Background⌗

“If buying isn’t owning, then piracy isn’t stealing.”

This phrase has gained a MASSIVE amount of popularity online, mainly due to the unpopular policies recently implemented by big tech companies. Recently, Sony announced that paying for a game doesn’t mean that you gain ownership of the game, it simply means that you buy a limited-time license to it.

There have already been similar discussions surrounding the hardware industry, especially around laptops. Many people have reported that companies actively make it harder for a user to repair their own hardware, or even get their hardware repaired by a licensed service centre, usually by charging exorbitant costs for repairing the item or straight-up denying repairs on said item, citing that it’s either outdated or that there is a shortage of parts. This has brought up discussions regarding the Right to Repair, especially in regions like the EU.

What’s really undercutting all these talks is the eroding trust in companies to safeguard the customer’s interests. But why are companies suddenly antagonizing the customer? Is this really a new pattern in businesses or is it gaining prominence only now? I think this is worth looking at a little closer before forming an opinion.

Video Game Ownership⌗

I personally think the topic of video game ownership is what brought the seemingly spurious practices of companies to light. It all started with Ubisoft’s infamous claim “Gamers should get comfortable with the idea of not owning their games”. While at the time it didn’t cause as much of a stir as we see nowadays in the video game industry, it still had enough of an effect to sour the image of Ubisoft among the general gaming populace.

This saw a resurgence earlier this year with the recent email from Sony, that reminded players that games are "licensed, not sold" and that the license is limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, and personal license to use the software privately on the intended system or device. This has left players fearing that Sony could revoke their license at their own discretion, because the license is revocable.

This email was sent after another unpopular announcement by Sony, which stated that they aim to phase out physical games by the year 2028. These 2 announcements, coupled with other unpopular video game policies by Sony soured their image in the eyes of people, with many people reporting switching to Xbox due to their more customer friendly approach to the video games industry.

Right to Repair⌗

The right to repair simply refers to us, the customers, having the ability to repair the things we buy. More and more people are becoming aware of the fact that companies do in fact make it intentionally difficult for users to repair their own items. This practice is seen in almost every industry ranging from farming equipment all the way to the consumer electronics industry.

In brief, the movement demands that consumers and independent repair shops must be provided with access to various provisions to repair the things they buy. This includes design schematics, parts and manufacturing of the product such that it is easy to repair. They also argue that this plays into preserving the environment by promoting sustainable development through a "circular economy" and reducing e-waste. It also helps in saving costs, because instead of buying a whole new item in case it is damaged, we can just replace the damaged components.

But where am I going with all this?

But Why Does This Happen?⌗

A business is, at the end of the day, incentivized to make a profit. So it is not surprising when we see businesses look at multiple options to maximize their profit margins. One of these tactics is cutting costs. But what I believe made businesses provide better services back in the day was one simple thing - “competition”.

Declining competition in the modern era is one of the primary factors due to which businesses have the leeway to get away with a lot more than they did previously. And it makes sense, since the businesses which dominate the markets now, beat their previous competition by providing superior products and better customer acquisition and retention. Just look at the console wars. I don’t think it is a stretch for me to say that the PlayStation beat out all of its competition in the end, with a majority of console gamers opting for a PS5 over an Xbox Series X.

But with the slew of unpopular policies that Sony introduced, Xbox has managed to make something of a comeback, under their current CEO Asha Sharma. They’ve implemented policies and features that keep gamers at the forefront such as the Disc to Digital program, which allows gamers to convert their physical discs into a digital license for free.

The EU has also fined multiple companies like Apple, Google, YouTube, Meta and Amazon for their “anti-competitive” practices, demonstrating governments’ increasing concern over the excessive market power wielded by some businesses. Now I’ll be real here, I am not quite sure why the EU had suddenly gone after these companies with no precursor when they seemed completely fine with the same companies and the same practices just a couple of years back, but I’ll take the win I guess 😂.

The Norwegian Consumer Council put out a video trolling the enshittification of products, taking jabs at big tech companies like google, apple, etc. In the same vein, businesses like steam have always provided excellent services, therefore keeping their customers happy. Steam’s customer support has gained great reputation because it has consistently shown that it genuinely helps customers out in any way they can.

Companies like Framework have also started gaining momentum due to the modularity of their laptops and their inherent adherence to the Right to Repair movement. It allows customers the freedom to customize their hardware and upgrade it as they see fit. This modularity and customizability offer a great competitive advantage, because it genuinely does cost less than just switching out the entire device.

Essentially, what I am trying to say is that businesses have no inherent incentive to be anti-customer, many businesses have had these so-called “anti-customer” practices for ages, but now we are noticing it better. We notice because there aren’t as many options to choose from, so we notice the shortcomings of the options we do have a lot more.

Before we Conclude⌗

A few things we should note about competition between businesses and the lack of options is that, it is not entirely about competition alone. See as consumers, we get locked into certain product ecosystems, which makes switching out of it a pricey affair. Let’s take an example here. Say that I own the entire collection of apple products, from the mac to the iphone to all the peripherals that apple provides. One thing that this does, is that it gives us a buttload of convenience. The ecosystem is centralized, all the products integrate well with one another and our workflows are consistent.

Now if we want to switch out to something like android, it will inevitably take a lot of time and money to do so, since we’ve worked with a certain ecosystem with its set of conveniences, which ends up discouraging the switch from apple. This is pretty much what happens with other products as well. We have switching costs, network effects and our own digital artifacts that we’ve gathered up, some of which might be transferable from one ecosystem to another, making switching impractical. This is where the Right to Repair movement and other similar talks come in, so that we can save money there, rather than spend more to stay within the same ecosystem.

One other thing we have to address is the convenience of digital libraries. It is pretty much the same argument as streaming vs physical movies. Digital libraries offer convenience, better portability and accessibility. And it can be argued that it is MUCH easier to have digital copies of hundreds of games instead of a whole treasure trove of physical discs.

There are many more arguments to be made as such but to keep this article from becoming a huge wall of text I have listed out one or two important ones. But what I am getting at here is not the fact that digitizing something is inherently bad, but rather that we are losing reason to trust that it will be handled well by the people managing these digital libraries for us.

Conclusion⌗

At the end of the day businesses have been and always will be profit centric. They are going to optimize their spendings in any way they can, because it will contribute to the growth of their profit margins. This is the same reason why AI seemed appealing initially and also why businesses are silently re-hiring human engineers. What we should be aiming for is not for businesses to suddenly become charitable saints, but rather we should aim for businesses to have to compete for our money.

Hope you enjoyed the article :)