[andybak]

Yep. And I have qualms over some of those things too.

I guess it's a tricky one as toys are not really much different despite having a physical manifestation. I would have happily spent every penny I could get my hands on on Star Wars figures when I was of that age. Is marketing a useless blob of plastic to kids any different to marketing a useless bunch of bytes?

[TeMPOraL]

> Is marketing a useless blob of plastic to kids any different to marketing a useless bunch of bytes?

The physical blob is, well, physical. It exists for longer, and 20 years later you may dig it out and relive some of childhood memories. Bytes in the cloud tend to have much shorter life, usually defined by how long the vendor bothers to keep the server applications up.

EDIT: Funny I managed to post an exactly opposite opinion to 'DonHopkins at the same time :). Let me just clarify: I prefer no marketing of useless anything, but for toys, I think physical beats digital because digital is ephemeral.

[DonHopkins]

It's better for the environment to market useless bunches of bytes that useless blobs of plastic.

Especially when they use some of that money to support useful bunches of bytes like Blender!

(That said, I sure loved my Star Wars action figures!)

[Moru]

The environment impact of useless bunches of bytes might surprise you.