Tbh, the worst part is when you pay for it and still get ads anyway. Feels like double dipping, but it’s obviously going to happen because wall street doesn’t like when line only goes up a little.
Yeah that’s totally galling. Shrinkflation for online services.
You know some shiny-suited corporate asshole got a huge bonus for coming up with that though.
Yeah it’s crazy. We have TV plan with some 100 channels bundled up with internet, and sometimes rarely when I watch TV I’m just baffled by the fact a paid service still is full of ads
We let it happen. You either put your foot down at the first instance of this thing or you lose any ability to do it because it eventually gets so big you can’t stop it without some whole new technology. But there’s always going to be people who say “how else are people going to pay for websites if not advertising” I say not my fucking problem. Just like robbing my free time with bullshit ads wasn’t their problem.
Given my entertainment options, I found a small developer that sells an app for a couple bucks that allows me to pull streams through my phone and transcode it and chromecast it to my projector. Juijitsu Kaisen never looked so good.
the problem is that making the line go up even a little gets exponentially harder with time. because the graph not going up at any given point in time is so unimaginably horrible to them, they keep having to think of new insidious ways of satisfying it
I actually find myself wondering lately “what’s so bad about stable (+/- 5%/annum) profits for some stretches of time.” Sure you’re not eating up market share, but a couple million in the pocket every year really isn’t that bad…
I… May not be cut out for capitalism…
Companies who stay private can do this. It’s when you have investors that you’re fucked and the ponzi scheme starts.
The idea, in its purest form, is that companies will innovate to keep investors happy. They will keep expanding and making wonderful new products. As an example, a printer company will start making phones, then laptops, then maybe expand into chemicals or farm equipment, making bold innovations at every step.
Companies who can’t innovate do this shit (inflate prices until they suck) and then they die because they’re no longer competitive.
…in theory.
Pirate everything. Pirate streams, torrents, whatever.
Pirate. Everything.
*unless it’s an independent artist of some sort. then, just buy some merch from them or something.
While listening to Spotify using a custom APK, which enables premium features: I support this message!
The price of playing skyrim for every minute of my life until I die
With game pass: Over $9000.00
Just buying the game: $59.99
59,99 on every platform the game gets released on because Todd won’t stop
If you bought Skyrim on Steam before 2016, you got all PC versions for free up to now.
Gamepass is a great deal if it has 4 or more games a year come out that you want to play, and that’s if you pay full price instead of buying cards, etc.
What if I play all my games on a 3 year delay and buy all 4 games for $15 with DLC included?
I feel like that’s stretching reality unless you’re getting localized pricing for lower income countries. I’ve never seen an AAA game drop below $10 in just 3 years, especially if it’s an AAA game that also got DLC. On average it’s usually just 40-50% off after that kind of duration, mayyyybe 60% off. Anything more than that is usually because the game sucked ass or it’s really old.
I keep hearing how great Gamepass is but I really fail to see how unless you just began gaming like one year ago. Every once in awhile I look to see what’s on there and it’s just old games I’ve played before.
Until MS ramps up the prices because the current pricing is unsustainable
They decide what they do offer to publishers for game pass rights. If they increase the fee, it’s because they started to pay more for whatever offered to us.
Remember when you didn’t have to pay for a subscription to play console games online?
It’s infuriating.
I mainly play on PC where thankfully I don’t have to worry about that.
But I also have a Nintendo switch, and get this shit… they don’t even let you back up your save games online. we’re talking about fucking kilobytes of data per game that they’re too stingy to provide.
You can’t even back up game saves to the microSD!
If your switch breaks, is stolen, or you just get a new one, you lose your game saves unless you pay for Nintendo online.
Well yeah. The fact they don’t even allow you to back it up to your microSD is proof of that
No I don’t. Gold was there pretty much from the get go. Without would be better, but what you asked I don’t recall existing.
Only selected few games had that on PS2. Games were largely SP on top of that. It wasn’t default free, it was a fee except for few exceptions.
Never owned PS3 so no comment on that.
BUT, my original question is still applicable. The past you speak of wasn’t common and not something that’s agreed to be the “good old days” so to speak.
Not saying what you peddle wouldn’t be great, it would, but your statement simply isn’t accurate.
Everyone is saying Piracy but I say Public LIbraries, which often have CDs/DVDs/BDs/games now (depending on your locale). They’re taxpayer funded, so you might as well get your money’s worth, and they keep track of how often stuff gets borrowed which determines future financial support.
(And if you are tech-savvy enough to be on Lemmy, you probably know how to make a … permanent copy … for yourself to keep)
Libraries are great. Just think about it, if libraries as a concept hasn’t already exist, there is absolutely zero chance it will be invented in our time due to our overly restricting copyright law.
And also due to a rightward shift in the Overton window. A place where people just get to borrow books for free? That’s socialism. And it will completely kill the entire books industry
Or save the time and gas money and download it.
I mean shit, I don’t even have a DVD burner in any of my computers. Haven’t for a decade and a half. You expect me to grab my external drive to burn a copy? I can download anything on my gigabit connection in 5 minutes.
