What software programs have you paid for that you felt are worth it over freeware options

It’s mostly replaced search engines for me, at least for the initial part of research. I still ask for and double check citations for anything important.

I frequently use it for work (computer programming), making example images of a rough concept, translating to different human languages, having it perform a deep analysis where it searches and summarizes multiple sources, formatting Markdown and other text, etc.

I also use it for fun, generating trivia questions or using it like a smarter Wikipedia to learn about new concepts, summarize PDFs (though NotebookLM is better for that), talk about cats, and other inane stuff like that. More examples from other threads here: