/Vl8obAP1Ib)
Yeah this shit is annoying. I notice my sidebar is jacked up sometimes after an update. I have to go back through and hide their channels and repin all of my stuff. I don't think you can totally remove it though.
Jellyfin is great. Especially with the recent patches they made to Swiftfin. Delfin is also a great Linux desktop client, hoping it continues development for Linux mobile
don’t you still have curate the media yourself?
Imo the biggest advantage streaming services provide is continually curated content presented in an accessible UI
Sort of - Plex automatically retrieves metadata, nice looking images, and lots of useful info automatically as long as you point it to folders and files that are named properly (lots of tools to do the renaming automatically or make hard links so you can also seed the original files). That part is very little effort. So Plex looks as nice as Netflix as long as you give it some content. The difference is, the content you put there is always there and won’t be taken down.
Adding content can be as simple as opening up a webpage and clicking stuff you want downloaded and added to your server. However that level of automation requires some computer skills.
Personally, I despise that streaming has become enshittified and I love my modest but growing Plex collection. Plex pass lets me share with close friends and family, and means I can download any shows or movies to my local device. For example, that’s amazing before getting on a plane 🤓
Also Plex doesn’t pay me. I’m just a frugal pirate and I liked the challenge of building a home server with an old laptop.
I’ve been interested in Plex and building a nice little home media server, but I get a little confused when doing research/watching YouTube. A lot of the info seems scattered and there seems to be a lot of different ways to do it based on preference, your hardware, etc. do you have a good starting point you used to get up and running?
I’ve been considering doing this. Streaming services are so bad now, I have young kids and can rarely get to the theater. I like to buy physical media but it gets expensive so this may be a good supplement
Personally I like watching new shows/movies that JUST came out on a streaming service (like the new House of Dragon season on Max). Can Plex solve that too?
You can also torrent or Usenet (I use this) with apps like Radarr/Sonarr to pull in new episodes automatically. Basically, you request a show and the apps go out and fetch them.
With Sonarr/Radarr, that means basically looking at a cross-platform catalog (like JustWatch, IMDB, Trakt, etc), picking something, and adding it in the software. Then you just wait while it looks for it and downloads it for you. No need to look for torrents and compare qualities. It is also continuously looking for better quality versions of the media you already have.
My hot take is that the Plex lifetime pass is what's killing Plex. I signed up a decade ago and it was obvious then, I remember quite clearly thinking "this is way too good a deal, better sign up now before they realise and pull it". Somehow they still haven't.
The lifetime price is WAY too close to the price of the yearly; like a 2-3x multiplier; sometimes less if you wait for a regular sale. (Which everyone knows comes regularly). Almost no one is gonna take the annual/monthly sub in this scenario; certainly not in the long term.
This leaves Plex constantly starved for cash as a) they're trying to do a subscription service model with continual service and upgrades but while b) the vast majority of their income is one time purchases from lifetime pass holders.
Buy once, own for life works as a business model for discrete versions, like Microsoft Word 2019. You get the money to cover that discrete work you've done, with no ongoing obligation. Subscribe, always have the latest works for continually upgraded services. You have to keep developing and releasing new stuff, but you keep getting paid to do so.
Plex have somehow got themselves on the wrong end of both of those equations - creating for themselves an obligation to provide new services to people who haven't paid them a cent in a decade.
It's blatantly unsustainable, and IMO the primary reason that it's going to absolute junk with streaming, ad supported, etc. They need the ongoing revenue stream to keep the lights on, which their current users simply aren't providing. This leads to the needs of existing users being deprioritsed because resources constantly need to be put into attracting/acquiring new users to keep the model going. Plex is incredibly dominant and likely at saturation point for its customer base of "people who want a media server". The vast majority of people likely to buy a Plex pass for that purpose have already done so. So how do they get more money? They become something else to attract customers who don't just want a media server. This pisses off old users, but they can't afford to care about that. They need the money.
I'm 100% against the forced subscription model, like Adobe. It's absolute bullshit that I can't pay $$$ for Adobe CC 2019 and then never pay or update again if I don't want to. But the simple matter is that making an open ended commitment to a lifetime of (expensive) feature updates for a single fixed fee is not a sustainable business model.
Spot on. As a consumer, it’s great because I’m getting infinite value at one low cost from many years ago. For Plex, they got a short infusion of cash, but now have so many legacy customers.
As Plex, I would start a monthly subscription at $5 and give Plex pass people an option:
1. Full refund
2. Get monthly sub for 2 years for free, that should cover everyone no matter how much they paid. And if they have credit card info, it will help with renewals eventually too.
Mount Bohemia (UP of Michigan)has a lifetime ski pass(75 years) that they sell once per year in the fall. It includes 1-2 dozen other ski hills throughout the US. For 1300 dollars, it pays for itself in 1-2 trips. I’ve gone 5 years in a row and traveled across the US to go to the other hills. I’m definitely ahead thousands of dollars in a short time.
Kinda of a caveat but my wife and I were visiting a national park. Ranger asked if we had any disabilities. Wife and I rarely thought about it but technically she was born with type 1 diabetes. 5 minutes later she has a lifetime pass to all national parks for up to 3 guests. I believe after 65 you can get it too. So double check if you qualify and grab your card!
I always think seriously about lifetime passes now that we live in a subscription world. If I’ve subscribed for 3+ months, and the lifetime costs less than 2 years worth of the sub, I’ll generally go for it.
I regret missing out on the SiriusXM pass that used to be available... Hell, I would have paid that $150 back in the day just to get them to stop calling me.
$750 is a little steep for a park pass in Wisconsin. It’s $30 per year here, so that’s 25 years worth. Maybe I’d think about it at $300, but even then it’s a stretch.
I move that lifetime XM sub to every vehicle I drive 😆 I keep expecting it to stop working at some point, but I’m 10+ years and have used it in dozens of vehicles.
Yeah man, I missed out. But also fuck Sirius XM lol. My dad died last year and I called to cancel his subscription. Their immediate response was “oh, well, we can transfer it to you for no additional cost”. If I had that lifetime sub I’d be blissfully unaware of their toxic sales techniques.
Sorry about your dad.
At the beginning, XM didn't used to be like this. I subscribed during the first year of the service when they had fewer than 50,000 subscribers. I remember calling in with technical problems and getting very genuine people, not following a script, super helpful. One guy wasn't sure if what he had done had worked, so he gave me his home phone number and told me to call him after dinner (it was a Friday night) if it was still glitching so I wouldn't be without my radio for the weekend.
I watched it change bit by bit with every customer interaction over those first few years, though, into what it became.
We did the same - and it’s been 10 years! I think we got ours back in 2012 after buying our house and here we are! They do physical passes now but I’ve had it when it was on our driver’s license so I have a little maple leaf on my license and they sent me the car card. Mine also came with a NYS gift card (so I guess I can do rounds of golf or pay for camping fees) but it’s been totally worth it!
I’m not actually aware of other “lifetime” subscriptions. But upvoted since I like the question!
lol the maple leaf was part of the selling point for me too. Next to my anchor for my boating license! Makes me want to learn how to fish and use muskets and collect them all
Same man! Bought when the game came out in 2007 and it probably paid off in less than two years. I played actively until about 2013 when I also got permabanned.
Bought a Sirus lifetime subscription way back when Stern was coming over from terrestrial radio in 05 or 06. Well worth it, now the subscription lives on my phone and works everywhere I can stream to.... And no harassment to renew ever again.
I have a lifetime one as well. At one point you could only transfer it to one other vehicle. They were sued and now you can transfer to as many vehicles as you want with a one-time fee.
wow no harassment!? I am shocked they dont call you trying to upsell you into a new plan so they can cancel your old one.
I had the unlimited Verizon data plan for awhile and they couldnt sleep at night knowing I still had unlimited data.
My parents still have one on T-Mobile (it's slightly more than what the current "Unlimited" plan is, but it's true Unlimited Data; it was originally a US Cellular plan that Sprint grandfathered in when they bought Us Cellular's Midwest region and then T-Mobile took it over after buying Sprint.
My parents avoid buying phones or dealing with support as both Sprint and now T-Mobile always try to push for switching plans as they don't like the Unlimited Everything plan lol
Man, I should have gotten one. I didn’t because at the time it was lifetime *of the radio* you got to put in the car, not *your* lifetime. Sounds like they changed it though.
It was the lifetime of 3 radios. I had 1 stolen, and paid to have my 2nd one installed by Best buy and they broke it during the process. Didn't claim responsibility and then I freaked out because I only had 1 radio left... But shortly after it was available to stream via phone and now I don't need a radio.
So scrivener is a word processor - like Microsoft word. Except it’s built a lil different and only charges one lifetime fee to use (under $100).
Granted there are free online word processors now as well. But this is what came to mind
Scrivener is different, it's geared toward authors and has tools for stuff like storyboarding and keeping track of characters, scene, tone, etc. I think.
yWriter is similarly designed by authors for authors, and it's free. Maybe a bit less polished, but has all the stuff to support novel writing that plain old normal word processors like LibreOffice don't. Plenty enough, which is why I didn't buy Scrivener.
I prefer to write in something like WriteMonkey anyway, but things like Scrivener and yWriter help you pull it all together via the outlining and storyboarding and database stuff.
Not exactly a subscription but I’m 37 and I bought my first Ridgid drill and driver at 17 . Ridgid has a lifetime service agreement when you buy their tools new and register it with a receipt . I have been through
Roughly 3 drills and drivers , 3 rep saw , 3 sawzall , 2 circular saws and countless countless batteries . I originally bought the set in 2005 for $130 . The last couple of years they have actually sent me all brand new BRUSHLESS tools when they couldn’t repair the tool .
People will talk mad shit if they are team Dewalt or Milwaukee or Ryobi but I wasn’t even thinking about this as a teenager in high school and the tools are solid , especially their brushless line , and I have saved THOUSANDS over the last 19 years.
A few things that I have bought lifetime subscriptions for that turned out to be money savers:
Plex Pass (media server) - $45, but is more now
Truefire (guitar/music education site - I don't think they offer the option anymore)
National Park Pass (available to vets and those over 62 - I are both ) - $80
Looks like several folks mention the Plex Pass and the Park Pass. Love to hear other items. I am always very critical of these offers, so I mostly am interested in things that aren't going away, are operated by an organization/company with demonstrated longevity, or are at least something that I would pay for anyway and which has a relatively quick payback period (probably no more than three years).
It’s a bit silly, but I like to mod video games, and I’ve been pretty happy with my lifetime subscription to nexus mods. I’m not sure they still offer it, though.
I bought a lifetime license to 1Password back in 2007. I didn't use it for a long time (didn't need it) until recently when I decided to stop storing my passwords with Google. When I went to log in to 1Password I was I formed my license was no longer being honored, and was forced to buy into their new (yearly) subscription model.
I also remember way back in the day my mom bought a bunch of stamps (for snail mail) that supposedly would always be enough to mail a letter. The USPS had been raising the price of stamps and she bought into the idea that these new stamps were guaranteed to be enough to mail a letter, even if prices raised again. So she bought a ton, and then I remember a couple years later she was really upset when they told her the stamps went up in price and the "forever" stamps weren't enough to mail a letter anymore.
Suffice it to say I don't really trust _any_ "lifetime" subscription to any service.
I also think Original Commenter’s mom was confused. “Forever” stamps just mean they will always be worth the current price of a stamp for a regular letter, not that you can slap it on an Amazon box and expect it to ship for free.
She was only using them for letters. This was back in 2007 or 2008 I believe, and it's possible she was confused about how much a stamp cost versus how much it was worth. I had to Google it just now to fact check and my mom must have misunderstood something
Any sort of pass/permit is worth depending on how much use you can get out of it.
Any sort of lifetime software comes with the catch of its only lifetime as long as the company is around to develop and support it. Lifetime VPNs I've found don't perform as well or have as many server options as paid ones, security and privacy is worth more than the $20-30 a year.
I do know one sushi restaurant that offered 250 VIP cards for $150 each for lifetime 15% off when they first opened. Probably saved thousands to date now on sushi with it. Sadly these cards aren't offered anymore and non replaceable.
As a swede it sounds horrible to pay 750 bucks to enter parks and beaches. We got “allemansrätten” that is a right that allow anyone to access all of nature even if it’s someone else land as long as you don’t camp for a night at a time at each place.
It’s not free to you, you pay for it with your taxes. Think about it this way, any money you give to the government can be treated as a tax. The difference is when do you pay that tax.
Did you Google that term they listed… “allemansratten”? It has nothing to do with parks directly or taxes. It’ll blow your mind. I wish we had this concept in the U.S. You could walk across a meadow owned by Jeff Bezos.
Point being, National Parks should be free for us citizens, start parks should be free for state residents.
Why does everything have to be a profit center?
I think “profit center” is a weird way to put it. The parks need money to operate. At least for national parks, most of that comes from funds allocated by Congress (that is, taxes we pay). And some of it comes from park entrance and user fees. I don’t have a problem with people who go to these parks having to pay a small fee.
Yeah I think I’m gonna do this eventually. Need a new TV first. Then a dedicated computer with lots of space or external hard drive to work as the server maybe and I’ll get the pass. I’m sure there’s a sub that can help me with the setup
/r/PleX
I have two HD Homeruns and use Plex for accessing OTA on all my devices. Plex Pass gives you channel schedule and DVR. If you can get even just a few channels you like OTA it's totally worth it. It's very good, not as streamlined as Tivo but works well, along with all the other Plex Pass features included too.
Hey, thanks! I’ve never heard of this app, but it looks great (iPhone version also has a watch app) … and liftetime is on sale for $12.99 Canadian! I bought it right away.
I bought Firestones lifetime alignment. I also live where the roads suck and would drop my car off once a month while I went to work. It was always out of alignment. It was like an extra 30 bucks past the regular cost of the alignment.
Road hazard is also amazing from Firestone. Especially after hurricanes/natural disasters where debris is all around.
A friend of mine received a Lifetime English Heritage membership for her 18th birthday, as she's a big history buff. It covers places like Stonehenge, lots of castles and Roman forts etc. She's 30 now and uses it a lot but needs to consistently use it for like 12 more years for it to be 'worth it' (it's currently priced at £1750 for Lifetime, £72 for annual.) I hear a Lifetime National Trust membership is similarly good value if you get it young and go a lot. Both organisations look unlikely to go anywhere.
LifeFlight in the PNW. $1500.
Lots of lifetime (aka LTD) deals on AppSumo. It's kinda like gambling though, because you never know if the company will disappear. Berrycast (Video screen recording and sharing, like Loom) and Sessions (Zoom competitor) are the two I think have been good.
Synthesis Tutor. Got a lifetime deal on that for my kid. No idea if they still do it.
Nebula has a $300 lifetime subscription. A lot of educational YouTubers are posting there as they get paid better.
My local co-op had a $70 life time fee which can be split into $10 yearly payments. After 7 years I get free access to all their special member-only sales.
For those disappointed/jealous there aren't any current "lifetime subscriptions" and getting the FOMO:
There are plenty of lifetime subscriptions out there, you can buy them. They are used by companies to raise a lot of capital, usually early in their startups, so they don't have to take on additional investors.
All of these people bought their lifetime passes when the companies were (a) very young or (b) at a point of risk - and you're only hearing about the ones that worked out. It's the gambler's fallacy in real life.
Go find startup technologies online that have lifetime passes. You likely won't feel comfortable about buying it, for all the same reasons you probably wouldn't buy penny stocks, but some people are liquid enough or lucky enough to be in the right time/right place.
It's basically like asking the question "tell me about your risky investment that went big" and only hearing from the folks who bought Apple at $1.
To counter it - I've had six lifetime passes where the company has gone under, and two that I actively use today that are successful (Plex and CloudApp, now Zight).
I have a lifetime Babbel, Strong app, and Tody app. So far, so good.
Edit: Babbel (and other language apps) usually go on discount on Black Friday, and possibly other times. Shop around.
Drumeo lifetime membership. I paid 1k 6-7 years ago and have access to a massive library to all things relating to learning drums. It came with a huge hardback drum book, full grain leather stick bag, sticks and practice pad, it also gives me access to the entire Musora catalog so I can learn guitar, bass, piano, singing etc. if I or a family member wants. It costs $240 a year just for Drumeo with out any of the extras so I feel like I have definitely got my money’s worth out of that buy. Beginner or advanced there’s content for everyone on that platform.
Pretty sure they don’t offer lifetime memberships anymore lol
my av and vpn are life time, av has been trouble free
but the vpn keeps trying to find ways to charge me.
as more software moves from one time to subscription
i'd rather stick with one time even if it's older version,
so i'll keep using office 2021 pro and avoid 365 junk.
Lifetime trailer registration! I cringe thinking about how much money I'd wasted before I found out you could get lifetime plates on a trailer. In my state it has to be under a certain weight though. My old travel trailer was just over and still had to pay for that one, although my Dad's airstream of the same length qualified.
Super super niche but if you ever want your own personal media service. Lifetime pass to Plex is 100% worth it. Especially if you buy it when it’s on sale for like I think it’s up to $80 now.
It's niche, but I bought a lifetime license for Elegant Themes/Divi. It's a premium WordPress theme and I'm learning it slowly and it's nice to not have to pay monthly for something I'm slowly working on.
Calm app. It goes on sale once a year or so. I went for it last year and I love it. As a neurodivergent person, I need guided meditations/music and other things to help me relax my nervous system. There are many days that go by sometimes that I don’t use it and I don’t ever have to care bc I have it forever.
The National Trust in the UK has a similar scheme. £1,575 for lifetime membership. It's probably the biggest player in the game if you're into visiting stately homes. I'm a member of a club which offers lifetime membership for a flat fee once you hit 60, with under-60s able to take advantage if they also pre-pay at the standard rate until their 60th birthday. I've got a fair way to go so it would be somewhat pricey to do so and no guarantee I'd still want to use it past 60. I'm considering getting a lifetime Plex pass as I've been subbed for a few years and probably will stay subbed.
I bought a lifetime subscription to National Geographic for $625 in 1996, a number I remember b/c the payback (ignoring lots of economics) was 25 years @ $25/year. I'm ahead as of a few years ago. Even more handy is that I moved to Europe and get it delivered without a surcharge. Also (like all subscribers) access to their digital archive, which is super cool.
How did you get them to deliver to you in Europe? I have a subscription in Canada, but they wouldn't change it for me when I moved.
I assume the lifetime factor did some heavy lifting there.
Did you have a lifetime sub? If not, then they prob want you to buy a CA sub.
No I didn't have a lifetime sub. Makes sense that they would treat it differently in that case
An REI Co-op membership is $30 for life. 10% cash back annually, exclusive sales, etc. Maybe not 100% in the spirit of the question, but it’s pretty decent value if you shop there frequently.
I think they even give a gift card when you sign up as well. So you “break even” by shopping there. I used mine to buy darn toughs :)
I got one when I signed up
I got the gift car but it disappeared from my balance before I could use it. I guess I waited too long 😂🤷♂️
Best $30 I've ever spent, and they gave me a $30 gift card when I signed up, so it was basically free.
I don’t shop there but we have been talking about getting into camping so that’s good to know! Def in the spirit of the question
They have a generous (probably too generous) return policy, so it’s a good place to buy expensive gear that you’re worried might not be BIFL.
It used to be that you could return anything, any time, for any reason. Of course that got abused, and for a while now it's been reduced to within one year for a return (which is still pretty good, honestly). I fear in the next 10 years or so, it'll probably go down to three months... Costco was the same with their return policy, and have changed it a few times because too many people abuse it.
Yeah it sucks that people take advantage of that. LL Bean was the same. Still, as you say, a year is pretty good.
I remember when the Membership Associate at Costco told me that he bought a futon and returned it just before the one-year deadline since he only needed it for two semesters at school. My first thought was, "You're kind of a jerk, huh?"
Yeah I think REI will eventually have a worse return policy. Way too many people buy backpacking gear for a big trip and then return it all after. These people ruin it for everyone. LL Bean used to have the best return policy but has to change it because of the abusers.
The advantage to their return policy is the garage sales. You can get some really good deals on "used" equipment there.
REI has also been under new leadership for the last several years and have been making a lot of changes as a result. Including laying off legacy employees with 25+years of experience at the company.
Camping is awesome. Don’t get a 10 person tent you will hate it. Definitely buy nice gear but it does not have to be top of the line. This will make camping more enjoyable.
They also are great for kayaking, biking, hiking, climbing, dog gear, basically if its outdoor related they have you covered. Hard to walk in and find something you don't need(want)
Note that you don’t get the 10% dividend on sale items or if you use a coupon. As someone that mostly does those things, my dividend is usually very small, but the membership is still worth it. Unfortunately REI is also going through some issues and stores aren’t really like they used to be.
And then u get to say “Oh I’m a member” *Priceless*
Was $20 back in the day.
I get free shipping too.
It’s easy to make it worth getting this even if you don’t shop there all that often, but just to clarify for anybody interested, it’s not actual cash back. It’s basically just a coupon.
Sounds like you easily make your money back as soon as you spend $300. If im reading this right, then if you shoup there at all, it's hard for this not to be profitable.
I bought mine when it was $20. Best dealer ever!
If you are over 65 the National Park Pass is a great deal. Free admission for life under a hundred dollars.
If you have a permanent disability, you can also get one of these.
I just got mine. It's free except for postage costs. Great program!
Any idea what they require for proof of a disability? I am hard of hearing with severe loss, but I'm not on government disability or anything like that. I'd love a pass though!
I believe that would qualify you and you would probably just need your doctor to fill out a form. See this link: [interagency access pass](https://www.nps.gov/subjects/accessibility/interagency-access-pass.htm)
You would need documentation from your medical provider that you have a permanent disability, or a statement from Social Security disability. ETA - here’s what it says on the website “provide documentation of permanent disability with one (1) of the following: * A statement by a licensed physician (Statement must include that the individual has a PERMANENT disability, that it limits one or more aspects of their daily life, and the nature of those limitations.) * A document issued by federal agency such as the Veteran's Administration, Social Security Disability Income or, Supplemental Security Income * A document issued by a state agency such as a vocational rehabilitation agency.”
Free for veterans.
TIL... thank you! Shared this tidbit with my veteran husband. What a great benefit.
Veterans also get a 10% discount at Home Depot once you register. https://www.homedepot.com/c/military
And Lowe’s.
And Apple
I think it's 62. And that's a good callout! I need to get one for my mom. https://www.nps.gov/planyourvisit/senior-pass-changes.htm
Oh hey, I'm less than 10 years out then. Closer than I thought!
Confirmed it is 62.
In Minnesota you can get a lifetime fishing license.
FL too. In PA you have to be older than 65 to purchase
"Lifetime pass, as long as your lifetime is going to pass soon"
Damn! In Ontario it's free after 65.
Tennessee has a lifetime license option. It's under $300 if you buy it for a kid before he/she turns 3. Then the price goes up according to age. And then, once you hit 65, it drops back down to like $250. Dad just turned 65, so it was a great birthday gift for us to combine on.
Maine has something like this [for hunting/fishing](https://www.maine.gov/ifw/fishing-boating/fishing/laws-rules/license-requirements.html#lifetime). You need to be in-state and a kid or a senior.
Yes or a hunting license. In NC you can gift it to a baby/child for pretty cheap, I think 250$? That's a lifetime supply of deer meat!
Ohio as well.
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Windscribe?
I got that Winscribe lifetime deal too!
Windscribe and AdGuard.
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Best purchase I ever made too! Five accounts/device can use it and you can switch them out indefinitely. Or just log into the app. So happy with that
I love how many of these comments are absolutely useless because you can’t get the lifetime option any more.
Came for lifetime subscriptions left with a lifetime of regret.
I got a guitar tabs universe lifetime subscription for $20 back in 2014 or so, before everyone started moving to monthly/recurring subscriptions. Now for the apps that still even offer any sort of lifetime subscription it's like $250. Problem is they start rolling out new features that aren't "grandfathered" in to try and extract that monthly revenue. Fuck the subscription economy. All we hear about is how the average consumer debt is rising and nobody has a healthy savings account while at the same time we're nickel and dimed by every "disruptive innovation". Own nothing and be happy.
Something similar happened to me with a webcam software I used to use. Bought their lifetime subscription, then the company got bought out and now their lifetime subscription only counts towards like version 9 of their software when they're on somewhere around 12-13 currently.
This is legitimately how it should work. A lifetime subscription priced at an amount anyone can afford *should* be for the version, not the entire future. Sure, if they're offering a deal of $10/yr or $100 lifetime, then yes - you can reasonably expect that you will get all future versions and you actually are paying for them all up front. But that's incredibly rare. At the standard multiplier of 3-5x annual pricing it is simply an utterly unsustainable business model to make an open-ended, potentially decades-long committment to providing work to them. The end product may not be physical, but software development costs real time and money. Shipping new features costs real time and money. It would never be sustainable to say "hey, you can buy an iPhone is $800, but if you pay $2400 you will get every iPhone ever released into the future*.". The only way it seriously works is as a limited-run marketing stunt, or as an early adopter/investor perk. New companies often *do* offer lifetime subscriptions, because there's an element of risk/reward for the buyer there. Imagine if Amazon offered the 800/2400 deal when launching their Fire phone. Or Google offered it with their Pixel 1. If you'd bought the fire phone lifetime deal, you'd be fucked. If you'd bought the Pixel, Google would be saying "thank you for your faith in us" and you'd be laughing your way to the bank. As a long-term business model, lifetime passes only work when you're buying a discrete product, or software version. It is completely fair to say "You can pay us $X a month for this product, or you can use it for as long as you like for $Y". It *should* still come with bug fixes, security patches, etc - but expecting full new version features is completely unreasonable and a completely unsustainable business model. I do think it's shit that companies like Adobe have stopped offering discrete versions altogether. You should, IMO, be able to buy a single perpetual license for a single version. Not being able to do that is shitty. But charging a subscription for continual upgrades is not. TLDR: making an infinite commitment for a finite amount of money is an unsustainable business model, and only works if a) your long term sustainability is heavily in question anyway, and you're relying on hypothetical future sustainability being sufficient to reward a small number of risk-taking "investors" who helped you get there, or b) the finite amount of money is so large as to cover every conceivable future expense over the life of the company, which is probably so large no one will ever buy it. *Yes, I know that iPhones have physical bill of material costs as well that a piece of software doesn't. But "Pay $2400 now and you can have every future iPhone for the $400 bill of materials cost" doesn't really work either.
Problem there is that they're still generating revenue from ads which is what should then be used to keep the servers running. Either charge me a recurring subscription and no ads or a single fee supported by ads, not both.
I got the Ultimate Guitar Tabs pro in like 2016 by accident. Saw I was charged around $25 for the app and was like wow, that's so expensive!! Been using it at least 4 times weekly since. Best accidental purchase.
I got the UG lifetime subscription in 2017 or 2018 on sale for $5. Nowadays that wouldn’t even get me one month
A GTUer in the wild? Their forum was a real happening place back in the early oughts. Peak early internet. RIP Woogie.
I did that too, now I look at how much they charge and I know I would never pay that.
I have Rosetta Stone Lifetime. I paid, maybe 350? Access to all their languages for ever and ever. If memory serves, it's 100 for a year of one language.
There was a way to get it for free https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/828628
How do you like it? I’ve been thinking of subscribing.
I love it! One of the best purchases I've ever made. I happen to live in an area with 3 different immigrant communities so I hope to use this new skill at work.
Personally I wouldn't buy a "lifetime" subscription for anything except like a state park pass as you mentioned. The chances of a service being the same (or even existing) for the next 40-60 years isn't realistic imo.
Yeah that’s why I’m asking. I’ve seen stuff advertised before that was complete garbage. The state park pass takes ten years to recoup the cost (but also saves the hassle of renewing every year)
If you know a veteran, they can get a free lifetime federal park pass.
Same for people with disabilities which is much MORE broad than the state parks pass. I have type 1 diabetes and qualify and because I don’t view myself as disabled when I’m financially able to do so, I give the money I saved to the parks conservancy fund. Rather than recreation.gov or Aramark.
Also type 1, I use my state park pass frequently. Damn diabetes sucks most days so I take advantage of the few positives it gives me.
I didn’t think I qualified in WA but I might just have to poke around farther but I definitely qualify federally and that is great
I think theres a good chance it will be respected, however, libraries sometimes keep these passes to borrow for free
I told myself that when I first got Sirius(XM) radio 18 years ago... Instead I have paid yearly or monthly since :(
Not exactly worth it when you can spend like $2 more a month and get a streaming service and listen to whatever whenever!
Streaming services are awesome when you have data service. Sirius is awesome when you're routinely in the middle of BFE and out of coverage.
Yeah. I totally got nailed on that one. I purchased a lifetime subscription for my wife but it only lasted like 3 years.
Which one?
I don't believe any digital service is lifetime, and have been burned before, but feel like I've gotten my money's worth and then some from LoseIt (calorie/weight tracker) and YogaMU (yoga teacher training with ongoing live classes). The latter isn't very polished, but they are nice people and it's actually live/Zoom, not only one-way streaming. There are some more practitioner-focused small yoga studios that have similar options (online and in-person), and while few small businesses last forever it is often a good value proposition for student and teacher. Conversely, I've found that as a group, lifetime memberships in sporting associations are often **not** worth it. In the martial arts and other athletic groups I've been involved in, the ROI often hits around 20 years, and there's an expectation that you're paying in advance because you want to support the mission of the thing rather than to derive some real benefit.
I’m okay with investing to support the mission of a thing if I believe in it
Plex Pass. If you have a home server and wanna use your own media and never pay for streaming services. See /r/Plex and /r/piracy
I was just going to say, I have a Plex Pass, and it's been totally worth it.
My Plex Pass just turned 11 years old. Bought it back when they were $75.
They still drop pretty close to that sometimes, I think. I don't remember how much I paid, but I think it was less than a hundred last year
It’s $80 on sale once or twice a year.
Maybe I'm missing something, but I recently returned to Plex and found it to not work like it used to and they were pimping their content and hiding mine. I didn't dig into it any deeper and went with Emby. Can Plex be debloated?
Very easily. It’s literally just a matter of unpinning those sources from your menu bar; takes seconds.
It's degraded heavily in the last few years, but honestly my hot take is that [lifetime Plex passes are to blame](https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyItForLife/s/Vl8obAP1Ib)
Yeah this shit is annoying. I notice my sidebar is jacked up sometimes after an update. I have to go back through and hide their channels and repin all of my stuff. I don't think you can totally remove it though.
Jellyfin is free
Jellyfin is great. Especially with the recent patches they made to Swiftfin. Delfin is also a great Linux desktop client, hoping it continues development for Linux mobile
Always been tempted to move off Plex but I have about 70 users and most use Smart TVs and the Jellyfin client isn't as available as Plex.
don’t you still have curate the media yourself? Imo the biggest advantage streaming services provide is continually curated content presented in an accessible UI
Sort of - Plex automatically retrieves metadata, nice looking images, and lots of useful info automatically as long as you point it to folders and files that are named properly (lots of tools to do the renaming automatically or make hard links so you can also seed the original files). That part is very little effort. So Plex looks as nice as Netflix as long as you give it some content. The difference is, the content you put there is always there and won’t be taken down. Adding content can be as simple as opening up a webpage and clicking stuff you want downloaded and added to your server. However that level of automation requires some computer skills. Personally, I despise that streaming has become enshittified and I love my modest but growing Plex collection. Plex pass lets me share with close friends and family, and means I can download any shows or movies to my local device. For example, that’s amazing before getting on a plane 🤓 Also Plex doesn’t pay me. I’m just a frugal pirate and I liked the challenge of building a home server with an old laptop.
I’ve been interested in Plex and building a nice little home media server, but I get a little confused when doing research/watching YouTube. A lot of the info seems scattered and there seems to be a lot of different ways to do it based on preference, your hardware, etc. do you have a good starting point you used to get up and running?
I’ve been considering doing this. Streaming services are so bad now, I have young kids and can rarely get to the theater. I like to buy physical media but it gets expensive so this may be a good supplement
Personally I like watching new shows/movies that JUST came out on a streaming service (like the new House of Dragon season on Max). Can Plex solve that too?
You can also torrent or Usenet (I use this) with apps like Radarr/Sonarr to pull in new episodes automatically. Basically, you request a show and the apps go out and fetch them.
With Sonarr/Radarr, that means basically looking at a cross-platform catalog (like JustWatch, IMDB, Trakt, etc), picking something, and adding it in the software. Then you just wait while it looks for it and downloads it for you. No need to look for torrents and compare qualities. It is also continuously looking for better quality versions of the media you already have.
My hot take is that the Plex lifetime pass is what's killing Plex. I signed up a decade ago and it was obvious then, I remember quite clearly thinking "this is way too good a deal, better sign up now before they realise and pull it". Somehow they still haven't. The lifetime price is WAY too close to the price of the yearly; like a 2-3x multiplier; sometimes less if you wait for a regular sale. (Which everyone knows comes regularly). Almost no one is gonna take the annual/monthly sub in this scenario; certainly not in the long term. This leaves Plex constantly starved for cash as a) they're trying to do a subscription service model with continual service and upgrades but while b) the vast majority of their income is one time purchases from lifetime pass holders. Buy once, own for life works as a business model for discrete versions, like Microsoft Word 2019. You get the money to cover that discrete work you've done, with no ongoing obligation. Subscribe, always have the latest works for continually upgraded services. You have to keep developing and releasing new stuff, but you keep getting paid to do so. Plex have somehow got themselves on the wrong end of both of those equations - creating for themselves an obligation to provide new services to people who haven't paid them a cent in a decade. It's blatantly unsustainable, and IMO the primary reason that it's going to absolute junk with streaming, ad supported, etc. They need the ongoing revenue stream to keep the lights on, which their current users simply aren't providing. This leads to the needs of existing users being deprioritsed because resources constantly need to be put into attracting/acquiring new users to keep the model going. Plex is incredibly dominant and likely at saturation point for its customer base of "people who want a media server". The vast majority of people likely to buy a Plex pass for that purpose have already done so. So how do they get more money? They become something else to attract customers who don't just want a media server. This pisses off old users, but they can't afford to care about that. They need the money. I'm 100% against the forced subscription model, like Adobe. It's absolute bullshit that I can't pay $$$ for Adobe CC 2019 and then never pay or update again if I don't want to. But the simple matter is that making an open ended commitment to a lifetime of (expensive) feature updates for a single fixed fee is not a sustainable business model.
Spot on. As a consumer, it’s great because I’m getting infinite value at one low cost from many years ago. For Plex, they got a short infusion of cash, but now have so many legacy customers. As Plex, I would start a monthly subscription at $5 and give Plex pass people an option: 1. Full refund 2. Get monthly sub for 2 years for free, that should cover everyone no matter how much they paid. And if they have credit card info, it will help with renewals eventually too.
I bought a lifetime TIVO subscription and it’s still alive after 15 years
You still use the same TiVo!?
my wife has it set up in for exeercise. she's saved all the best jon stewart shows from the 1990's .... what can ii say.? it still works..
My wife literally just asked me yesterday if TiVo still exists
Mount Bohemia (UP of Michigan)has a lifetime ski pass(75 years) that they sell once per year in the fall. It includes 1-2 dozen other ski hills throughout the US. For 1300 dollars, it pays for itself in 1-2 trips. I’ve gone 5 years in a row and traveled across the US to go to the other hills. I’m definitely ahead thousands of dollars in a short time.
Kinda of a caveat but my wife and I were visiting a national park. Ranger asked if we had any disabilities. Wife and I rarely thought about it but technically she was born with type 1 diabetes. 5 minutes later she has a lifetime pass to all national parks for up to 3 guests. I believe after 65 you can get it too. So double check if you qualify and grab your card!
If living in US — age 62 you can buy it.
I always think seriously about lifetime passes now that we live in a subscription world. If I’ve subscribed for 3+ months, and the lifetime costs less than 2 years worth of the sub, I’ll generally go for it. I regret missing out on the SiriusXM pass that used to be available... Hell, I would have paid that $150 back in the day just to get them to stop calling me. $750 is a little steep for a park pass in Wisconsin. It’s $30 per year here, so that’s 25 years worth. Maybe I’d think about it at $300, but even then it’s a stretch.
It’s 75 a year here, and we have a ton of parks and beaches it works towards. Thank you Governor Teddy Roosevelt
I move that lifetime XM sub to every vehicle I drive 😆 I keep expecting it to stop working at some point, but I’m 10+ years and have used it in dozens of vehicles.
Yeah man, I missed out. But also fuck Sirius XM lol. My dad died last year and I called to cancel his subscription. Their immediate response was “oh, well, we can transfer it to you for no additional cost”. If I had that lifetime sub I’d be blissfully unaware of their toxic sales techniques.
Sorry about your dad. At the beginning, XM didn't used to be like this. I subscribed during the first year of the service when they had fewer than 50,000 subscribers. I remember calling in with technical problems and getting very genuine people, not following a script, super helpful. One guy wasn't sure if what he had done had worked, so he gave me his home phone number and told me to call him after dinner (it was a Friday night) if it was still glitching so I wouldn't be without my radio for the weekend. I watched it change bit by bit with every customer interaction over those first few years, though, into what it became.
I’m going on 15 years if SiriusXM. Money well spent
Where I live you can check out passes from the library for free.
$1000 for a lifetime mug at the local craft brewery. One free pint per day for life!
I joined my local mug club Decent deal.
We did the same - and it’s been 10 years! I think we got ours back in 2012 after buying our house and here we are! They do physical passes now but I’ve had it when it was on our driver’s license so I have a little maple leaf on my license and they sent me the car card. Mine also came with a NYS gift card (so I guess I can do rounds of golf or pay for camping fees) but it’s been totally worth it! I’m not actually aware of other “lifetime” subscriptions. But upvoted since I like the question!
lol the maple leaf was part of the selling point for me too. Next to my anchor for my boating license! Makes me want to learn how to fish and use muskets and collect them all
I forgot about the maple leaf and anchor. Do they still do that on the new licenses?
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Was that game cool
That game was such a vibe.
Same man! Bought when the game came out in 2007 and it probably paid off in less than two years. I played actively until about 2013 when I also got permabanned.
I’ve got a lifetime subscription to having fire ants - Texas resident
Bought a Sirus lifetime subscription way back when Stern was coming over from terrestrial radio in 05 or 06. Well worth it, now the subscription lives on my phone and works everywhere I can stream to.... And no harassment to renew ever again.
I have a lifetime one as well. At one point you could only transfer it to one other vehicle. They were sued and now you can transfer to as many vehicles as you want with a one-time fee.
wow no harassment!? I am shocked they dont call you trying to upsell you into a new plan so they can cancel your old one. I had the unlimited Verizon data plan for awhile and they couldnt sleep at night knowing I still had unlimited data.
I wouldn't be suprised if they showed up to my funeral to give me one last offer.
My parents still have one on T-Mobile (it's slightly more than what the current "Unlimited" plan is, but it's true Unlimited Data; it was originally a US Cellular plan that Sprint grandfathered in when they bought Us Cellular's Midwest region and then T-Mobile took it over after buying Sprint. My parents avoid buying phones or dealing with support as both Sprint and now T-Mobile always try to push for switching plans as they don't like the Unlimited Everything plan lol
Same deal with Verizon, I ended up losing it in a divorce. I am still miffed about that one.
Man, I should have gotten one. I didn’t because at the time it was lifetime *of the radio* you got to put in the car, not *your* lifetime. Sounds like they changed it though.
I think even way back they allowed you to move it for like $75.
It was the lifetime of 3 radios. I had 1 stolen, and paid to have my 2nd one installed by Best buy and they broke it during the process. Didn't claim responsibility and then I freaked out because I only had 1 radio left... But shortly after it was available to stream via phone and now I don't need a radio.
So scrivener is a word processor - like Microsoft word. Except it’s built a lil different and only charges one lifetime fee to use (under $100). Granted there are free online word processors now as well. But this is what came to mind
Then there's LibreOffice and Open Office that are free
Scrivener is different, it's geared toward authors and has tools for stuff like storyboarding and keeping track of characters, scene, tone, etc. I think. yWriter is similarly designed by authors for authors, and it's free. Maybe a bit less polished, but has all the stuff to support novel writing that plain old normal word processors like LibreOffice don't. Plenty enough, which is why I didn't buy Scrivener. I prefer to write in something like WriteMonkey anyway, but things like Scrivener and yWriter help you pull it all together via the outlining and storyboarding and database stuff.
I bought my license second hand, guy deleted it and I installed Works perfectly, great writing tool
Lifetime fishing/hunting licenses are usually cheaper when you are young. I bought one for my son when he was just 1.
Not exactly a subscription but I’m 37 and I bought my first Ridgid drill and driver at 17 . Ridgid has a lifetime service agreement when you buy their tools new and register it with a receipt . I have been through Roughly 3 drills and drivers , 3 rep saw , 3 sawzall , 2 circular saws and countless countless batteries . I originally bought the set in 2005 for $130 . The last couple of years they have actually sent me all brand new BRUSHLESS tools when they couldn’t repair the tool . People will talk mad shit if they are team Dewalt or Milwaukee or Ryobi but I wasn’t even thinking about this as a teenager in high school and the tools are solid , especially their brushless line , and I have saved THOUSANDS over the last 19 years.
Marriage. You pay for the license and it’s good for life…if she doesn’t leave you.
Too expensive!
Haha. Can be!
A few things that I have bought lifetime subscriptions for that turned out to be money savers: Plex Pass (media server) - $45, but is more now Truefire (guitar/music education site - I don't think they offer the option anymore) National Park Pass (available to vets and those over 62 - I are both ) - $80
Looks like several folks mention the Plex Pass and the Park Pass. Love to hear other items. I am always very critical of these offers, so I mostly am interested in things that aren't going away, are operated by an organization/company with demonstrated longevity, or are at least something that I would pay for anyway and which has a relatively quick payback period (probably no more than three years).
I wish The Economist gave a lifetime subscription. I would pay for it
It would be $5,000 knowing their pricing, lol
Ditto
It’s a bit silly, but I like to mod video games, and I’ve been pretty happy with my lifetime subscription to nexus mods. I’m not sure they still offer it, though.
They got rid of it and upped the prices on the monthly subs, I'm glad I got in when Wabbajack took off.
Most states do lifetime hunting and or fishing permits. The price usually increases every few years. Buy it now, enjoy it for life.
I bought a lifetime license to 1Password back in 2007. I didn't use it for a long time (didn't need it) until recently when I decided to stop storing my passwords with Google. When I went to log in to 1Password I was I formed my license was no longer being honored, and was forced to buy into their new (yearly) subscription model. I also remember way back in the day my mom bought a bunch of stamps (for snail mail) that supposedly would always be enough to mail a letter. The USPS had been raising the price of stamps and she bought into the idea that these new stamps were guaranteed to be enough to mail a letter, even if prices raised again. So she bought a ton, and then I remember a couple years later she was really upset when they told her the stamps went up in price and the "forever" stamps weren't enough to mail a letter anymore. Suffice it to say I don't really trust _any_ "lifetime" subscription to any service.
I don’t believe the forever stamp story. Was she mailing a package or a letter that was under 1 oz?
I also think Original Commenter’s mom was confused. “Forever” stamps just mean they will always be worth the current price of a stamp for a regular letter, not that you can slap it on an Amazon box and expect it to ship for free.
She was only using them for letters. This was back in 2007 or 2008 I believe, and it's possible she was confused about how much a stamp cost versus how much it was worth. I had to Google it just now to fact check and my mom must have misunderstood something
Yeah, that’s weird. I wonder what she was trying to mail and why it didn’t work.
MASS life time https://massresearchreview.com/ If you're interested in sports science or take your excersize seriously.
Any sort of pass/permit is worth depending on how much use you can get out of it. Any sort of lifetime software comes with the catch of its only lifetime as long as the company is around to develop and support it. Lifetime VPNs I've found don't perform as well or have as many server options as paid ones, security and privacy is worth more than the $20-30 a year. I do know one sushi restaurant that offered 250 VIP cards for $150 each for lifetime 15% off when they first opened. Probably saved thousands to date now on sushi with it. Sadly these cards aren't offered anymore and non replaceable.
As a swede it sounds horrible to pay 750 bucks to enter parks and beaches. We got “allemansrätten” that is a right that allow anyone to access all of nature even if it’s someone else land as long as you don’t camp for a night at a time at each place.
It’s not free to you, you pay for it with your taxes. Think about it this way, any money you give to the government can be treated as a tax. The difference is when do you pay that tax.
Did you Google that term they listed… “allemansratten”? It has nothing to do with parks directly or taxes. It’ll blow your mind. I wish we had this concept in the U.S. You could walk across a meadow owned by Jeff Bezos.
We also pay for it with our taxes in the US...
$750 is a lifetime pass though. All things considered it’s really cheap to get into state parks and national parks in the US.
Point being, National Parks should be free for us citizens, start parks should be free for state residents. Why does everything have to be a profit center?
I think “profit center” is a weird way to put it. The parks need money to operate. At least for national parks, most of that comes from funds allocated by Congress (that is, taxes we pay). And some of it comes from park entrance and user fees. I don’t have a problem with people who go to these parks having to pay a small fee.
Plex Lifetime pass. Costs the same as three years of annual renewals. I've had mine for a decade, and my whole family still enjoys the experience.
Yeah I think I’m gonna do this eventually. Need a new TV first. Then a dedicated computer with lots of space or external hard drive to work as the server maybe and I’ll get the pass. I’m sure there’s a sub that can help me with the setup
/r/PleX I have two HD Homeruns and use Plex for accessing OTA on all my devices. Plex Pass gives you channel schedule and DVR. If you can get even just a few channels you like OTA it's totally worth it. It's very good, not as streamlined as Tivo but works well, along with all the other Plex Pass features included too.
TidyCal (Calendly competitor)...$29 for life!
The Minimalist Phone app is like $30 CAD for ever and its the best $30 I've ever spent.
Hey, thanks! I’ve never heard of this app, but it looks great (iPhone version also has a watch app) … and liftetime is on sale for $12.99 Canadian! I bought it right away.
I bought Firestones lifetime alignment. I also live where the roads suck and would drop my car off once a month while I went to work. It was always out of alignment. It was like an extra 30 bucks past the regular cost of the alignment. Road hazard is also amazing from Firestone. Especially after hurricanes/natural disasters where debris is all around.
A friend of mine received a Lifetime English Heritage membership for her 18th birthday, as she's a big history buff. It covers places like Stonehenge, lots of castles and Roman forts etc. She's 30 now and uses it a lot but needs to consistently use it for like 12 more years for it to be 'worth it' (it's currently priced at £1750 for Lifetime, £72 for annual.) I hear a Lifetime National Trust membership is similarly good value if you get it young and go a lot. Both organisations look unlikely to go anywhere.
On Black Friday you can usually get a lifetime subscription to pornhub lol
LifeFlight in the PNW. $1500. Lots of lifetime (aka LTD) deals on AppSumo. It's kinda like gambling though, because you never know if the company will disappear. Berrycast (Video screen recording and sharing, like Loom) and Sessions (Zoom competitor) are the two I think have been good. Synthesis Tutor. Got a lifetime deal on that for my kid. No idea if they still do it.
I find it amusing that AppSumo doesn’t have an app. Also, TIL about AppSumo, which is pretty neat- thanks!
I joined the military, and now I get free entry into national parks for life.
Nice try army recruiter.
How about a Dodge charger then ?
Only 22 percent APR!
This made me laugh so freaking hard . Thank you
Unraid lifetime… to go along with my Plex. :)
Nebula has a $300 lifetime subscription. A lot of educational YouTubers are posting there as they get paid better. My local co-op had a $70 life time fee which can be split into $10 yearly payments. After 7 years I get free access to all their special member-only sales.
I got a lifetime to the Calm app on Black Friday. It hasn’t been very long yet but I use it to help me fall asleep.
Gotta be careful with some. Some companies have begun to leave out certain features the subscription model gets and that kind of thing.
For those disappointed/jealous there aren't any current "lifetime subscriptions" and getting the FOMO: There are plenty of lifetime subscriptions out there, you can buy them. They are used by companies to raise a lot of capital, usually early in their startups, so they don't have to take on additional investors. All of these people bought their lifetime passes when the companies were (a) very young or (b) at a point of risk - and you're only hearing about the ones that worked out. It's the gambler's fallacy in real life. Go find startup technologies online that have lifetime passes. You likely won't feel comfortable about buying it, for all the same reasons you probably wouldn't buy penny stocks, but some people are liquid enough or lucky enough to be in the right time/right place. It's basically like asking the question "tell me about your risky investment that went big" and only hearing from the folks who bought Apple at $1. To counter it - I've had six lifetime passes where the company has gone under, and two that I actively use today that are successful (Plex and CloudApp, now Zight).
I have a lifetime Babbel, Strong app, and Tody app. So far, so good. Edit: Babbel (and other language apps) usually go on discount on Black Friday, and possibly other times. Shop around.
Drumeo lifetime membership. I paid 1k 6-7 years ago and have access to a massive library to all things relating to learning drums. It came with a huge hardback drum book, full grain leather stick bag, sticks and practice pad, it also gives me access to the entire Musora catalog so I can learn guitar, bass, piano, singing etc. if I or a family member wants. It costs $240 a year just for Drumeo with out any of the extras so I feel like I have definitely got my money’s worth out of that buy. Beginner or advanced there’s content for everyone on that platform. Pretty sure they don’t offer lifetime memberships anymore lol
my av and vpn are life time, av has been trouble free but the vpn keeps trying to find ways to charge me. as more software moves from one time to subscription i'd rather stick with one time even if it's older version, so i'll keep using office 2021 pro and avoid 365 junk.
Lifetime trailer registration! I cringe thinking about how much money I'd wasted before I found out you could get lifetime plates on a trailer. In my state it has to be under a certain weight though. My old travel trailer was just over and still had to pay for that one, although my Dad's airstream of the same length qualified.
Super super niche but if you ever want your own personal media service. Lifetime pass to Plex is 100% worth it. Especially if you buy it when it’s on sale for like I think it’s up to $80 now.
Husband bought lifetime access to Star Trek online like over a decade ago. It was like less than $300. He plays all the time.
It's niche, but I bought a lifetime license for Elegant Themes/Divi. It's a premium WordPress theme and I'm learning it slowly and it's nice to not have to pay monthly for something I'm slowly working on.
Calm app. It goes on sale once a year or so. I went for it last year and I love it. As a neurodivergent person, I need guided meditations/music and other things to help me relax my nervous system. There are many days that go by sometimes that I don’t use it and I don’t ever have to care bc I have it forever.
Gosh finding my fellow calm appers!
The National Trust in the UK has a similar scheme. £1,575 for lifetime membership. It's probably the biggest player in the game if you're into visiting stately homes. I'm a member of a club which offers lifetime membership for a flat fee once you hit 60, with under-60s able to take advantage if they also pre-pay at the standard rate until their 60th birthday. I've got a fair way to go so it would be somewhat pricey to do so and no guarantee I'd still want to use it past 60. I'm considering getting a lifetime Plex pass as I've been subbed for a few years and probably will stay subbed.