Definitely not alone. For the music I've rediscovered record stores. They're great ways to fill in the gaps of your music library while also discovering new music. I buy CDs and take them home now, happy to keep them on my shelf.

This is the way. The new quiet revolution where we dont buy the bullshit anymore.

I buy a physical copy

🫡

You two sound great (would beer)

Being able to do whatever you want with your physical media is so incredibly freeing. Seems like many born after the 90s don't seem to quite have a grasp on what that's like.

I canceled spoofy earlier this year and have been slowly building my library proper ever since. honestly I've always preferred direct downloading my music over streaming because I can access it all offline, I only started using Spotify when my sd card corrupted and I lost all my music on it. tbf it was all pirated cause I was a broke kid but now that I'm buying everything I'm making sure to have backups and physical CDs when I can get them so it never has to be a problem again!

and honestly it's been SO FUN looking up artists and albums, listening to songs Ive previously ignored or were part of like a collaboration and realizing I really like them. i even got the guts to email one of my favorite artists to inquire about songs he didn't have on his bandcamp (he sold the rights to em so he can't sell the songs 😔) and now I look forward to the monthly album I buy to bolster my collection.

Counterpoint:

Do you remember Xbox Live?

They most likely, and purposefully, relegate few assets to a cancellation page.

This post tells me you're not required to use Power Automate for work. It must be nice.

Yeah, I'm in a similar situation. Don't get a lot of game time and I've got a pretty large backlog of stuff I want to play. If I like the look of something I wishlist it and buy it on sale for less than £10.

I think the gamepass model is going to be struggling with economic factors - many of us are working more and have less playtime, and money is tighter.

Yeah. I lay for YouTube Premium. And it has already gone up. If it goes up any further though I may have to cancel. The whole family uses it though so cancelling it will affect more than just me. They aren’t tech savvy enough to avoid ads.

Now if YouTube blocks sharing a family account across houses (in my country) then they will make the decision really simple.

Theoretically, now that Microsoft owns half the AAA studios, you could expect Gamepass to have a lot of day 1 AAA games.

Unfortunately, they just bought all the studios and... ordered them to stop making games or something.

I'd cancel if I hadn't done it several years ago. Oh well.

It's still better for people overall if the parasites take larger sums from fewer willing idiots compared to them taking less each from more people, even if their bottom line is unaffected.

Cloud play allows local couch co-op without a second console/version of the game.

Here in Brazil (and problably most of the developing world as well), piracy used to be the standard way to get console games. People would buy unblocked consoles from street merchants and then buy pirated media from them, or download the games from pirate sites.

But with the newer xbox xs series, they made it so that piracy is impossible, and people got forced to buy games from microsoft. Since most people around here don't have much money to spend, game pass became an option to have a selection of games always at disposal for a reasonable price, so it became popular. Sadly, that's how microsoft expanded their business to the developing countries.

Back when it was under the price of 2 games a year it was a pretty good deal. Thinking of buying the next Halo and Forza? Get gamepass and save money, and have the opportunity to try a bunch of other stuff you wouldn't have played.

There's amazing games like Hades and Slay the Spire that I wouldn't have been interested enough in to purchase that are now among my favorites because Gamepass let me try them.

Honestly, I think the better route would be to keep it cheap but not include new releases. Let people access the back catalog affordably with games that aren't brining in much new revenue anyway. People will discover games and genres they otherwise would not have played, which will create new markets and boost ssales of new releases.

When a new game costs 60 bucks, just paying for a game pass and have access to a random library seems appealing. It's also a nice way to try and discover games I guess. I never used it.

I tried telling so many people that and their answer was always either so what, or no it wont. Well, here we are. If you own a thing the price doesn't go up

Paying extra just to have access to multiplayer is one of the core reasons I sold my 360 and haven't bought a console since. PS2 and latest PC are both golden!

Unless its from GOG of course, because then you really do own your game

GOG. It’s not all games, but you can own some of them. Steam, in spite of the CEO that keeps it decent, started this lease under the guise of buying model.

That said, subs are much worse. If the Disney/Kimmel situation taught us anything, it’s that boycotts work.

Subs are costing most Americans, on average, $300/mo. (More Perfect Union covered it.). That’s a monthly grocery bill for 1-2, if you buy right and cook. Subs are part of the “squeeze” that siphons money to the top 1%.