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> In the "before times" limitations were either a fact of the hardware (i.e. you only have so much RAM, storage, CPU cycles, etc) or of your own ability (you don't know how to crack the protection, defeat the anti-debug tricks, etc).

Not if you’re a mainframe customer. Capacity based licensing has been a standard practice in the mainframe world for around 50 years.




Part of the magic of the personal computing revolution was breaking away from these shackles.


As a society, we’ve since decided that we actually prefer to rent everything and to have no agency.


I don't think the marketplace does a good job of explaining the difference to people. That might change things. Maybe. Probably not. >sigh<


On the other hand, the confusingly named DIVX (not the codec) expiring DVD-esque format (so you could play the DVD for 48 hours after purchase, and then after that you had to pay to watch it again. The format totally failed in the market and brought down Circuit City.

So that suggests it's a user education issue.




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