[johnklos]

Common sense makes sense! I'd love to see something like this codified in to law. We need a complete rethinking of the actual terms, "buy", "own", "sell", and so on, so people can't use those terms incorrectly when they're technically just "renting".

Case in point is "Redbox Revokes Access to All Previously Purchased Content After Bankruptcy": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41076807

How many times has Microsoft done it with music? How many times have companies that are still in business disabled older devices that are still perfectly functional in hopes to sell newer devices and/or get people to sign up for subscriptions, while not allowing end user access to their own devices?

California and Massachusetts have made some steps to correct this. I'd love to see more.

[spacemadness]

I wonder if companies like Valve would have been as successful if they were forced to use “subscribe” instead of “buy”, “purchase”, etc.

[georgeecollins]

I think the real problem is platform holders like Microsoft, Apple and Google, that create a lot of rules (or APIs) it hard for software to continue working without constant updates. They will say it is to support new features or security, which is occasionally true. But mostly I believe it is because they like to have a lot of telemetry on users, want to keep apps sticky in their eco system and they like you go back to the store. The worst thing for them is an open source game with no online component that you download once and play forever.

The rest of it could be taken care of with consumer choice, but effectively you don't have a choice with the big platforms.

[tossandthrow]

In that case it is easy: don't sell ownership, allow people to rent

[beAbU]

This is what Gamepass does.