Refresh Computers Tech Talk
Help and advice are given on a range of technical issues from computers to everything internet-related.
Refresh Computers Tech Talk
02-28-2026 AI Data Centers Are Devouring Hardware – And Your Wallet!
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This is an episode of our weekly tech talk broadcast by Refresh Computers.
Key Takeaways
- AI data centers are eating hardware: Massive demand for hard drives and RAM is causing shortages and price spikes—expect higher costs for upgrades and consumer devices for years.
- The cloud is physical—and thirsty: Data centers consume huge electricity and water, straining grids and even causing water shutoffs in small towns near new facilities.
- Subscriptions are everywhere and rising: Streaming, software, printer ink, car features—everything is monthly now. Cancel trials immediately to avoid surprise charges, and subscribe directly (not through Apple/Roku) to avoid extra fees.
- Public Wi-Fi is riskier than ever: Avoid it if possible; cellular data is much safer. Turn off auto-connect on carriers like T-Mobile to prevent unwanted public network joins. Always use a VPN if you must connect.
- AI tools are powerful but frustrating: ChatGPT lagged on long conversations and gave outdated instructions—David's switching to Grok for better reliability.
- Antivirus tip: Stick with Malwarebytes ($35/year through Refresh Computers)—avoid Norton, which pushes unnecessary add-ons.
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Hey there and welcome to Tech Talk here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580 Orlando's news and talk. I'm Greg Rhodes here with David Levitt, President and Founder of Refresh Computer Superstore, and technician Adam Littlefield. You can contact the Refresh Computer Superstore by calling their free tech support hotline at 407-478-8200, or of course you can leave an open mic using that WDBO app. Don't forget to check out the website over at Refresh Computers.net, or you can always stop in at the Refresh Computer Superstore in Longwood at 820 East State Road 434, just three and a half miles east of I-4 in Longwood. Store hours are Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. And if you're listening to the show here on Saturday, that means you still have time to stop by. They'll be open until 7 p.m. today. And now for the men themselves, David Levitt and Adam Littlefield.
SPEAKER_02All right. Thanks, Greg. And thanks everybody for listening to yet another edition of Tech Talk with Refresh Computers. I'm David Levitt, the owner and founder of Refreshed Computers. We're over 26 years old now, Adam, a 26-year-old computer company. And uh, you know, we have been servicing Central Florida that that entire time. And I'd like to think that we are Central Florida's computer source.
SPEAKER_00Been in the heart of Longwood for that whole 26 years, right?
SPEAKER_02That's right, right. Very easy to get to, three and a half miles east of I-4. You know, we have people coming in to our store from Tampa, from Jacksonville, from Dayton, you know, all over the place. And for you know, very good reason, you know, we take care of our customers. That's what we do. And so not only do we sell a vast variety of refurbished desktops and laptops, all name brand too. Um, you know, so we do Dell, HP, Lenovo, and not only do we sell that hardware, we service all that hardware, you know, including Apple products as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's something everybody in our in our in the building does every day. It's not like we have somebody that's just at a call desk or something like that. Everybody there has that technical experience.
SPEAKER_02You know, and you know what I thought of in probably in the last year or two is the fact that uh, you know, I'm like, I wonder we've sold so many computers and laptops, so many, that I'm wondering, geez, uh who else is left to buy? I'm not kidding. I've actually had that thought. It's like, wow, you know, it's like maybe the sales are gonna taper off or something because you know we've already sold them to everybody, but no, they just keep keep coming.
SPEAKER_00So there's been a just a big need for Windows 11 computers lately. And you know, we've been we've been talking about all these hardware crunches that we've been seeing over the past couple of months, AI buying up absolutely everything. You know, it's it's down even now to mechanical hard drives, something that I know we've talked about before is saying was technology that was gonna go away because solid states were invented.
SPEAKER_02But but it's making its way back. We talked, I talked last week, Adam, about how you know even Western Digital, you know, they they're they're still making hard drives, the old-fashioned you know, spinning disc hard drives. But they announced, well, they're uh gonna be out of stock the entire year this year because guess who's buying up all the hard drives? More data centers. AI data centers. They can't get their hands on the solid state drives, so they're gonna be using the next best thing. They are using the next best thing, you know, probably for the you know, the the lower uh task-centric uh storage capabilities, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, a bunch of learning, machine learning that the the AI models have gone through. I'm sure these large AI models, these old ones, they store for just archival purposes, so that's got to take up a ton of space. You know, and it's there's there's such a big cloud with AI, everybody thinks, you know, it's it's in the cloud, right? It's just off somewhere, you don't have to worry about it.
SPEAKER_02But what is the cloud?
SPEAKER_00The the cloud is hardware.
SPEAKER_02That's right.
SPEAKER_00It's just it's something that's physically built now across the whole country.
SPEAKER_02Just think of it as somebody else's computer that you're connecting to.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, no, and the biggest point of that is just so much access via the internet nowadays. You now have high-speed internet globally at this point, especially with the continuation of Starlink. So you have access to all this data, it's got to be stored somewhere. Yeah. And uh they're starting to run out of space for even that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's it's a very large and very expensive venture. You know, I I've looked at all of the data for all these AI companies, Anthropic, um, I've seen looked at Google with Alphabet. Yeah and all of these AI bots are just not profitable. They are all majorly in the red. And I'm not talking, you know, thousand, maybe a couple million dollars. We're looking at like billions of dollars of capital.
SPEAKER_02Facebook Meta just announced a hundred billion dollars to spending with AMD. Yeah. Right? Advanced micro devices. They are you know spending a hundred billion dollars. They're kind of locking in that company. Well, okay, well, nobody else locked you in. I'm gonna, I'm gonna suck up all your resources.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, just the just another one to to pick up really quick in all of this crunch.
SPEAKER_02And that's why RAM prices are continuing to spike. They're still rising. It's uh very difficult to upgrade your computer. You can't do it affordably now. You just can't. It's just too much money to upgrade. And um, it's I guess if you just absolutely have to, those are the people that are upgrading. And you know, the question is when do we see a downturn? When do we see the prices going down again? Yeah, we don't. We just don't, not in the not in the foreseeable future. Right. Maybe two years out, three years out, Adam, you think?
SPEAKER_00That's what I'm hoping for, but you know, I I'm giving myself some leeway in my head so I can feel good when it doesn't happen in 2028. I'm saying 2020 or 2030. That's that's my safe bet right now in my own head.
SPEAKER_02Well, and you know, and right now too, it's a very expensive because it's very hard to get your hands on. Yeah. And especially for like retailers like like us or like any of the big box stores, you know, they're they're having a very difficult time, you know, finding uh RAM at prices that they can turn around and and resell you know, without giving them away, which is just about what we're doing almost.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and these these these big box stores too, you know. I've been also seeing a bunch of mishaps with their shipping where people are buying just, you know, maybe one kit of RAM and they're getting a whole box full of it. So we're not just having a shortage because AI is just buying all of it up, but we're also having a weird supply chain issue where wrong shipments are being sent to people.
SPEAKER_03And I guess that turns into an idea of maybe these were less important items previously for shipping. I mean, they were affordable items. It wasn't one of those high dollar items, and now suddenly again the price has skyrocketed. You go from an item that was sixty, seventy dollars for a kit to now it's over three hundred dollars for that same kit less than a year later. And that's where you're gonna start seeing some of those kind of shipping issues that I imagine.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and you know, we always talk about the the hardware shortages that we're seeing from AI, but we never talk about the other impacts, you know? These large data centers that we have built everywhere now, the electrical demands, the demand on the grid and liquid demand, like water, that that's a major one that a lot I know a lot of small towns are actually having trouble with now because they're having water shutoffs because they have an AI data center that was built close enough in their water system where this the whole city has to be cut off for a little bit.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and you know, a lot of that water is used in in cooling systems in these AI data centers. These are these are hot machines. And there's a lot of liquid cooled stuff going on in these data centers, and um, so not just the power, right? It's it's uh could be a water crunch as well.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So now, how much of that should be a municipality's responsibility to make sure that this new data center that's been built has electricity and or water availability? Or does that does the cost of that need to be bucked back to these companies that are kind of invading these small towns that really weren't built for that in the first place, right?
SPEAKER_02Well, in in my sort of libertarian leaning mindset, zero responsibility of the municipality. Right. If you're building that big data center, then uh you know you you foot the bill, you you need to pay for stuff.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, because I'm not cutting off water to Jane and John Doe down the street because you didn't plan for this correctly.
SPEAKER_00So that's a major thing that, like I said, a lot of small towns are seeing because these data centers are buying up massive amounts of land, which are located near small towns because it's cheap, and that's the cheapest thing that they can do in their whole venture is to buy that land.
SPEAKER_03Well, you know, the city of Orlando doesn't want to see that built in the middle of what they try and describe as an entertainment district and things like that either. Right. So that's yeah, that's the idea is gonna get pushed out further and further to these areas that if you look in if you just want to talk about Central Florida, if you want to use that as an example, out into those kinds of areas like out towards a popka that are starting to see a lot of growth or even even further out, you'll start seeing maybe a little bit of a back and forth on is this gonna be developed for property for people to live, is it gonna maintain for cattle or agriculture, or is it gonna become a data center?
SPEAKER_02Exactly. Well, let's talk a little bit about um yeah, what what you might need. So say you might want to get start getting into AI stuff and and geez, is my can is my computer capable? And well, let me just start off by saying if you have a Windows 11 computer, it's pretty capable of running probably just about all the AI stuff the typical user would want to run. Yeah, I think so you don't have to worry so much about getting some piece of hardware that is quote unquote AI compatible. Right. Because your Windows 11 computer, I can tell you right now, is already AI compatible.
SPEAKER_00And that's something Microsoft has made very apparent, is every install of Windows 11 has Copilot installed, and Copilot is one of those AIs.
SPEAKER_02Big big AI platform. You know, not not the best one in the world, in my opinion. But I agree. But they're all you know supposedly you know getting better. And Adam, you know, we it's crazy. You know, I've been working like crazy with a particular AI platform trying to automate some tasks for refreshed computers. Because uh if you have a business, you probably should look at doing something like that. And I want to discuss my frustrations a little bit with what I was doing before the show.
SPEAKER_00A little bit of the growing pains with working with using some of these.
SPEAKER_02So I've been I've used Groc, which is, you know, in my opinion, a great AI tool from uh Elon from X. And I've used Chat GPT. Uh uh I've been using Chat GPT extensively this past week or two, uh giving it a really good workout, let's just put it that way. And uh there's other Gemini from Google. I I kind of I haven't been using that very much because when I used it last, which was not too long ago, yeah, uh, it just doesn't seem to be as robust as ChatGPT or Grok. In my opinion, those are the two of the mainstream AI platforms, the the two most advanced, right? So they have the latest information, they have the you know the the latest tools available to you. But my frustration has been with ChatGPT when I am trying to get it to help me program something or automate something. For example, this radio show. I'm trying to use some automation tools. I actually had a comment from one of our uh better customers or or more common or customers that that that uh visit us frequently, I guess is the word I'm looking for, uh saying, hey, geez, I wish there was some way you could summarize stuff when you put out your podcast so I can read the summary. At least that way I know if I want to listen to the podcast, right? So I do kind of summarize it already, but by hand it's just like a short paragraph. So I'm using ChatGPT to help me listen to the audio file, which it does like instantaneously through a tool. Which is scary to think about through a separate tool, and you know, f uh and uh put it all in in words, basically a context that that's just all words, you know, and and uh translates, I guess, the the full transcript, yep. The transcript. Thank you. That's the word I was looking for. Great. Thanks. Converts the audio into a full transcript, and then it looks at the transcript and comes out with all these ideas or or bullet points and stuff that can actually be inserted when I post the podcast on the website.
SPEAKER_03Dave and Adam, very knowledgeable on a subject. Greg hilarious throughout the show.
SPEAKER_02That's right. So I I so my frustration with Chat GPT has been that when I ask it to to to to help me with the task and it and it'll refer to another tool like this Zapier. I'll just throw that name out there. You're maybe you're not familiar with it or not, and maybe you are. So it'll it'll use Zapier to interface a lot of things, but then it'll always use an outdated user interface in Z in Zapier. Not just Zapier, but every single application I have asked ChatGPT to look at, it look it was giving me instructions as if I was looking at an older version of it online. Because when I go to that application online like Zapier and I look at it, and I have to tell ChatGPT what you're telling me is not matching what I'm seeing. And ChatGPT would come back and say, Oh, that's because I'm not looking at the latest user interface. My bad. Here's the instructions using the latest user interface, so it would give me that, and then it would be some I would say 50-50. Sometimes really is the latest and sometimes not. But then when I get to the very next step, Chat GPT has already forgotten to look at the latest user interface because it would still give me the very next step instructions and the old user interface. Are you with me? I mean, and that is so frustrating because it takes takes a lot of time going back and forth. So this is what I've been experiencing. So my next step is to go back to Grok because I haven't tried this extensive uh application workflow with grok yet. I'm not this deep. I'm gonna go back and use the same workflow with grok to see if if grok will be able to just automatically come back with the latest user user interface. So it's very, very frustrating. And my point is it's I'm hoping that we can get this to the point where we can help you, the listener, help you navigate something like Chat GPT here in the future. So we'll see how that goes. So stay tuned for that.
SPEAKER_03They're really important tools moving forward. You've got to know the ins and outs, and you've got to know the limitations, right? That is definitely one of those limitations. We'll talk a little bit more on a new AI that a burger joint has introduced. I'll bring that up on the guest. And we'll also talk a little bit about some public Wi-Fi tips that you should be aware of. You've been listening to Tech Talk right here on WDBO, 1073FM and AM580. Hey there, and welcome back to Tech Talk here on WDBO 1073 FM and AM580, Orlando's news and talk. I'm Greg Rhodes here with David Levitt, President and Founder of Refresh Computer Superstore and technician Adam Littlefield. You can contact the Refresh Computer Superstore by calling their free tech support hotline at 407-478-8200. Or if you have any other comments during the show, go ahead and leave an open mic using that WDBO app. And now, back to David and Adam. But before we get into that Wi-Fi talk, I wanted to bring up one more AI uh integrated system that we didn't bring up that you might not have heard of. This one's called Patty. And it's being brought to you by Burger King. Burger King. So Burger King is going to be using this as a training tool inside their stores. It's going to be built into the headsets that you see a lot of the people using, and it's going to listen in on their conversations with customers and give them feedback on about how courteous they're being to customers. It's also going to give them an ability, if they're not sure about a cleaning or maybe how a certain burger is made, they can ask Patty, hey, how do I make this burger? How do I clean the stove? And Patty will give them all the instructions and some of the food information as well. So they're piloting that right now at about 500 locations, but I thought you guys might find that a little bit interesting.
SPEAKER_02I hope that works out well for them. I love the name.
SPEAKER_00I think Wendy's had at one point.
SPEAKER_02I can't wait for McDonald's Frenchie. Oh yeah. So hey, so let's talk a little bit about public Wi-Fi. We've warned about this before. Yeah. And so the I guess the gist of it is, you know, you really need to stop using public Wi-Fi like it's 2008, right?
SPEAKER_00Because it's not a bad thing to have public Wi-Fi, but the security risk you're putting yourselves in now compared to 2008, like you mentioned, is totally different. You know, I was I was talking during the break actually, that specific carrier I have. I will go through and I will put in the effort when I'm out to turn off my Wi-Fi, disconnect from everything, because I don't need it auto-connecting.
SPEAKER_02Hey, you know, we don't have to apologize. You can mention them. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay, T Mobile. T-Mobile. Yeah, T-Mobile's the one I have.
SPEAKER_02Not a sponsor of the show, so you're fine.
SPEAKER_00I'll be out and I'll look at my phone, it says connected to Wi-Fi. It's like, well, I thought I'd turn that off. And I look and it says T-Mobile access point or public access. And I went through the effort to turn that on, and my phone turned Wi-Fi back on and automatically connected me to something I told it to forget previously.
SPEAKER_02Same thing, yeah. Because I have T-Mobile also. That's the same thing to me. I've noticed that's a big gripe that I have with that. It's it's wait a minute, I told you to forget that. So why are you automatically just coming back and remembering that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and there's there's ones like um I think Spectrum's a big one.
SPEAKER_02There's a technical reason why that happens though. But but T Mobile needs to address it.
SPEAKER_00They do.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, I mean, as far as like public Wi-Fi goes, you know, with with these T-Mobile access points, with Spectrum, even the airport Wi-Fi, they if you have a little bit of know-how of how to sniff around on a network, there is so much that people can figure out about you.
SPEAKER_02Oh, you can do it from your iPhone. Yeah. If you know what you're doing, there there are apps. Yeah. Yes, and Apple allows these apps because they're actually used for other things too. Legitimate purposes. But you can they're used for legitimate purposes. But there are apps, I'm not going to name them, but there are apps that you can have on your that you can actually snoop other people's devices all around you in an airport.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you can see what their their traffic is. You know, I I've seen ones that is go can as far as they can they can intercept information, which is exactly what I mean myself, I'm worried about connecting to access points. I don't want somebody getting my my bank login token because I decided just to check my balance really quick and I'm connected to the MCO's uh internet in the in the terminal. You know, it's it's those kinds of situations that in this kind of expanding tech world we still have to be conscious of, even more now than 2008.
SPEAKER_03Cellular data versus public Wi-Fi, which one do you guys trust more?
SPEAKER_00Absolutely cellular data, any day of the week.
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah. And and and actually we had mentioned that on I had mentioned that on our show, gosh, probably a year or so ago now. That uh the your your regular cell phone data plan is about as secure as you can get. You can't get really get much more secure unless you have uh like a Nord VPN, some kind of VPN. If you had a VPN on top, then you can get a little bit more secure. But cellular data is much safer. Yeah. Much, much, much safer. There's a lot of cybersecurity into that than connecting to a public Wi-Fi system. Uh, you know, I'm talking about, you know, I travel a lot, right? I'm in uh RV parks here and there, they always have their their own Wi-Fi for the public and you know, your restaurant Wi-Fi's, you know, all the airport Wi-Fi's, all these public Wi-Fi spots. If you can avoid connecting to a public Wi-Fi, that's the best advice I can give you about that subject, is just don't use it if you un unless you have to.
SPEAKER_03If you have to, get a VPN. Yes, definitely. Even if just one of those free VPNs that gives you access, go ahead and use one of those VPNs. We'll continue this talk on some great tech going on as well as how it's getting more and more expensive. You've been listening to Tech Talk right here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580. Welcome to Tech Talk here on WDBO 1073 FM and AM580, Orlando's News and Talk. I'm Greg Rhodes here with David Levitt, president and founder of Refresh Computer Superstore, and technician Adam Littlefield. And you can contact the Refresh Computer Superstore by calling their free tech support hotline at 407-478-8200. Or if during the show you wanted to leave us an open mic, go ahead and use that WDBO app. You can also check out the website over at Refresh Computers.net or stop it at the Refresh Computer Superstore in Longwood at 820 East State Road 434, just three and a half miles east of I-4 in Longwood. Store hours are Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. And if you're listening to the show here on Saturday, that means you still have time to stop by. They'll be open until 7 p.m. today. And now, David and Adam.
SPEAKER_02All right. Thanks, Greg, and thanks everybody for listening to Tech Talk with Refresh Computers. You know, we had a very interesting first couple of segments, talked a lot about AI again and you know what the cloud really is. And we also uh gave a warning about public Wi-Fi systems and and the uh people that are taking advantage of stealing your data over public Wi-Fi have gotten very intelligent about it, very smart. Uh they probably even use some AI tools to guide them there.
SPEAKER_03If they aren't, they are now. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02That's right. And so, you know, just the if you can avoid it, just don't connect the public. Wi-Fi. We talked about how cell phone data as opposed to connecting to Wi-Fi is much safer, much safer to use your cell phone data plan than it is to use a public Wi-Fi system. So just keep that in mind. If you missed anything you want to hear the show, you can just go to refreshcomputers.net and click on the podcast link in the upper right hand corner. You'll be able to hear the show in its entirety. And uh, you know, hopefully in the very near future, if I can get ChatGPT to work correctly, if not maybe Groc, uh, you'll see uh a very nice synopsis of the show on you know, basically in post fashion on the website and stuff like that. So we're working on that. And uh I can't tell you how much more time it's gonna take because I don't know. Because I keep going down these roads that chat GPT sending me and it's like, what? Anyhow.
SPEAKER_00AI is one of the most confident liars I think I've I've right? That is the gaslighting. The gaslighting is intense.
SPEAKER_02It is oh, I can complete that in three easy steps.
SPEAKER_00You know, it took seven steps out of it, yeah.
SPEAKER_02No, seven hundred.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. That's the thing with AI, is it is so confident in being wrong. And when you correct it, I I know you've had some situations today where it kind of gets a little snippy and it's kind of like.
SPEAKER_02I told it, hey, you what happened to like the last two hours of conversation I had with you on this programming thing I'm doing. It was so intense and it was just driving me crazy, and we're going back and forth, and you and You're arguing with the AI. What happened? I I just I lost like the last two hours of chat with you, Chat GPT, and it comes back and says, No, that's impossible. It must be you. Yeah, it must be a graph. Wow. It's not me, it's you. No, no, it's not because you don't you have you know in your data center somewhere, you know, where you all this is stored, and and and and and we know we went back and forth probably a hundred different times during this two-hour period and you lost all that. Where is it? Oh, it's on your end. You got to clear your cache, you know, and stuff like that. I said, no, no, no, it's not. I went back and forth and logged into a different computer, even found that same chat session, still missing all that two hours worth of stuff. And but you know what, Greg? And Adam, the next day I logged into the same computer I was using when I was initiating this with Chat GPT, and there it was.
SPEAKER_03I imagine it was there. It's like when it came back. I have that same argument with my wife all the time. It's the mayonnaise was there the entire time. That's right. I don't know what you're doing. It was there, I swear.
SPEAKER_00I would love to think of it as it comes down to something with hardware. Somebody just unplugged a drive in a data center because they were changing it out or something. It lost part of your conversation and the AI gaslights you into thinking it never existed. Oh, and it was they took a piece of the brain out.
SPEAKER_02There's no way it could be wrong. It was telling me, no, it is on your end. It is not on my end. I still don't know what happened or even how it came back. All I know is I did more than just clear my cash on my computer. I logged into a completely different computer that had no cash buildup of the conversation, and it was still gone. So, anyhow.
SPEAKER_03I just imagine chat GPT saying, it was not me.
SPEAKER_00And you know, it's it's really infuriating with that too, where it just deleted a whole part of your conversation where a lot of these AI bots, you have to pay for these really advanced versions of them.
SPEAKER_02I pay for it. You paid for it. I'm paying for the pro version of Chat GPT. And it's just still, you know, doing that. And and you know, and then and another thing I noticed while we're on this subject before we get to the next topic is the fact that it once I got really deep into a conversation, I mean really, really deep with Chat GPT, uh, where you can barely see the little slide bar to the right to go back and forth up and down on your chat because it's so small, because it's so big, that it lagged.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Chat GPT lagged. Not my not my computer. My my uh laptop, I I just uh initiated a new laptop last night I'm starting to use uh from the computer store. And actually, we have one of those left in stock, by the way. If you're interested in this, is it's a super laptop, it has 128 gig of RAM.
SPEAKER_00If you if you're trying to do anything, like you're trying to run four-hour AI chat, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And guess what? It even with that super laptop, so I know it's not me because I have a hundred and twenty-eight gig of RAM is insane. Yeah, it's it's still lagged. Still lagged in Chat GPT. So what does that say?
SPEAKER_00It's it's a chat GPT problem. And chat GPT is in denial of that. Remember, it's all it's all Dave. That's right. Not me. Yes.
SPEAKER_02But that's only after, you know, you know, hours of conversation back and forth with ChatGPT. You know, when you're just when I'm just using it and like if I open up a new conversation, it works, no lag. Just works just fine. But anyhow, so the next topic we want to talk about is why in the heck is everything getting more expensive in tech? Not just not just the memory and the solid. Not just the hardware stuff, but software stuff too is getting crazy expensive. And maybe there's a connection for some of it, because you know, let's face it, these places that are providing these services to you are using now more expensive hardware to get you there. So that's probably one reason why you know your you know streaming prices and stuff like that are starting to go up. Um, so you know, it's like you know, when did everything become like ten dollars a month, right? You know, everything is switching to this kind of subscription-based uh system. Uh, you know, and it's it's been a migration for the last few years, actually. You know, started with Office 365.
SPEAKER_00I was about to call out Office just right there to say I'm looking at it, because Office was the first one that I'm sure 90% of listeners right now are like, yep, that's that was the first subscription I saw.
SPEAKER_02And Microsoft has changed the name of that like so many times in the last three or four years, I can't even remember what it's called right now.
SPEAKER_03You probably have three subscriptions to it, you just don't know it.
SPEAKER_00See, that's the thing, they they used to go by the year, right? And I think 2024 was when they stopped doing the year, and between 2024 and now they've probably changed the name what four or five times, something like that.
SPEAKER_02And and and be careful too. You know, I heard a Clark Howard episode just recently talking about uh if you use the Apple, if you have a uh iPhone or an iPad or any kind of uh Apple app, right? That an app that you got on Apple, right? So you so you went got your Netflix app, you got your you know, whatever app that you get, you got it through Apple instead of directly through the company that's providing the service, stop getting it through Apple. Go get it right through that company that's providing the service because Apple is starting to charge an up fee for your subscription and and stuff that you're getting through the Apple store. The Apple store. Yeah. So if you can do it, I mean you have to get the app through the app store. Yes, that's true. But to sign up for the subscription itself, do it directly with the service instead of through the app store because Apple is tagging on a fee now for a lot of that stuff. And so you're if you're doing it through the app store, you might not even realize you're paying more now. And because especially since so many people have so many apps and so many subscriptions now. It's it's uh you don't even know what you're paying for half the time.
SPEAKER_03And that was usually a good way to kind of keep track of what you were subscribed to because it's all in just one easy to manage tab inside the app store instead of having to try and remember how to get to all these different websites and navigate them. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But now you have to pay for that convenience. That's a privilege.
SPEAKER_00And a lot of subscriptions have turned into that too. You know, oh, it's only three dollars a month, it's only five dollars a month. Oh yeah, that's that's not that bad. I couldn't even tell you guys what I'm subscribed to anymore. I could tell you two or three things, and then after that, I just you know, it I just let it roll. And I know I they're not bad enough that they're gonna be like a thousand dollars every month. I don't even want to check.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's just you know, it's hard because not only you it's hard to remember, you know, how many apps and how many things that you're subscribed to, it's hard to remember where did you subscribe to it from. You know, you you have uh Roku, for example. You can subscribe to a lot of things through Roku instead of directly through the service that you're getting, you know, like HBO Max, for example. You can subscribe to that right through Roku. Or you can do it through HBO Max and and pull it up on your Roku.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I mean, so which is what I'm suggesting that you do, go directly to the source if you can, and then just match it to the app that you're using it on. Yeah. Same thing with uh your iPhone. So go to HBO, if you want HBO Cinemax right now, HBO Max, I guess they call it, go to HBO Max website, subscribe to it there, and then when you download the app on your iPhone, or when you download the app on your Roku or other streaming service, you all you do is just connect it and it's connected. So, but you're not paying through them, you're not paying through Roku now, you're paying HBO Max directly. And so this is an example of what I was talking about earlier. Instead of subscribing through one of these services, especially through Apple through the Apple store, don't do that anymore. As a matter of fact, you can probably cancel your subscription in the Apple store and go to directly to the source and resubscribe, and then you still have the app in the Apple store and you just you just still just connect it to Apple. Save a buck or two.
SPEAKER_03Yep. Absolutely. And uh you brought up HBO Max, and it's interesting because they've been involved in this new big Warner Brothers Paramount. The bid or that was going on, yeah. And uh there's some news that just came out here uh just leading into the weekend that Paramount finally gave a large enough bid to Warner Brothers Discovery to bump Netflix off of this deal. Netflix said, Nope, we're not gonna match, we're not gonna continue on. I think Netflix might get the better deal out of that. They're about to get$2.8 billion richer for not even bidding anymore because they got bumped. But it'll be interesting to see, again, we talk about all these different subscriptions that we all have, and I have Paramount and I have HBO Max. I wonder what's gonna happen with as these companies begin to merge. Are they gonna keep separate entities? Are they gonna make one major mega app? Or I don't I don't know. It's gonna be interesting to keep following on.
SPEAKER_00And you know, we're seeing a lot of subscriptions come into spaces that I never even imagined. I know HP, they have their smart ink subscription that they'll every couple months they'll send you ink and you're allowed to print only a certain amount of pages a month. If you print over that, you have to pay extra. If you cancel, they can electronically lock that ink cartridge over the internet so you can't use it anymore. Unbelievable. I I I know I'm paying subscriptions for my car with the full self-driving and everything.
SPEAKER_02With your Tesla?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we're I'm getting to the point now where I'm expecting my toaster is gonna need a subscription by the end of this year.
SPEAKER_03And if you don't get the right kind of bread, you cannot make toast anything.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Sourdough subscription only.
SPEAKER_02Either that in this AI world, you might get burnt toast.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And you know then they'll tell you it's it's fun. Yeah, it's fine. What do you mean to burn your toast? I didn't burn your toast. Oh, you burnt your toast.
SPEAKER_00See, all these all these subscriptions are becoming a big hassle to us now because I know we were saying earlier, you know, I couldn't tell what I'm subscribed to. Greg, you said you're scared to check. I had a customer a couple months ago that was just switching off of Norton. We're paying monthly for it.
SPEAKER_02Good move, good move.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and once I once I kind of went through and I did all of the math for him and I canceled all these add-ons that Norton just kept saying, hey, you need this, your drivers are out of date, you need this. Note to listeners.
SPEAKER_02Note to listeners at this point. Norton is terrible. Get rid of it if you have it. It's nothing more than a it's actually a spam bot itself.
SPEAKER_00When I when I came to that total, it was over$400 a year. That gentleman was being charged in add-ons. Norton itself, I think, was$120 for the add-ons for the the remaining amount, and that's ridiculous.
SPEAKER_02I tell you the only antivirus you need, which is is malware bites. Yeah, malware. Mauerbytes is the only one. Is a great, and it's uh through us anyways,$35 a month. Or no, I'm sorry, a year. A year, yeah.$35 a year. I mean, that's uh we have a special deal with malware bites that allows us to charge$35 a year. And even if you go on the malware bytes website, it's$50. Yeah. So we're we're saving you$15.
SPEAKER_00We're not pulling an apple, we're not charging any fees on you with it. You know, it's it's actually a good discount on a really, really good antivirus.
SPEAKER_02Yep. Super, super one.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, I know uh I know everything with streaming right now is just getting worse and worse, and AI with these subscriptions are getting worse and worse. And I've I've been seeing prices go up, and it's it's little price increases you see. You know, Spotify, I think, just went up a couple dollars about a month ago. Netflix increased theirs by a couple dollars, but if every one increases by five dollars, you've got 10 subscriptions. Well, now you're paying$50 more dollars a month.
SPEAKER_03And they'll multiply that by the millions of subscribers for all these different and these companies are raking in the dough.
SPEAKER_02Oh, they are, they are, and you know, and then go back to the AI situation with the hardware shortages going on. You know, some of these companies have to be charging a little bit more right now because, you know, they depend on that kind of hardware to provide their services.
SPEAKER_03We'll put a wrap on today's episode of Tech Talk. You've been listening right here on WDBO 1073FM and AM580.net. And now back to David and Adam.
SPEAKER_02All right, thanks, folks. Thanks for listening to Tech Talk with Refresh Computers. You know, we left the last segment talking about the paid subscription services and why they're getting uh more expensive, and a lot of that has to do with you know, these places that provide these services have to buy hardware to run these services. And guess what? Hardware's prices are going up everywhere because AI is sucking up all the available memory and solid state drives and electricity and water. And so these platforms, you know, any of these subscription-based platforms are uh dependent upon that hardware also. So, you know, so when as they are upgrading, well, it costs them more, so guess what? They're gonna charge you more. That's just you know the way things work. And one of the things that we were talking about during the break, I want to bring up because it's it's a very good tactic, I think, to use, and it's what I do often is when you subscribe to something, a new service, and you do a 30-day trial or a 60-day trial or a 90-day trial, whether it's a$1.99 trial that turns into a$50 trial, or maybe it's a free trial. When you subscribe to these trials, what I've learned to do myself is to immediately go in and cancel it. Because when you subscribe to it, it still keeps you active for that free period. In most cases, sometimes now they're not, but in most cases, you still you just cancel it that way. And the only reason I do it is not because I'm trying to get something for nothing. It's not that at all. It's just that in three months, if I don't, I I'll if I stop using it or I don't like it, I'll just forget to cancel it. And the next thing you know, it charges me.
SPEAKER_03And so many of these companies are banking on it. Oh, yeah. They are banking on it.
SPEAKER_02So a good tip is just to go in and cancel it as soon as right after you start it. You know, just go ahead and cancel it. And as long as they're not charging you a fee to cancel, which in most cases they don't. No. But and your whatever you subscribe to is still gonna be good for free for that period that you originally signed up for that you just canceled, but it's still gonna last for that period of time. And guess what? Before that time ends, that subscription service is gonna remind you anyway.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. They because they want they want to remind you, hey, you're set up to cancel, but if you come back, and then they'll maybe hit you with another another good discount for another six months.
SPEAKER_02That that that's a good possibility too. So, anyhow, so that's just uh something you may or may not want to try. Um, so we look we talked about uh all kinds of stuff on today's show, including my in-depth conversation with ChatGPT. More like argument, arguing, uh yeah, and frustrations, I I will say, also. Um disappointment in some in some regards, how it you know took me down the wrong road for hours, literally hours, uh, without realizing it did. And and it's just yeah, I would hope that it would be smarter than that by now. So it still still needs a lot of work, but if you miss any of that, go to refreshcomputers.net, click on the podcast link. And one of the things that I'm working on that I mentioned earlier with Chat GPT, now I'm gonna go to GROKA's chat GPT. I've I'm folks, I've worked literally days worth of time, not just hours, I mean days back and forth with ChatGPT to automate something so that our show will come out and in a format on the website that's uh makes it more pleasant. You get a little brief, better synopsis of what we're talking about, and uh you know, and then you can choose whether or not you want to listen to the show based on what the show notes are that appear. You would think that would be fairly simple for AI. There's a lot of integration that has to happen, you know, from where we upload our uh the audio that Greg sends me every week, where we upload that audio, and then that integration has to happen with Chat GPT and a scheduler and all kinds of stuff. But anyhow, uh we're hoping to make that the show more clear and you know, and so you can see exactly what's going on. So stay stay tuned for that coming up in the in the near future. And so we're just about out of time. I appreciate you listening. Don't forget, we still have a free tech support hotline. Yes, we do. 407-478-8200. Call us about anything technical and we'll do our best. We're open Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. You can use that free tech support hotline at any during any of those hours or call after hours, leave us a message, and we'll get back to you. So that's all we have time for, folks. This is David Levitt signing off for this week with Tech Talk. We'll talk to you again next week.
