Conservatives (Germany ca. 1933): Hitler will only throw the enemies of the German people in jail, so I’m safe. Gestapo, some time later at their door: Hallo. Conservatives: Oh no, who could have seen this coming?
Moral of the story: The leopard bites every face.
But there is still a management bonus for this quarter - right?
Resell to the next data center project, Re-steal it from there afterwards. Infinite money pump glitch!
Yes, when employed properly it can be a helpful tool. But when it’s given all the house keys and unlimited leeway, it will burn down your house (and your budget) because it cannot make reasonable choices. It’s not sentient (yet), despite all the promises from AI evangelists.
Steam on pc shows that gamers can be okay with not having physical media - as long as they trust the vendor that the thing they pay for actually means a persistent access to the game.
Unfortunately this move also gives much more power to the vendor. Once he decides to withdraw access to the player, the ownership of the paid-for thing becomes useless (until a lawsuit were to be filed and won).
Physical media without mandatory internet servers (like in pre-internet consoles) means true ownership - after buying a game, the vendor has no longer any control.
The key point to me is not directly the difference between physical disk or cloud download, but between truly offline versus online-required games (or goods in general).
“Little brother is watching you!”