What alternate universe are you posting from? There isn't a consumer-facing business in the world that doesn't take measures to prevent theft. Not one. Period. End of sentence.
You're attempting to justify theft as "they can afford it". That's a morally reprehensible attitude. Period. End of sentence.
READ THE WORDS. I am not stating that it should or should not be done. I am telling you that morally there is no argument. You can do things that are not moral, and there is a grey line. Case in point, as stated, I don't like the idea of DRM but I like Steam. We live in the grey, not the black and white.
I am not justifying the "they can afford it" argument. I am stating what you did above, that people plan for some level of spoilage with a shortage factor. It's great that you can talk out of both sides of your mouth, and level criticism that you think applies to me. Let me put this into insanely simple and stupid points:
1) Moral arguments are not viable when you are doing immoral things.
2) Life is grey. People often try to morally justify immoral things...and this is not inherently impossible. Case in point, is it moral to let your child starve, or is it more moral to steal a loaf of bread?
3) "They can afford it" is not a point. "They build the cost of spoilage and shortage into the cost to consumers" is.
4) Digital goods have no spoilage, virtually no upkeep if designed for it, and shortage via piracy is therefore the primary loss mechanism.
5) Denuvo, and most DRM, is an upfront overhead cost which seeks to stop the projected costs of piracy. It is like insurance, where you can pay premiums until you die and not get anything back...but people buy into it because that one catastrophic event where you need it could happen. The trick is it's like insurance where paying customers are assumed to be liars, and speed limiters are installed onto your car, while piracy is like driving without a limiter...where paying customers have a worse experience because they are assumed to be speeding.
6) I, ironically, am for a non-intrusive DRM that will be patched out in 12 weeks. I like that Bethesda removed it from Doom: Eternal, and think that is a somewhat good model of protecting your investment while not being a complete lump regarding your customers. It would mean I never buy a game newer than 12 weeks old, but it would make investors happy. I would support Denuvo if it self-destructed. I support the immorality of assuming consumer theft if it was in service to an overall better experience...and would never claim to argue from the perspective of my moral superiority. I would only claim practical considerations make my solution the most pragmatic.
I would again like to wrap this up with some suggestions. First, you read and identify where I said my argument was morally superior...because what I stated was that the argument from moral superiority didn't hold water. It's the no true Irish man situation, where a plastic definition of morality is needed to make any claims of an absolute truth. Second, making a profit requires you accurately model costs and build them into the price of goods. If you cannot do this leave the business world. In the business world stuff is damaged, stolen, produced defective, and goes bad. The only people claiming that this is impossible to deal with are "protection" outfits like Denuvo, and people experiencing insane things (
like Target leaving New York). When you model 10% shortage, and get 20%, there's an issue. When you want to claim 0% shortage as your business model you failed business basics. Finally, grow some thicker skin. Radicals and idealogs can create a strawman argument and claim to be morally superior. I expect better from you, given that we (Dirtyferret and I) had an argument over multiple posts and agreed to disagree, but you decided that you needed to misconstrue everything and start a new one founded on bass-ackwards intentionally misunderstanding a clearly laid out counter-argument. Mine is not the only solution...and I can see practically why things are done, but you want to pretend I have some sort of moral basis for arguments... It's like some bizarro universe where you've decided my opinion and don't need me to express it. Seriously, WTF?
