three subscriptions – A creator trying to shrink a monthly subscription bill ended up cutting most apps—while keeping three paid services they use every day: Claude, Obsidian Sync, and Proton Unlimited. The common thread isn’t just convenience. It’s privacy they can feel, from end-
The moment you start counting subscriptions, the numbers can feel like a slow drain. One app here, another there—before you know it, your monthly bill has quietly expanded.
That’s the problem one Android user set out to fix. They say they’ve managed to bring their list of paid apps down to just three. Several others they previously paid for—Gemini, Headspace, Todoist, and YouTube Music—are now gone.
Even with the trimming, they’re not treating “cut” like a moral victory. The three they still pay for are the ones they use daily. For now, they don’t see a reason to ditch them, because they’re practical tools—and, at least for part of the lineup, they’re built around privacy.
Claude sits at the top of their list at $20 per month. They use it “practically… every day. ” and say it helps with concrete tasks like brainstorming title ideas for posts. supporting their fitness journey. and even cooking a new dish. They prefer it for being more direct and realistic than Gemini. and for how it challenges bad ideas rather than simply going along.
They also point to features they say make it more useful than other chatbots they’ve tried. Claude’s “Projects” are used to give specific instructions to the AI along with other data it should remember. They say chats can be stored under a project tied to a topic—something they say isn’t available on Gemini Gems. They add that Claude is strong for coding, including creating an app from voice prompts in minutes.
Still, they don’t treat Claude as perfect. They note there are no image and video generation capabilities, which is one reason they still sometimes use Gemini. They also say usage limits are easier to hit with Claude—they claim they hit a limit after just a few prompts not long ago—while they say they’ve never hit a limit when using Gemini. In their view, that’s an area Claude “should improve.”.
Then there’s Obsidian, which they describe as their latest note-taking obsession. They’ve bounced between Keep. Evernote. and Notion. and say Notion worked for years before it became too much for them. They call Obsidian’s learning curve steep if you want to master all its features. but say it’s simple enough to use as a basic note-taking app.
What keeps them paying is the way Obsidian handles their files when they want privacy. They say it has an offline-first approach that stores everything on their device so a major company doesn’t get access to their private thoughts. The trade-off, they say, is that they can’t access those files from other devices.
That’s where the subscription comes in: Obsidian Sync costs $5 per month. They say it lets them access files across all devices and that it uses end-to-end encryption, adding that Obsidian employees can’t see their files even if they wanted to.
They contrast that with what they describe as most other services. including those offered by Google—where the company can see data on its servers if it wants to. They also acknowledge the existence of privacy policies in general. but still argue that end-to-end encryption gives them peace of mind because it’s their data “and mine only.”.
They use Obsidian for both long-form writing and short notes. They say it’s worth the subscription even though they believe you could sync it via Google Drive for free—just without end-to-end encryption.
The third paid service is Proton Unlimited. They call it “kind of cheating” because it’s a suite rather than a single app, but they treat it as one subscription that covers multiple needs. They pay $13 per month, with the option to reduce the price by prepaying for a full year.
Their biggest daily use within Proton Unlimited is Proton Drive. which they say replaced both Google Drive and Photos for them. They store lots of images and prefer cloud storage, even though they’ve considered getting a NAS. They like Proton Drive’s privacy focus: they say no one can see their photos and files but them.
They moved to Proton Mail as a replacement for Gmail as well. They say the app makes it easier to see newsletters they’re subscribed to and cancel them than they could in Gmail. They also point to self-destructing emails, saying the ability comes in handy.
Proton Mail’s end-to-end encryption is the privacy anchor they return to, with one practical caveat: they say you have to adjust a few settings to make it work when sending emails outside of Proton’s email service.
Beyond Drive and Mail. they use Proton Authenticator for online account access. Proton VPN when traveling. and Proton Pass for saving passwords. They say Proton Pass is especially impressive because they previously used Bitwarden. They call Bitwarden a great app. but they say Proton Pass has “zero friction. ” while Bitwarden had issues with not saving—or not autofilling—passwords for certain websites.
They do complain about one thing: Proton Drive is “a bit on the slow side,” especially compared with Google Drive and Photos. They add that it’s not a deal-breaker, but that the speed difference gets annoying after extended use.
At the end of it, the math lands them on $38 total per month across the three services. They call it steep, but say there’s enough value—and enough privacy—to justify keeping these three while ditching the rest.
They end by turning the question back outward: how many subscriptions do other people pay for, and which apps are actually worth it?
Claude subscription Obsidian Sync Proton Unlimited privacy apps end-to-end encryption Proton Pass Proton VPN subscription management AI chatbot note taking apps