AI copied everyone else’s work and now it wants to cry about copying. Sucks to suck.

There is more than one benefit to ending physical media.

1. The end of the resale market
2. The end of paying for physical distribution.
3. Pushing users toward online gaming so that they can pay for microtransactions.
4. Live service games and seasons that require subscriptions.
5. The sale of hardware that will allow them to charge more for consoles/Harddrives.
6. Game streaming (which requires an internet connection, and allows them to gather information about users).
7. Game streaming that requires a whole separate online subscription.

If you thought it was just about the resale market I have some public landmarks for sale.

Who pays the fine when your kid gets a ticket on a leaners permit?

Do you see where I’m going with this. Either the government is going to actually put the world in to enforce a common sense law the easiest way they can, or they’re going to do what they’ve been doing and get the results they’ve been getting while using it for their ulterior motive which is to surveil the general population.

Let’s try again. Let’s say your kid gets ahold of spray paint and vandalizes some property. Many kids and parents have been held accountable in that situation and the risk isn’t really the point, it’s just moving goal posts.

The point is that as a parent you are responsible for the safety and well being of your child. Which proves you can be held accountable.

If your child gets hold of a weapon and hurts themselves or someone else then you are liable. I don’t really see how this is much different but I’m all ears.

And yes, I am a parent who’s kid doesn’t have social media. And yes, I am aware that we need to be educating parents on how to use parental controls and enforcing their use (on platform side as well as in the home).

Which doesn’t necessarily translate into them believing or supporting age verification and privacy violation to do it.

It’s funny because originally I didn’t understand how it was different and when it was explained to me in a factual way I did understand and changed my view and people really don’t like that.

Humans offloading the decisions to a bot that’s trained on bad decisions?

Is the hilarious thing to follow suit and announce the end of them offering physical disks?

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/xbox-is-reportedly-considering-dropping-disc-drives-as-it-tests-new-feature-that-lets-players-digitize-physical-games

Counterargument:

The problems with Destiny 2 had to do with decisions made for shock factor/profitability that completely ignored what players actually enjoyed about the game.

AI does not have the ability to understand or make decisions about what players actually like. It is reliant on the parameters input by humans and those humans already have made a bunch of bad decisions that killed the game.

In 2018, the European Commission slapped Google with the record-breaking penalty on the grounds that it abused Android’s mobile dominance to give unfair advantage to its own apps via pre-installation deals with smartphone makers.

GOOD. But still basically chump change if it’s spread out over years.

And the lack of a requirement for a subscription service which means the actual cost of the PlayStation 6 over a 7 year life span is something like $1800. That’s assuming the cost of a monthly PlayStation plus membership doesn’t go up and they continue to subsidize the hardware by selling it at cost. And it doesn’t include buying games.

Ok. So let’s say for the sake of argument, you have Netflix. You pay for Netflix specifically for… I dunno, Top Gear. Suddenly without warning Netflix is forced to pull Top Gear from its streaming platform because the license to provide it to stream has lapsed or been otherwise ended. That’s basically what happened here except that they allowed you to pay per show or movie.

In this case what these customers paid for is the license to stream these digital items. Which (shitty though I agree it is) they agreed to when they made their purchases. But the fact is, Sony didn’t reach into people’s Harddrives and remove anything. What they did was remove these shows and movies from the digital streaming library of people who purchased it and the only reason they did is because otherwise they’d be sued if they didn’t.

So while I appreciate your outrage, I think it’s pretty important to note that the license holder (the entity that actually owns the ability to sell distribution rights for digital licenses to consumers) is the one who sets the terms, not the platform of distribution, and this happens so often that literally no digital media is safe except when you can download it DRM free (Google play music, band camp, GOG etc).

I don’t disagree that Sony is at fault for agreeing to that distribution agreement. That’s not anything like what I said. What I said was that they did it because they are required to by law.

In this particular case what they were selling wasn’t a licensed copy of a movie or show. They were selling a license to stream. When the contract ran out they had to pull it from the streaming platform.

Sony said that affected customers will lose the ability to stream titles including Outrage: Way of the Yakuza, Paddington, Paddington 2, Pan’s Labyrinth, Rambo 3, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas “due to our content licensing agreements.” As of September, Sony will remove any affected titles that UK users bought from their PlayStation library, per the notice.

I think I didn’t make it clear but as of 2025 they sold 7 million units. There’s conflicting information about whether they sold 7 million pairs in 2025 and more in 2023/2024 which could equal 10 million pairs though. But I haven’t found anything yet that says they’ve sold 10 million pairs in plain language.

https://thenextweb.com/news/meta-smart-glasses-privacy-crisis-apple-google-snap

Yeah I haven’t been able to verify this claim. Closest I’ve come is about 7 million units sold and that was a year or more ago.

https://www.theverge.com/tech/878184/meta-sold-7-million-smart-glasses-in-2025-thats-triple-2023-and-2024-combined

It sounds like a fever nightmare.

The removal of digital media is also out of their hands. They agreed to a distribution contract. The entity that owns that media offered a conditional license in that distribution agreement. Now they are either choosing not to renew or choosing to cancel the agreement and legally Sony don’t have a choice except to be sued if they continue to allow people to access that digital content.

I agree it’s shitty. I agree that it’s a crazy thing to have happen when you’re dropping the news about doing away with physical media. But it’s still not really in their control.

Likely to still be used in a maintenance or emergency situation where the electronics are dead. If the vehicle has to be moved and a winch isn’t available a brake is pretty much a necessity. Anyone who’s had to push a car out of a lane of travel knows this.

The brake lever is a parking brake. It’s usually (in older cars that don’t have an electronic park brake) a cable actuation of the brake meant to keep your car from rolling away if the parking pawl fails. It’s not the same as the hydraulic braking you’d do with a pedal (and what you’d want in the event of an emergency braking situation). Getting rid of it is beyond foolish.