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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nytmare" data-source="post: 7650793" data-attributes="member: 55178">I've been mulling over this the past couple of days and I think the issue regarding rented software, at least for me, is the fact that in general and at least in the past, you rented things whose cost was otherwise prohibitive.  If I can't afford to buy my own washing machine and dryer, I can go to a laundromat where a secondary individual or group has invested in, provides, and maintains the machines.  If I don't want to, or cannot buy a car, or a house, or any other big ticket item, the "natural" solution that arose from our economic system was that a person who could afford it could step in and provide it in exchange for money, goods, or services.  Granted a lot of it has to do with the fact that that's the system I was born into and grew up in, but to me that system seems (for all intents and purposes) fair and ethical.  This (relatively) new trend however manipulates and twists things around.  Now, a company takes a product they create (usually already a niche product) and exaggerates its cost by no longer offering to sell it to anyone.  Then they cut out the middle man and rent out the now priceless product themselves, and they have the added benefit of having total control over the prices being set cause there's no one to compete with.To me, a cell phones and internet services are entirely different.  I can't buy my own cell towers, and satellites, and construct my own networks.  Although I'm sure that the corporations love it, that isn't being purposefully denied to me as another avenue for them to milk money out of me.I guess that, more than anything, I'm sad that there aren't more people who are as appalled at the system as I am.</blockquote>

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