Talking with Marcell Almeida, I said I didn’t subscribe to SaaS anymore, and he proved that wasn’t true. I kept thinking about it and came to the conclusion that I no longer pay for the ones I don’t see value in; the others I pay for happily. (Thanks, Marcell!)
There are the ones that come in a bundle, that we don’t want but get pushed on us — Claro TV, for example. And there are the ones I do see value in: the “AI” subscriptions, I “pay” for Strava (I don’t think I’d pay if it weren’t included in Wellhub, which I also pay a subscription for), I pay for streaming services… and so on.
I’m kind of hooked on Service as a Software, and I can see that this is how I’m paying for tools. Is it a service I need and that speeds up my life? I pay. Not worth it, and I can quickly replace it with a little program? I build it with coding agents.
I think three factors shape how I think about this: I like building products, forgetfulness, and whether it saves me effort or makes it possible for me to do something. I’ve always liked open source and, as I remember them, I’ll start migrating some of the ones I no longer see the point in paying for.
The first one will be Speechify, quite expensive for what it delivers. I think I’ll do the same for Grammarly. If you have ideas, send them over, because I’m in the mood to do some “building in public”. :)
Originally written in Portuguese and published on LinkedIn on November 11, 2026. I translated it into English with the help of AI (Claude): it let me bring my LinkedIn posts to people who don’t read Portuguese without rewriting each one from scratch. I reviewed the translation to keep my original meaning and tone.