D&D General Hey, are we all cool with having to buy the same book twice, or what?

[Lanefan]

Off topic, but essentially all disc drives still have the smaller sized inset in the middle for the reading of mini-discs.

Not these, they don't.

Mini-disc is a Sony technology from the early 2000s, proprietary to them I think, and uses storage media that look kind of like slightly smaller 3.5" floppy disks.

Sticking one of those in a normal disc drive would be a bit of a mess...

 

[Lanefan]

Aside from paranoia/ cynicism, is there a reason to think we won't get DnDBeyond for the duration of 5e and longer?

We have one point of reference and WotC kept it going over twice the lifespan of the edition (2010 to 2020, a full 10 years, with 4e being actively supported from 2008 to 2012 or 4 years.) And they only retired it because Microsoft stopped supporting Silverlight.

Even if DnDBeyond only lasts as long, that still takes us to 2027. A fair length of time. And if it lasts the same length after 5e, if 5e is replaced in 2025—which feels far too soon with how things are going—we'll have DnDBeyond to 2033. Both pretty darn far in the future.

All fair enough, though DnDBeyond itself is of no concern to me; for those that use it, however, I hope it's supported in perpetuity.

I have a Minidisc player.
More blank discs? Less so...

No kidding, eh.

I have two or three portable players at home, but more relevant is that we use a console unit as our main mixdown recorder in my band's studio.

We're set for blank discs for now but sooner or later that crunch is gonna come...

 

[Bravesteel25]

Not these, they don't.

Mini-disc is a Sony technology from the early 2000s, proprietary to them I think, and uses storage media that look kind of like slightly smaller 3.5" floppy disks.

Sticking one of those in a normal disc drive would be a bit of a mess...

Oooh, OK. I was thinking of the mini-discs like the ones used in Nintendo's Gamecube etc. My bad!

 

[happyhermit]

...
You tell people they're buying something they expect certain rights and privileges real ownership entails.

I think most people have a much more nuanced view of "buying something" than "I pay and have this forever". People "buy" a seat on an airplane, they "buy" a ticket (that often doesn't actually exist as a single thing anymore), they "buy" membership to a club. Most people don't have problems sorting out that "buying" something is dependent on context and can often come with restrictions.