alt Hacker NewsMost of the World understands the difference between buying a product and buying a service.
Games (and other digital media), are sold as products, not services, mostly.
TFA is arguing this should persist and not be replaced as games as (subscription/licensed rental), services. It argues the move to digital is being used by businesses to switch to a services model under the hood, and that this should be resisted and it should remain a product model.
> Are consumers confused in practice by what happens when they click "Buy" on the playstation store?
Demonstrably, provably: yes.
> Fine, pass a regulation that makes online stores change the word to license or whatever.
Why not make the store change what they sell from being a license and making it a product as the consumer expected?
Replies
> Why not make the store change what they sell from being a license and making it a product as the consumer expected?
Because we have a free market not a command economy? Publishers can sell whatever they want
No not really.
When you bought a VHS of a movie, you purchased the video cassette hardware, but also a license which was bundled with that object.
That license explicitly had some constraints on it, such as not broadcasting the IP in a public setting, even calling out specific locations like oil rigs.
Distinguishing between products and service, isn't great, as neither are well defined, and end up back in the same debates.
An online server is a service. People don't lose access to offline games, generally speaking.