Steam now says the 'game' you're buying is just a license
theverge.com
theverge.com
Some more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41809193
As a kid, I only purchased games. Eventually, the manual gets lost/eaten and you can no longer answer the DRM questions like "what is the third word of the fourth paragraph on page six of the manual?"
At that point, the only way to play the game you bought is to crack it. Starting of with a crack saves time.
These days I just buy games off gog and itch. The game of those two sites are incredibly easy to pirate, which eliminates the need to pirate.
Worse margins, shittier deals, old breaking deals, dozens or thousands of games disappearing from collections forever, privacy busting data collection, "new features" that will allow malware, more porn games. What a cash cow for someone, and a gut wrenching inevitability for most.
My favourite though, were those paper wheels where you had to align two different symbols. Then you'd look through the cutout window to get the code. Felt like some sorta secret agent or safe cracker doing that!
If you lost any of those, you potentially lost access to use the software. My takeaway is, people just aren't comfortable with a sense of impermanence. I don't have any reason to think Steam will do anything upsetting in the foreseeable future, but that small possibility makes people anxious.
Apple Music (subscription only) downloads are rentals, controlled by DRM that refuses to play or stream them unless you have an active subscription.
Steve Jobs was wrong: people are OK not owning music as long as they can easily stream it.