I'm not against paying for mods. Some mods in some games are an utterly insane amount of work and add a legitimately "It's a new game" amount of content.
What I'm against is (after paying for the game itself), paying for "credits" and then buying community-made mods with "credits" and the mod creator gets like, 30%, at best, of the money. Fuck that. But I'd fully support including paid-mods in a game as long as A> a modder can release their work for free if they so choose, and B> if it is paid, the publisher gets no more than 5% (It sucks, but that'd cover credit card fees anyway -- I don't like even the 5% but depending on the model, there's excuses/legit expenses to go up to roughly that amount without really screwing the people who are doing the actual work), and the modder gets 95%.
They just bumped the monthly price of the RV service from $130 to $150 too.
Still worth it for me, though. It's never been as fast as 'advertised' (right now, not too far from Needles, CA, 42 down, 5 up, 60 ms ping -- very usable, hardly screaming-fast). But being able to be out on free land in nowhere and have reliable internet, well, it pays for itself in just a few days a month vs paying to stay closer to civilization where my LTE is good.
Have luckily never needed any customer service, though.
Seems like a lot of posters on here seem to want to blur the difference between "smart" and "cloud" stuff. Yeah, a lot of "smart" appliances are cloud based, but not all, and "smart" doesn't necessarily have the inherent security problems that "cloud" stuff comes with. You can have a really intelligent, automated home (I do!) without anything phoning home or requiring internet access at all. And it's pretty nice.
Are these people just outright cheapskates? Willing to pay $25 if that was the only option, but just trying to save a buck? Kinda crappy on them then. On the other hand if they would NOT pay $24 for the game... the publisher is winning on this. They made $1.50 where otherwise they would have made $0. The per-unit cost on a downloaded game is $0, so literally anything paid for a copy is a win. Why do you think Steam games often go on very short sales for very low prices? They are trying to vacuum up $ from folks who only think their game is worth 10, 20, 40% of their normal price.
Republican loudly blames <insert problem here> on <insert something Republicans hate>. Turns out, problem was <insert Republican person, group, or policy> all along.
Not really news. Just fill out the madlib and you can read it a couple hundred times a year. The louder any right-wing source yells about a problem, you more you can be sure it's a problem caused by the right.
In the mobile market, a lot of the 'competition' means the cost of switching is high. Even if you were to do away with 'locked' phones, it doesn't matter -- most phones physically can't work on any of the other networks. Even networks that support the same standards use different parts of the spectrum and the phones can be incompatible. Given that you need to sign a two-year contract to not pay an insane amount for a decent device, it means you can't 'just switch', and thus 'competition' doesn't work in the normal way.
This is like, back in the day, the AC/DC wars to determine a power standard. Imagine, if you will, your choice of electric providers -- all with different standards. If you want to switch, you need to rewire your house and get new appliances. That's the current situation in the mobile market, and the technology, while still obviously evolving, has matured to the point where it's a 'utility' and needs to be regulated by the government as such. Declare one standard, declare that phones must be multi-frequency so a device can, if not locked, function on any US network. Require providers to unlock devices sold at full price, require providers to unlock devices after contract period ends for 'discounted' devices.
_Then_ you'll see legitimate competition in the mobile industry in the US, and not the joke it is today.
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It depends where the money goes...
I'm not against paying for mods. Some mods in some games are an utterly insane amount of work and add a legitimately "It's a new game" amount of content. What I'm against is (after paying for the game itself), paying for "credits" and then buying community-made mods with "credits" and the mod creator gets like, 30%, at best, of the money. Fuck that. But I'd fully support including paid-mods in a game as long as A> a modder can release their work for free if they so choose, and B> if it is paid, the publisher gets no more than 5% (It sucks, but that'd cover credit card fees anyway -- I don't like even the 5% but depending on the model, there's excuses/legit expenses to go up to roughly that amount without really screwing the people who are doing the actual work), and the modder gets 95%.
They just bumped the monthly price of the RV service from $130 to $150 too. Still worth it for me, though. It's never been as fast as 'advertised' (right now, not too far from Needles, CA, 42 down, 5 up, 60 ms ping -- very usable, hardly screaming-fast). But being able to be out on free land in nowhere and have reliable internet, well, it pays for itself in just a few days a month vs paying to stay closer to civilization where my LTE is good. Have luckily never needed any customer service, though.
Smart != Cloud
Seems like a lot of posters on here seem to want to blur the difference between "smart" and "cloud" stuff. Yeah, a lot of "smart" appliances are cloud based, but not all, and "smart" doesn't necessarily have the inherent security problems that "cloud" stuff comes with. You can have a really intelligent, automated home (I do!) without anything phoning home or requiring internet access at all. And it's pretty nice.
The price of one more unit sold...
Are these people just outright cheapskates? Willing to pay $25 if that was the only option, but just trying to save a buck? Kinda crappy on them then. On the other hand if they would NOT pay $24 for the game... the publisher is winning on this. They made $1.50 where otherwise they would have made $0. The per-unit cost on a downloaded game is $0, so literally anything paid for a copy is a win. Why do you think Steam games often go on very short sales for very low prices? They are trying to vacuum up $ from folks who only think their game is worth 10, 20, 40% of their normal price.
Republican loudly blames <insert problem here> on <insert something Republicans hate>. Turns out, problem was <insert Republican person, group, or policy> all along.
Not really news. Just fill out the madlib and you can read it a couple hundred times a year. The louder any right-wing source yells about a problem, you more you can be sure it's a problem caused by the right.
Re: It Can All Make Sense
'Competition' doesn't quite have the same meaning in the mobile market.
In the mobile market, a lot of the 'competition' means the cost of switching is high. Even if you were to do away with 'locked' phones, it doesn't matter -- most phones physically can't work on any of the other networks. Even networks that support the same standards use different parts of the spectrum and the phones can be incompatible. Given that you need to sign a two-year contract to not pay an insane amount for a decent device, it means you can't 'just switch', and thus 'competition' doesn't work in the normal way.
This is like, back in the day, the AC/DC wars to determine a power standard. Imagine, if you will, your choice of electric providers -- all with different standards. If you want to switch, you need to rewire your house and get new appliances. That's the current situation in the mobile market, and the technology, while still obviously evolving, has matured to the point where it's a 'utility' and needs to be regulated by the government as such. Declare one standard, declare that phones must be multi-frequency so a device can, if not locked, function on any US network. Require providers to unlock devices sold at full price, require providers to unlock devices after contract period ends for 'discounted' devices.
_Then_ you'll see legitimate competition in the mobile industry in the US, and not the joke it is today.