It has a cute name, so that means it is friendly and good.

It has to start somewhere. Animals don't learn through first hand experience alone. And if you quizzed a lot of youngsters on the points I mentioned, you would likely find that a lot of them are clueless.

If you have children, require them to verbally demonstrate that they understand the relevant concepts before you allow them to buy a game. Yes, it will be the bogeyman and they will blow it off when they want to play a subscription based game with their friends. But eventually when they play a single player game that really blows them away, that makes them think to themselves "I want to be able to come back to this experience any time I want in the future without someone being able to take that away from me, or lock it behind a subscription", maybe something will eventually click. But if the seed isn't there because we've become defeatists and never planted the seed, it surely wont click.

Here is another product of the current age. Some of these services such as EA have a minimum age for an account such as 13. So if you choose to buy your child a game rated everyone at age 10,11,12... you have to buy it on your account or violate the terms by making an account with a fake age. Then at age 13 they get their own account and find out that all of their game licenses actually belong to their parent, with no way to gift them back to the child. Or, the child has an account with bogus age that they cannot change, opening them up to the possibility of the licenses being revoked in the future. Finding out you don't own the licenses to your games at age 13 is one way to feel the pain early. Yeah, they probably won't notice or find out right when it happens, but it will probably impact them eventually when they get a little older and want to revisit something.

GOG.com ... get the word out to younger generations on why this is the better choice.

If DRM mostly hurts those who follow the law, then buy from GOG instead of Steam. Then you can stay legal without so many restrictions that are "for everyone's good". Eventually Steam will become like GOG if enough people do this, because Valve (and what game developers survive) will want to continue to make money. That way you can save a DRM free installer, and not have to worry as much about Valve's control of what OS you are required to use if you want to continue to play the games for which you paid money. Valve's Proton is nice but if people keep supporting publishers that prohibit it for supposed anti-cheat software compatibility then Linux based operating systems will continue to not be a replacement for Windows for gaming. Though long-term, if modern Windows eventually becomes difficult to legally run due to activation server shutdowns and legacy hardware failures... Linux compatible versions of games (either native or compatibility layer compatible) would be preferred for game preservation. But DRM and server dependency for operation could still ruin Linux compatible games too, if allowed to continue unrestricted.

Also, www.stopkillinggames.com ... don't allow (via your purchases) game makers to design games that require remote servers that they can shut down at will. (Yes, I realize that the site I mentioned is trying to stop it via legal methods mostly, rather than via consumer sovereignty.)

Younger generations are gaming on consoles that require activations and often subscriptions. Either older generations have failed to warn younger generations of how the ecosystem they are supporting will destroy retro-gaming, or younger generations just don't care about the concept of (especially legal) future retro-gaming outside the offerings of the rights-holders.

Supposedly Steam purchases now "clearly state" that you get a license, not ownership. First off, people don't generally care if they are buying a license... most want to play the game, not distribute the base game files. But, they want (and often assume they get) a license that is not going to (post-purchase) regress OS options via rescinding access to the previous versions of the installer at Steam's discretion, and they expect a license that won't prevent them from installing the game on whatever compatible-at-time-of-purchase device they want to install it on from now until eternity. Most reasonable people do not expect indefinite support and compatibility updates for far-off future operating systems, but most don't expect unnecessary restrictions that allow the developers/owners/distributors to legally stamp out any publicly shared modification that allows the game to live on after support ends or when subscription replacements appear in place of the previously purchased perpetual license version. Secondly, Steam now usually displays "Add to Cart" and then "Continue to Payment" for most games, which most people will still interpret as buying a permanent license, not a one-time payment subscription that can be revoked at any time.

If DRM were to be forced out and Piracy were to threaten the industry's existence, then maybe consumers should consider accepting a DRM that is not invasive to the system and that is guaranteed (along with unnecessary restrictions of usage) to be removed from the available installers after a certain number of (not excessive) set months following release. But as it stands, consumers as a whole don't seem much interested in preserving their ability to play the games on their terms.

Maybe consumers are just uninformed, if that is the case... these concepts could be virally posted every time this topic comes up by anyone who cares to change the current status quo. If the majority of consumers just don’t care, I guess consumers will get what they settled for.

Could it also be that prions or similar are at partial fault and being transmitted more often among those who frequently receive eye care?

2020: scanners
2030: manhacks?