I’m ditching my Microsoft Office plan on Valentine’s Day for this much cheaper alternative

Microsoft just pushed me to do something I should have done months ago. I was already questioning paying £5.99 each month for Microsoft 365 Personal, but it was just about low enough not to cause me to seek out an alternative. It’s an unwritten agreement I have with various services — if they don’t try to take too much out of my account each month, I won’t bother to give it further thought. But now I’ve received an email saying my Microsoft 365 subscription with Office is going up to £8.49 on Valentine’s Day, so it’s time to reevaluate the relationship.

Talk about high maintenance. Microsoft says the 41% price hike is to “address rising costs and enable us to continue delivering new innovations.” To me, this sounds like code for how much more the company needs to pour into an AI black hole. Meanwhile, I still mostly use the Office suite the same way I did 20 years ago, so I’m not interested in funding further folly.