Golden Chain

Bob Chipman at The Escapist discusses Microsoft's latest attempt to fit their customers with bridles, which they have named Xbox One.

The goal is to make the customer dependent on the company, not the other way around. In the future envisioned through these practices, your ability to not only continue playing new games but indeed keeping the ones you already have could easily be tied directly to the fate of the company you bought it from. This would effectively turn digital entertainment into the equivalent of a pet hamster that's been genetically engineered to only survive on food available from one specific store (and don't you dare think that PetSmart aren't dumping money into research for exactly that right now).

That's always been my biggest issue with Microsoft: their business model is built around forcing you to use their product, rather than attracting you to it. The company has spent amounts of money greater than the net worth of 99% of corporations fighting anti-trust legislation. They've skirted around the very edges of monopolization for decades, never quite crossing the line. Now they want to extend that mindset to what television shows I watch, tell me how many people I can have in my living room for the Superbowl, and dictate how much I can get for a used game.

Apple is starting to look pretty good. Steve Jobs may have been an annoying mixture of hipster and capitalist, but Steve Ballmer is just a fucking asshole.