With all the recent inflationary price rises, is there stuff you just won’t pay for now?

[cdd]

I can never find anything on Netflix I want to watch, so it's gone in the bin. The signal to noise ratio is ridiculous. It might even have good stuff, but it's such a faff to find that I'll just teef the odd show as and when someone recommends it to me.

Disney+ is worth it and this thread has reminded me that I need to downgrade to the standard (non-4K HD) plan before they sting me for £110 in March.

I get a ridiculous amount of value out of YouTube Premium and could probably spend 24 hours a day watching it if there weren't things to curtail me. I would happily pay the UK price but I'll keep paying the Egypt price while that wheeze lasts.

I genuinely don't understand why anyone watches live TV these days, Sky and its friends went in the bin long ago. Maybe I'll subscribe again when I want to relive the 2000s.

Outside entertainment, I finally cancelled my Pret £30 subscription which started out as a £20 lockdown treat. It's not that it's bad value but apparently I can't resist buying a load of pastries whenever I go in there so for the sake of my wallet and my waistline it has had to stop.

Buying bags at M&S is off my list too. I was charged 50p for a flimsy paper one the other day, and I nearly bought one of their "bags for life" until I saw it was £8.

[thegeek]

Buying lunch from Pret has definitely joined the 'once in a while' thing rather than being once a week or so - I understand their economics, but I can't really justify a fiver for a sarnie anymore.

I'm also less likely to buy a fancy coffee on the way to work - though that's partly because I'm now getting the tube instead of cycling (so there's the fare to consider); and also new job has a half-decent coffee machine.

[Blewatter]

Ditching Spotify for me. I like Spotify, it's a decent service, but I have all the music i listen to downloaded or on physical media. I use my old phone as an Music player, and it just sounds better.

[Pete]

Do you feel any real world benefit from gigabit speeds? I'm doing my annual ISP swap shortly and I'm currently debating between Sky 145Mb @ £22.39/month or Sky 500Mb @ £23.89/month (both effective prices after cashback).

yes... although there's part of me that wonders if its the wifi 6 rather than the gigabit that makes the real difference.

That said, there's lots of big files flying around for work and it does make it easier. I certainly notice the difference when I work from my aunt's house with her 100mb.

[thegeek]

Having gigabit broadband would certainly have been a lot more useful to me during Covid times when I was working from home a lot more (in a job that required quite a bit of streaming video). It's less of an issue now and I reckon a few hundred meg would do me fine, though having a symmetrical upload speed is certainly nice. My current provider only offers an actual IP address (rather than CGNAT) on its 1Gb package though, which is why I've gone with it for now.

[Henry26]

Having gigabit broadband would certainly have been a lot more useful to me during Covid times when I was working from home a lot more (in a job that required quite a bit of streaming video). It's less of an issue now and I reckon a few hundred meg would do me fine, though having a symmetrical upload speed is certainly nice. My current provider only offers an actual IP address (rather than CGNAT) on its 1Gb package though, which is why I've gone with it for now.

Totally get that! The need for top-notch speed during those heavy WFH days is undeniable. A few hundred megs with a symmetrical upload speed does sound practical for the current setup. Interesting point about the actual IP address – definitely a plus. What's your current provider, and have you noticed a significant difference in performance? Always curious to hear about people's broadband experiences!

[Pete]

Having gigabit broadband would certainly have been a lot more useful to me during Covid times when I was working from home a lot more (in a job that required quite a bit of streaming video). It's less of an issue now and I reckon a few hundred meg would do me fine, though having a symmetrical upload speed is certainly nice. My current provider only offers an actual IP address (rather than CGNAT) on its 1Gb package though, which is why I've gone with it for now.

Virgin are also one of the few ISPs that publish their upload speeds. Even though they're not symmetrical its useful.

I remember having to give a crash course on upload speeds during one of the very early lockdown all team meetings as everyone was so used to have symmetrical speeds in the office.

Covid killing off download limits is one of the remaining positives too.

[m-in-m]

Having gigabit broadband would certainly have been a lot more useful to me during Covid times when I was working from home a lot more (in a job that required quite a bit of streaming video). It's less of an issue now and I reckon a few hundred meg would do me fine, though having a symmetrical upload speed is certainly nice. My current provider only offers an actual IP address (rather than CGNAT) on its 1Gb package though, which is why I've gone with it for now.

Totally get that! The need for top-notch speed during those heavy WFH days is undeniable. A few hundred megs with a symmetrical upload speed does sound practical for the current setup. Interesting point about the actual IP address – definitely a plus. What's your current provider, and have you noticed a significant difference in performance? Always curious to hear about people's broadband experiences!

I've moved to Lightspeed Broadband with 1Gbps up and down. At the same time I've switched to their Nokia Hub and beacon which is WiFi 6.

I've certainly noticed that asking Sonos to play something is instantaneous and video streaming is noticeably quicker to start.

I've noticed Openreach have no appetite to increase their upload speed as you increase download - no doubt in part to protect revenue from business customers who could potentially move away from expensive commercial contracts.