>I didn't think Sony would follow Microsoft in charging a subscription for online play, This is explicitly why I'd never buy a PS5, and really didn't touch PS4

>I didn't think Sony would follow Microsoft in charging a subscription for online play, This is explicitly why I'd never buy a PS5, and really didn't touch PS4 except to play Bloodborne. All digital services seem to eventually become anti-consumer. You become reliant on the service, the service keeps changing for the worse or becoming more expensive, and it becomes harder and harder for the user to extricate themselves from it. Even in cases where it's easy to step away from a service, it almost always either degrades over time, or else morphs into something you don't have any interest in. It's like a ticking clock. You can't even enjoy this product because you know it's totally ephemeral. Eventually it will be worse than it was, exploit you in some way, or price you out of it. There are a few exceptions here, but they are rare, and I suspect they are still going to go extinct at some point as well, they will merely take longer.