There are plenty of anti-cheat measure that doesn't require invasive access to your system or performance hits. The objection is not to fighting cheating, it is with the specific overreaching methodology chosen to do so.
Also I personally rarely play multiplayer so it's even more frustrating to have bullshit installed on my system for a feature that doesn't even apply to me.
Sadly, a lot of their customers will be pissed about this but will be first in line buying other Rockstar games.
Then they aren't pissed enough. But yes, talking the talk is completely meaningless if you don't also walk the walk, I agree.
Companies like Rockstar certainly would meet any requests for refunds outside of very recently purchased with “Go kick rocks.”
If you let them, sure. The reason we use phrases like "fight for a refund" is because these things are hard and they take effort. Like yes it sucks to have to do that and yes I understand our time is valuable, but as I see it there is value in both having your voice heard and punitively costing an offending company manhours in having to deal with you - even if you ultimately do not win the fight.
Again, the point isn't about winning or getting your money back, it's about not being passive and just accepting the things that happen to you as if you do not have autonomy.
and demand refunds on any game that adds it after purchase.
The way I see it, adding it, even this late, is changing the terms of the agreement and thus justification for a refund. Steam will often see it that way too if you word it as such. And if not, hell, you can still badger the publisher for a refund incessantly so at least it still costs them the equivalent in man hours even if you don't get the refund. The point is not to be passive, even if we don't get to win every single battle.
Don't buy games with invasive user-side anti-cheats that hamper performance, and demand refunds on any game that adds it after purchase.
I don't understand why this is so hard for people. If everyone gave a shit, we could end this. But instead, people would rather just complain while still forking over the money to these companies.
There are so many good indie games without this kind of bullshit. We have better choices.
Modders make mods for free. Video creators publish free videos on sites like Youtube or Vimeo today without any revenue stream. Prior to that creators published their content for free on sites like ebaums, or albinoblacksheep, or on personal pages.
Humans want to share. If Youtube had never existed, people wouldn't have suddenly stopped making videos to share, they should have just found another method of sharing or created their own alternative. The desire to create and share is innate to humanity; the concept of monetary compensation is not.
As for wanting everything to be free (I'm not who you were talking to but I'm responding anyway)... I mean, yeah kind of? Here's my question: why should everything be paid? I think that's a backwards mentality. People were sharing stories and art and other creations for no reason other than the love of sharing long before Youtube, and they will keep doing so after. Imo not every effort in life needs to be directly compensated. To me this is the same reason I will never pay for game mod: I want to support and encourage a modding community who mods because they love do it and they love sharing with community, not because they see a possible revenue stream.
Imo turning your hobbies into jobs or "side hustles" is one of the worst consequences of capitalism, and one we should push back against.
Every person is already paying for Youtube with their data. The ads are asking above and beyond.
It would be an entirely different story if Google wasn't primarily first a data-mining company, but since they are, and since selling that data (or the results of using that data) in of the MAIN revenue streams for their business, it is disingenuous to act like Youtube is some free service that is being offered to us. It's not; it's a massive data-mining operation of incredible value as it offers not just demographic information but vastly more details on individual interests and what kind of things they are likely to actually click and interact with than the vast majority of other platforms and sites.
We have got to stop ignoring the data aspect of businesses like Youtube.
You have already been paying Google for that 6+ hours before even a penny came out of your account - you're just been paying in data. We have to stop pretending Google is some good guy that left an open platform in the world and just said "if you use it we'll show you some ads."
Ads aren't even the main revenue stream for Youtube, data is. All of these points about "paying for a service" become moot the moment we acknowledge the value of the data Google is farming from our interactions. This is how we're paying for Youtube. If you choose to buy Youtube Premium, understand that you're paying to not have ad interruption. You aren't paying for Youtube, because that was already happening, you're just paying for the convenience of avoid ads.
Don't be disingenuous. We are already paying for that service, in our data and attention.
It would be an entirely different story if paying for Youtube Premium immediately opted you out of participating in Google's data-mining and data-selling, and if paying for Youtube Premium removed not just the overt ads but the algorithmically-manipulated advertising content as well (what is the effective difference between a Pepsi ad and a Good Mythical Morning video titled "trying every new Pepsi flavor"?), but it since it DOESN'T do those then we aren't talking about paying for a service - we are talking about a company asking for every penny in our wallet for a service which we are already paying for.
Imo this should actually be illegal. I'm find with reasonable promotional displays and offers, but there needs to be some legal option to permanently decline. Having to tell YouTube "no" literally hundreds of times is legitimately ludicrous
Even when you aren't seeing ads their algorithm is still controlling your front page, allowing them to push partner content that isn't directly advertising but still acts like it. The differences between a commercial for Doritos and an episode of Good Mythical Morning titled "Trying Every Doritos Flavor" from the perspective of the PepsiCo marketing department are that people might willingly click on the GMM video and they probably didn't even have to pay anyone for the video to happen.
Sure Rhett & Link may not have a partnership with Pepsi and are just innocently making content to give their audience (I genuinely believe this), so they've got no part in this becoming advertising, but you would have to be incredibly naïve to believe that Google's algorithm isn't smart enough to recognize that video and others like it as marketable content the promotion of which can be sold to PepsiCo.
Premium subscribers may not be seeing ads, but they are absolutely still seeing advertising.
edit: typos
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay_toilet
The most effective science fiction is that which is only an arm's reach away from current fact.
Where did I even remotely imply otherwise?