4 ms·

I'm sorry, but if you ship something but lock it behind software, don't complain when people want to activate it. It's like games that offer "DLC" that consists

by LocalH 5y ago

I'm sorry, but if you ship something but lock it behind software, don't complain when people want to activate it. It's like games that offer "DLC" that consists of an unlock key for content that's already on the disc. We should not make it easier for the corporations to abuse us. And yes, if an indie software developer ships all the DLC and just sells license keys, I would crucify them. It's not "downloadable content" if you don't actually have to download it. As far as I'm concerned, if it ships, it's considered part of the base product. Don't want people hacking around to get the things you ship but don't want them to access? DON'T SHIP WHAT YOU DON'T WANT THEM TO HAVE WITHOUT PAYING THEN.

404mm 5y ago
Both are good but somewhat extreme angles on this issue. Look at Tesla for example. You get all the hardware to support self driving but you have to pay a very significant amount to use it. You can be both upset that you have to pay 20% of car purchase price to unlock that feature (considering model 3 of course)- and understand that Tesla spends lot of expensive R&D time to develop it.
charcircuit 5y ago
Okay it's not downloadable content. It's just additional content which you can buy to access. By having it already downloaded you are improving the user experience.
- LocalH 5y ago
  "Improving the user experience" by making them download extra data that is useless to them unless they pay additional fees? That's a weird definition of "improving" for me. In places where "unlimited" mobile data is not common, this raises costs for people to get the base product, and then they still have to pay to unlock data that is now already on their device.
  - charcircuit 5y ago
    >by making them download extra data that is useless to them unless they pay additional fees? We were talking about game discs. >In places where "unlimited" mobile data is not common, this raises costs for people to get the base product But it decreases the price of enhancing the product. >and then they still have to pay to unlock data that is now already on their device. What's wrong with that? There is plenty of software like that already. Take Microsoft Windows. The whole operating system is already there, you just need to enter a license to unlock everything. This applies to a lot of other software that has some sort of trial.
gruez 5y ago
>don't complain when people want to activate it. It's like games that offer "DLC" that consists of an unlock key for content that's already on the disc. >We should not make it easier for the corporations to abuse us. I fail to see how this is "abuse"? At worst the game is taking up an extra 20GB or whatever for a map pack that you can't use. Then again, localization files (for the games that don't selectively download those) are on the same order of magnitude, but I doubt that would garner the same amount of outrage. >As far as I'm concerned, if it ships, it's considered part of the base product. Don't want people hacking around to get the things you ship but don't want them to access? DON'T SHIP WHAT YOU DON'T WANT THEM TO HAVE WITHOUT PAYING THEN. So the point of contention is that it's a hardware lock vs a software lock? About a decade ago, CPU makers would disable cores at the software level, which means you could potentially unlock cores if they were non-defective (they often were). Later they caught on to this and physically disabled the core by lasering it off. If I have this correctly, you'd be against them in the first case, but are okay with it in the second case?
- LocalH 5y ago
  >Then again, localization files (for the games that don't selectively download those) are on the same order of magnitude, but I doubt that would garner the same amount of outrage. Localization files are not normally sold as DLC packages, so that's not the same thing at all. >So the point of contention is that it's a hardware lock vs a software lock? About a decade ago, CPU makers would disable cores at the software level, which means you could potentially unlock cores if they were non-defective (they often were). Later they caught on to this and physically disabled the core by lasering it off. If I have this correctly, you'd be against them in the first case, but are okay with it in the second case? I don't like either, but if something is physically damaged (which lasering it off effectively does), then it's more reasonable (and it's not like software could reactivate it anyway). But then again, a core that's "lasered off" is not able to be used at all, even if you pay Intel a bit of money, so that's not the same either. What I'm talking about are features that are perfectly functioning, that are present in in the hardware/software, but that are locked off because the manufacturer wants to nickel and dime you. The business model of "soft-upgrading" CPUs is garbage for this reason. It'd be like selling a Swiss Army Knife with 75% of the features physically blocked off, but still present. Would you take issue with someone modifying such a knife to access the parts that are already there?

by LocalH 5y ago

404mm 5y ago

Both are good but somewhat extreme angles on this issue. Look at Tesla for example. You get all the hardware to support self driving but you have to pay a very significant amount to use it. You can be both upset that you have to pay 20% of car purchase price to unlock that feature (considering model 3 of course)- and understand that Tesla spends lot of expensive R&D time to develop it.

charcircuit 5y ago

Okay it's not downloadable content. It's just additional content which you can buy to access. By having it already downloaded you are improving the user experience.

LocalH 5y ago
"Improving the user experience" by making them download extra data that is useless to them unless they pay additional fees? That's a weird definition of "improving" for me. In places where "unlimited" mobile data is not common, this raises costs for people to get the base product, and then they still have to pay to unlock data that is now already on their device.
- charcircuit 5y ago
  >by making them download extra data that is useless to them unless they pay additional fees? We were talking about game discs. >In places where "unlimited" mobile data is not common, this raises costs for people to get the base product But it decreases the price of enhancing the product. >and then they still have to pay to unlock data that is now already on their device. What's wrong with that? There is plenty of software like that already. Take Microsoft Windows. The whole operating system is already there, you just need to enter a license to unlock everything. This applies to a lot of other software that has some sort of trial.

gruez 5y ago

>don't complain when people want to activate it. It's like games that offer "DLC" that consists of an unlock key for content that's already on the disc. >We should not make it easier for the corporations to abuse us. I fail to see how this is "abuse"? At worst the game is taking up an extra 20GB or whatever for a map pack that you can't use. Then again, localization files (for the games that don't selectively download those) are on the same order of magnitude, but I doubt that would garner the same amount of outrage. >As far as I'm concerned, if it ships, it's considered part of the base product. Don't want people hacking around to get the things you ship but don't want them to access? DON'T SHIP WHAT YOU DON'T WANT THEM TO HAVE WITHOUT PAYING THEN. So the point of contention is that it's a hardware lock vs a software lock? About a decade ago, CPU makers would disable cores at the software level, which means you could potentially unlock cores if they were non-defective (they often were). Later they caught on to this and physically disabled the core by lasering it off. If I have this correctly, you'd be against them in the first case, but are okay with it in the second case?

LocalH 5y ago
>Then again, localization files (for the games that don't selectively download those) are on the same order of magnitude, but I doubt that would garner the same amount of outrage. Localization files are not normally sold as DLC packages, so that's not the same thing at all. >So the point of contention is that it's a hardware lock vs a software lock? About a decade ago, CPU makers would disable cores at the software level, which means you could potentially unlock cores if they were non-defective (they often were). Later they caught on to this and physically disabled the core by lasering it off. If I have this correctly, you'd be against them in the first case, but are okay with it in the second case? I don't like either, but if something is physically damaged (which lasering it off effectively does), then it's more reasonable (and it's not like software could reactivate it anyway). But then again, a core that's "lasered off" is not able to be used at all, even if you pay Intel a bit of money, so that's not the same either. What I'm talking about are features that are perfectly functioning, that are present in in the hardware/software, but that are locked off because the manufacturer wants to nickel and dime you. The business model of "soft-upgrading" CPUs is garbage for this reason. It'd be like selling a Swiss Army Knife with 75% of the features physically blocked off, but still present. Would you take issue with someone modifying such a knife to access the parts that are already there?