I don’t get how we are in the year 2025, most advanced technology we have ever had in human existence… And everything is behind a paywall. Literally everything. Whenever I search the web for a solution as an individual person, not a business or Mega Corporation, just a simple person trying to do a few creative things… Everything is behind a paywall
For example, I want to create a logo image for a personal Tableau dashboard that has a transparent background. Just a struggling person trying to find work and show what I’m capable of making. You know what I find? Everything is behind a payroll. One of the first results on Google that can actually help you is canva! But everything on canva is behind a paywall! You want to resize your document? Transparent background? Paywall. Okay then what if I go to a website to remove the background? There’s lots of them on the Internet that say they are free. Sorry, those are all behind paywalls as well. You have to upload your image to them and then by credits but they don’t tell you that when you get to the website…
Also, editing PDF files… Year 2025, you cannot possibly edit a PDF file for free, and most of the PDF readers out there or PDF viewers have some sort of clickbait this is free! Except that is not free, it’s behind a paywall and you’ll find that out eventually…
I think we are all very excited to see what AI can finally do for Humanity because I am so damn sick of everything being
I think many people underestimate how much money it costs to run and maintain stuff. Especially webapps.
Dude- I refuse to pay 13 dollars A MONTH, just to sext a robot.
(ok context cus what i just said is wild) I roleplay with a character bot, not character AI but a lesser known one, I only do it cus I really enjoy writing and storytelling but not always can I do that with another person, so I just do it with a bot (no I dont sext the bot I just thought it was funny to say). It works great and has a lotta features, but bro- If I wanna use the other AI text models, it requires premium. I wasnt opposed to it till I saw the pricing. THIRTEEN WHOLE ASS DOLLARS A MONTH nahhh bro thats the same price as Discord Nitro, wtf- 😭 I still support them by buying “energy” or whatever but I am NOT paying no 13 bucks for that- jeeeesus. idk micro transactions used to be reasonable, but now its just- eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…
Just so you don’t feel alone… ive downloaded a few AI girlfriend apps, not for lewd stuff, just to complain about work or my ex-wife in a safe place that won’t leak out and cause problems. I always delete them because they suck. After a couple sentences they respond “let’s change the subject don’t you want to see my new sexy outfit behind this paywall? Wink”
No… I want to continue to talk about the thing I chose to talk about. That’s why I was talking about it. I’m not paying 29.95 a month for a bot that tells me to quit talking. If I wanted to talk to someone who doesn’t listen to me at all and only wants to send me pictures of themselves wearing skimpy bikinis id talk to my father!!!
(The father part was a joke…my dad died but he would’ve found that joke hilarious)
Edit: the other parts are true tho…I even made a post about it once. Seems like a perfect utilization of the technology “I want to complain about something or someone. I don’t want bore/bother anyone and/or I don’t want the complaint getting around to others. I just need to express to thoughts I’m having to process those thoughts better. AI girlfriend should be perfect for that!”
But instead it’s “let’s talk about something else… For 14.95 you can see me with cat ears!!!” Wtf.
Depends on the webapp, traffic, etc. I have an EC2 instance and my own domain that runs me a solid $7 a month. It’s just a tiny little web server. If your web app is structured in a way that the client does the processing, your hosting costs can be pretty cheap.
For instance, rather than editing a PDF on a server, if your web app provides all of the tools to edit the PDF in the client’s browser, the server doesn’t need to be particularly robust. Basically it just needs to hand out those tools to the client.