This. I can see using ads to monitize free/OTA programming, but I refuse to pay to watch ads, which is why Hulu doesn't get our money either.

Running joke or not, that's the truth of it.

Ever tried buying Burger King, or even gasoline, with a $50 bill or higher? These notes are supposed to be legal tender for all debts, public and private, yet certain denominations are not accepted at certain establishments. I'm not suggesting that these places should or should not be allowed to accept/reject whatever denominations of currency they choose, but I'd say that the guarantee you speak of isn't as solid as one might believe.

I don't know that there's a double-standard about Steam specifically, but I definitely see one with Console vs PC gaming and, honestly, I'm ok with that. If I want games I can trade in or play multiplayer on a split screen, I buy it for console. If it's something that I want maximum performance on (Skyrim) or am OK with never trading in (i.e. 75% off sale on Steam), I'll get it for my PC.

Honestly, though, most of the games I play are PC only anyway, so it's a fairly moot point for me anyway.

A right which I practice daily! :)

But... there's no backwards compatability with PS3 so there's no reason to identify if a PS3 game is used or not.

A quick google search only supplied that information as a rumor. Do you have a citation for that?

Really, though, why would a customer of that retailer voluntarily be burned by this tactic more than once? Other than stupidity, I can't think of a reason. Consumers buying products/services like this only serve to tell the retailers that the market will, in fact, tolerate this behavior. The solution is simple - don't tolerate that behavior and stop giving money to companies that are consumer hostile.

While I agree with your sentiment, I don't see it really progressing to the degree you're predicting. When games/apps/whatever start going that route, it will likely leave a vacuum for indie developers to come in and not have to compete with the large development shops that are currently entrenched there. In that scenario, I'd see that the smaller developers that are catering to what the gamers/users actually like will start to grow like crazy and the shops that were consumer hostile will find that very few are still willing to buy their product(s).

Let's hope that's how it works out anyway...

Unlikely unless that feature is reinstated with some kind of formal statement saying they are encouraging the use of said feature.

Shouldn't be an issue - Minecraft runs, by default, on port 25565 and can be configured to run on any port you like.

In my experience, it's not necessarily cost (directly) that drives businesses to host in the cloud, but guaranteed up-time. If you can't be absolutely sure that your client's site/data/whatever isn't going to go down for whatever reason, you outsource that hosting to a provider that can.

This isn't going to be the case hosting a private Minecraft server. Downtime isn't the end of the world or going to end up losing hundreds of thousands of dollars of potential profit.

Using this analogy, the question then becomes "Is the original gallery entitled to the profits of the copy being displayed in a competing gallery?".

My opinion is that they are not. If it were illegal to make a copy of the exhibit, then the profits of displaying said illegal copy become criminal proceeds, which the original gallery should not be entitled to. If it's a legal copy, then it's not even an issue to begin with. Either way, the only just course of action that the original gallery should have is to stop the competing gallery from continuing to generate the criminal proceeds.

Fully agree. It seems to me that console manufacturers are continually pushing the boundary on their policies and practices. The only thing that these large corporations see is the bottom line - money. If they aren't selling product, they're going to (hopefully) attempt to find out why. If we continue to buy products laden with (consumer hostile?) restrictions, the manufacturers of said products will (rightfully) know that they can get away with that practice and in the next iteration will push that boundary further.

The only thing that one can really do is decide that they don't "need" that new gizmo if they feel it restricts them beyond what they feel is fair. Personally, I won't be buying any console that is locked in this manner, Xbox, PS, or otherwise.

I've heard of that, but haven't really looked into it. Now I think I will! :)