[carra]

This article is quite right, but there's even more to it than that. Why should we need to hold ANY kind of relationship with the seller/provider of an article we bought? You certainly don't need a bookstore account to buy a paperback book. Nor do they get to keep your contact information. You get your article and a ticket. They get your money. End of story.

[brookst]

Goods / services. You probably need a relationship to use a warranty.

The tension is that digital goods are somewhere between. Especially when the delivery mechanism is streaming, and/or DRM keys that need to be renewed.

Sure, many people want a one-time download with no promise or obligation to re-deliver it in the future. Then again, many people don’t want the burden of caring for bytes for the rest of their lives and prefer to download on demand.

This whole thing is basically just “different people want different models of commerce for digital content”

[carra]

> The tension is that digital goods are somewhere between.

That's the thing. If they are truly goods, they cannot be in between! Otherwise they are being handled as services and as such they will be terminated at some point. So unless we redefine the word, a true "purchase" can never depend on future actions from the provider (like renewing some DRM).

[clates]

> Then again, many people don’t want the burden of caring for bytes for the rest of their lives and prefer to download on demand.

Agree that people want this - but this is an undue burden on the provider side. You have to perpetually maintain and provide access to content FOREVER including all the systems and support staff to auth.

[doctorwho42]

In a world of monopolization, where there become fewer and fewer companies because they buy out their competition... If they can't pay for basic storage and delivery of goods, then who can?

If I can individually pay for and maintain an NAS with TB's of data on it, I think these multinational megacorps can afford to do the same. Maybe scale for delivery will cost them a bit of profit, but really it's a shame how individuals say this is some how an undue burden on these corporations...

You know what is the real undue burden? 100 year long IP/copyright law. It actively diminishes our culture, making it bland and hardly changing. Humanity is created by the stories we tell, and retell, and with every retelling - the stories change and evolve... But you can't do that and make a living in modern capitalism... That is the true undue burden, and I think forcing these companies to at least provide access to the stories we paid for is the least they can do for a nigh 100 year monopoly on the stories of our society.