I have never trusted the "lifetime access" plans offered by SaaS websites with subscriptions, as I know hosting services costs money and human resources to manage. An email from Pluralsight confirmed this today.
I used to have a set of courses I bought from ACloudGuru back in 2017. I loved ACloudGuru back then as it was a solid source to learn AWS for me.
I didn't follow up with ACloudGuru anymore and I didn't access my courses for 6 years, but it looks like it's owned by Pluralsight who decided to pull the plug on perpetually bought courses.
Do I need these courses? Could be, I may need to refurbish my knowledge if I move to another job, or renew my certificates. Now, I will lose my "lifetime access" courses by end of January 2025.
Lessons learned:
- There is no "lifetime" access for online material. The lifespan of these materials are how long the host doesn't decide not to pull the plug.
- Anything that is online and you don't have a copy of on your own drive means you don't really own. You just rent it.
- NEVER trust lifetime access plans offers you to pay 3-5 times of their annual plan for the hope they will stay longer than the average startup lifespan of 5 years.
I know people who make a big deal out of collecting physical media. Personally I find the volume of space they take up is oppressive. I spent a lot of last summer trying to gentle a stray cat
https://mastodon.social/tags/BobB
in the "cat room" in our other house (same lot) that was under renovation. I took over a TV and the XBOX and set up a wireless link with the last version of
https://uisp.com/us/wireless/airmax2-4ghz
I also took over all my DVD and Blu-Ray. I watched plenty of TV and movies off my media server and off Apple TV, Peacock and Tubi but didn't watch a single disc. I kept the best 10% and gave the rest to the reuse center who thought I was crazy to let go if it. (Boy was it hard to decide between the theatrical release and Richard Donner cut of Superman II)