I make a video game and charge $50 for it. Later I make a DLC and charge $25 for it.

Is your claim that if I keep them as separate purchasable downloads, I'm not rent seeking?

But if instead combine the game and dlc into a single executable (to simplify build and distribution) and put the dlc behind a software lock, somehow that is now rent seeking/overreach and I deserve to have hackers unlock it for everyone for free?

If the content is on the disc or shipped as part of the files of the base game, then it should be accessible without additional purchase. Otherwise, you're undercharging for the original deliverable, and overcharging for the actual "downloadable content".

Imagine this taken to the logical extreme. I sell you a printer. It comes with an amount of ink. However, I've decided that instead of allowing all of the ink to be used, I will limit the printer to only give you X number of pages per cartridge, regardless of actual ink content. Buuuuut, you can also pay me $5 for the "ability" to use all of the ink in your cartridges instead of only part of it. Would it be wrong for hackers to unlock my printers to use all of the ink without having to pay a subscription fee?

This is called price discrimination and it’s a great thing. You’re talking about under/over charging but that’s absurd: there is no such thing. People pay what something is worth to them.

What you’re advocating for creates actual economic inefficiencies: the people who don’t want the DLC must either pay a higher price, or not make the purchase at all, and the people who would happily pay for the additional DLC now get a net cheaper price, despite a willingness to pay more.

And what's the "moral perspective" in question? Is it just "whatever benefits the consumer"?

If I buy a car, then, yes, "my hardware my choice". Software should be no different.

I personally think end user license agreements are immoral. If you want to attach conditions to use, you should have to spend the time to work out a proper contract, executed by both parties, with consideration provided on both sides.

But I still think that's weird. To use your "commercial use" example, if I buy a lawnmower, the company that sells it to me should not be able to dictate that I can only use it for personal use, on my own lawn. If I want to use it to mow my neighbors' lawns and charge them for it, they can't stop me.

Copyright licenses like the GPL are interesting. I've released software under the GPL in the past (though these days I usually choose more permissive licenses like Apache or MIT). The GPL itself is essentially a hack that rides on our current awful copyright law in order to creatively subvert it. If our copyright laws were more reasonable and more aimed toward benefiting the public commons, we may not even have a need for the GPL; it's even possible that big parts of it would be unenforceable in a more reasonable copyright regime.

Just a note on this:

> If you agree not to use the software for commercial purposes when you purchase it, you can't morally decide "my bytes my choice" and just to use it for commercial purposes anyway

While this may be true under current law, there's nothing inherent in the universe that makes it this way. We as a society have decided that, legally, some things are out of bounds when it comes to contractual obligations. As an extreme example, you can't contractually sign yourself into slavery. No court (in the US and quite a few other places, at least) would consider that contract valid. The idea that you can sign away your rights to use a piece of software commercially is not some absolute moral good. We could decide as a society that this sort of thing isn't ok, and enshrine it into law.

I personally do not like services that exhibit rent-seeking behavior, but what, precisely, is IMMORAL about the practice?

Obviously it does not: your downloads expire after a certain amount of time, and if you cancel your subscription, you won't be able to get a key to decrypt the files.

Companies are free to try to put restrictions on that sort of thing, but I think if customers are able to circumvent those restrictions (the DMCA anti-circumvention laws notwithstanding), the company should not get to complain about this.

If the game had a base cost of 0 and a monthly price to play it it would be acceptable. Quake Live worked like this and I believe Game Pass.

Suppose netflix added a $10 upfront cost for subscriptions to combat people churning subscriptions or whatever. Would that make it justified to download all the shows they let you?

>Also you should know that the download function is limited to 100 titles.

I shouldn't know, because I don't subscribe to netflix :^)

Presumably you've made the choice to bundle the base game and the DLC together like that in order to reduce your costs somehow, and I'm not responsible for your business model or logistical issues. If you're worried about people unlocking the DLC for free, don't put it in their hands without charging them for it.

Either way, I think it's entirely reasonable to classify the concept of "charging extra at a later date for something you've already given the customer" as rent-seeking or overreach. Even more so if, instead of a one-time charge, you choose to charge a subscription for something that does not require any ongoing costs for you to provide.

But if there was a single-player or LAN version of the game (I know that's not really possible with something like WoW, but for the sake of the argument...), then players should absolutely not have to pay an on-going subscription fee to play that way.

the only difference between now and 2017 is people saw EA raking in the money anyway and have followed suit, so it's now more common. the outrage was proved toothless... cause star wars sells, and so does te$la.