521–530 of 549 posts
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I would argue that we don't need new regulations, we need to enforce existing laws against fraud. It is fraudulent to sell something and then later disable ones access to the thing you sold them access to.
Which is exactly why Sony claims not to "sell" you the game but only to license it.
I am generally not in favor of adding regulation, but this is a place where I would support it. Anything that you BUY needs to be your property. This means you must have the ability to: 1. Transfer ownership of it (either temporarily as a loan or permanently as a sale). Digital-only doesn't preclude this: the store can have a "transfer" functionality. 2. (Within reason) use it at your discretion at any point after th…
I bought a bunch of games on google stadia when that was a thing, and when they closed the service down i was fully refunded on all games. pretty cool
Is it? It's the bare minimum and if you replace games with anything else it might not look so "pretty cool" anymore.
My hairdresser forcefully bleached/uncut my hair but pretty cool that i got my money back.
Ford forcefully impounded my car without my consent but pretty cool that i got my money back
Realtor kicked me out of my house but pretty cool that i got my money back
I am generally not in favor of adding regulation, but this is a place where I would support it. Anything that you BUY needs to be your property. This means you must have the ability to: 1. Transfer ownership of it (either temporarily as a loan or permanently as a sale). Digital-only doesn't preclude this: the store can have a "transfer" functionality. 2. (Within reason) use it at your discretion at any point after th…
this definition is already flawed which should indicate its difficult to put good regulations in writing. a service you pay for is not your property. and the licenses for games could be seen as a service rather than goods since they are now digital. ofc this is not nice or good, but its possible to do it to skirt ownership rules regarding 'goods'. for PS5 the problem might be this. you can sell a license and enable d…
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You're not in favor of adding regulation, except when it comes to issues you understand and care about. All the oversight and regulation about everything you don't care and/or know about is big bad government overreach. Every government agency is a useless waste of your tax dollars, except the ones you rely on and the ones where you have friends that work there. Do I have that right?
I think “when you buy a product, be it a game, a house, a car, a computer, a tractor, washer, TV, it should continue to operate without rent-seeking behavior” is the best type of straightforward, uniformly-applicable pattern of regulation one could hope for. Opposing rent-seeking is literally why we have American democracy, which paved the way for French, Brazilian, Canadian, Indian, Mexican and so many other democra…
I think the apple sympathizers are a great case on some of the hypocrisy, actually. Seeing people condemn the DMA definitely shows some people will play favorites when push comes to shove.
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I think “when you buy a product, be it a game, a house, a car, a computer, a tractor, washer, TV, it should continue to operate without rent-seeking behavior” is the best type of straightforward, uniformly-applicable pattern of regulation one could hope for. Opposing rent-seeking is literally why we have American democracy, which paved the way for French, Brazilian, Canadian, Indian, Mexican and so many other democra…
>>I think “when you buy a product, be it a game, a house, a car, a computer, a tractor, washer, TV, it should continue to operate without rent-seeking behavior” is the best type of straightforward, uniformly-applicable pattern of regulation one could hope for. This is why I love Hacker News; I feel you genuinely believe this - that designing and enforcing the law around digital property rights is the easy , straightf…
b) yes, there are more important regulations to take into account. But governments also deal with hundreds of proposals. I can want proper digital ownership and still care about building more housing, creating stronger labor protections, and overhaulijg urban development.
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I think “when you buy a product, be it a game, a house, a car, a computer, a tractor, washer, TV, it should continue to operate without rent-seeking behavior” is the best type of straightforward, uniformly-applicable pattern of regulation one could hope for. Opposing rent-seeking is literally why we have American democracy, which paved the way for French, Brazilian, Canadian, Indian, Mexican and so many other democra…
It's not that I don't agree, but lawyers will then ask you to define "buy" in such a way that it is distinguishable from a perpetual lease with a cancellation clause _to buyers_, without also disallowing a lot of actually useful leasing agreements. The thing is, you never did _buy_ that Steam game. And you never bought the software on the TV, which you did buy the hardware of, you bought a software lease along with t…
Why would they ask me? I'm a nobody.
Now, I'm sure some disciplined software lobbyist have spent a very long time and can answer such questions in legslese that protects the customers. Let's find them.
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I'm optimistic about PC gaming because if Steam begins acting as an evil gatekeeper then game developers can adopt other avenues to deliver the games to their players. It's an open platform. People are using Steam now because it adds value. People will stop using Steam if it subtracts value.
I'm optimistic that devs empowered by LLMs and local LLM will fight back and create new platforms if gatekeeping gets too out of hand
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A simple law: everything the customer buys must always behave *in favor of the customer over anything else*. If the product/service contradicts this, it must be fully stated before the purchase and cannot be updated. <= This would be a sane balance.
Depending on how you ( you specifically) are defining "fully stated": 1. This is very literally what already happens, it's called a EULA. 2. In practice this means you are required to personally come to the customer's house to fix bugs (or any other ridiculous edge case that wasn't "fully stated"). As much as I strongly agree the law should swing much further in the direction of the consumer, as GP points out, that o…
> "In favor of the customer over anything else" is not a legally viable clause. I'm sure that legislators could put the principle down in a much clearer way. What's lacking is the will.