I’d disagree when it comes to games. Owning a game on Steam is more valuable than having it on a disk:

• You get updates automatically without having to think about it at all.

• You get cloud sharing, making it easily to share things across different platforms.

• You can play it easily on the Steam deck.

• You always have access to it anywhere you have an internet connection, and are unlikely to lose or damage it.

All of these things can be accomplished with enough dedication by a pirate (except cloud sharing, but you can use SyncThing to accomplish something very similar)… but it’s a lot more time and effort, enough that buying a game on sale is often worthwhile just from a practical standpoint.

I think that Gabe Newell’s statement that “piracy is a service issue” is correct. Steam partially discourages piracy by simply offering a better experience.

Like, yes, in theory, Steam could go out of business tomorrow but in practice the chances of that are much lower than me dropping my disks and breaking them, or losing them, or scratching them, or any of the other risks that come with physical ownership.

It’s not a serious suggestion, they’re just using this as a “fuck off” response to the record labels.

Also wasn’t the sub basically taken over by one mod who spends their time working their way into as many moderator positions as possible and then not doing anything with them? Looking at their post history they’ve made like a dozen posts in the last month and one of them was asking to mod another sub.

While I’m all for piracy (obviously), there’s always a choice. Decades ago when cable was going through this, TV was at the center of culture and absolutely everyone watched it.

That’s just not true anymore. Even aside from piracy, they have to compete for people’s time and attention with videogames, social media, and all sorts of other internet-based entertainment. I suspect a lot of the executives making these decisions don’t realize this - they think it’s still 20 years ago when having some of your biggest shows on your channel guaranteed a big audience. If they squeeze too hard people will just spend their time with other sorts of entertainment.

I think that the publishing industry is a good comparison - look at where it is now. It still produces stuff but its cultural relevance is a pale shadow of what it once was and its margins are razor-thin because few people are going to pay a premium even for a bestseller. I think that that’s the long-term fate of TV and movies, especially as the generation that was weened on them dies off and a new generation that watched much less growing up comes of age.

I’m a firm believer in meritocracy and the importance of rewarding skills. He should still pay a hefty price for his crimes, including jail time, where he will hopefully learn to change his ways, but once he gets out, if he’s truly remorseful for his actions and he’s willing to have others monitor his device usage activities, I don’t see why he shouldn’t be hired by a red team

The thing is, people who are highly skilled at computers and pentesting aren’t that rare. Working in the industry also requires trustworthiness, reliability, communication skills, the ability to work well with others, and many other things - those are all key “merits”, too.

It doesn’t matter how good he is at typing rapidly and then saying “I’m in!” if he’s too unreliable and untrustworthy to actually get work done, or if his communication skills suck to the point where he can’t / won’t convey the problems he finds and how to fix them.