http://www.giantbomb.com/news/cod-black-ops-dedicated-servers-available-for-rental-only/2531/
This is probably why Modern Warfare 2 had no dedicated servers. Those fuckers won't see a god-damn cent from my wallet, because this ploy is despicable and nauseating. The worst part is these sons-of-bitches will still get paid up the ass because sheeple will buy anything with the words "Call of Duty" stamped on the cover. I'm even considering passing on whatever StarCraft II expansion is released, because any money I give Blizzard goes to the hive that molests dreams of developers and bank accounts of gamers. I am sick and tired of their shit. It stinks worse than any other company out there.

Aww, and you kiss your mommy with that mouth? Seriously, contrary to popular belief, mindless profanity usage does not make you seem intelligent or rational. Quite frankly, it makes you seem like a 13-year old who should be calling people homosexual and/or black on a Counterstrike server.
That being said, while I do think it was a cheap shot to claim they were having dedicated servers and then doing this, I see nothing wrong with it. Quite frankly, I don't want to play on someone's dedicated server that they run in their dorm room or basement. I want to play on a professionally hosted server. This ensures that they are all professionally hosted. So if the complaint against removing dedicated servers was that it gave people unfair advantages, this is the opposite.
Yeah, this is going to make running modded servers more difficult/nigh impossible. But are there really that many popular CoD mods? Only ones I really know of are the "pro mods" and the like that just remove a crapton of content.

Sorry. I'm just very, very steamed, and I couldn't find any other words in the dictionary that would convey just how angry and fed up I am with Activision, so I let my anger slip into several profanities. This is coming from three years of pent-up anger at a company that robs its customers blind every day, and is planning to ease them into evil cash-grabbing schemes.

They aren't actually robbing you though. They are putting their cards on the table by saying here is the product do you want to pay $60 for it? You have the option of saying no.

My question is this...are the rates being charged here significantly greater than what people pay to have a dedicated server anyway? If not, it really isn't an issue beyond a lack of provider choice.

Which is what I've been doing since the beginning of last year. Thing is, others don't have that same sort of willpower, to stand up and say "No, I will not pay $15 for your measly collection of maps!" They make it seem like the only way to keep up with your friends in your middle/high school, college and/or office in terms of online play is to buy the maps they're playing on. What will happen when they start charging $14.99 to access the game monthly, and $4.99 to buy one map? People will pay those ridiculous sums of money, because if price raises in the past are any indication, people will pay ridiculous sums of money because it's the only option they see! $60 for a game? Oh, it's a new console, so I'll pay that, and now Sony charges that, too! $15 for a small downloadable game that can only be accessed when the console is online, even though the game is single-player? Of course there's nothing wrong with Doom, a game made in the 90s, to now require an internet connection to play! $10 increase on an internet service that's already high for a service that's free elsewhere? I have no concept of monetary value, so even though they're removing services instead of adding them, it's only $10!
Gamers are easily manipulative. They are cash cows waiting to be milked over and over, and the milking gets rougher and rougher until they're in debt, spending $50 per match on Call of Duty. Unless we stop this cycle, we're all screwed.
Companies like Valve let you run dedicated servers for free, so yes, price is an issue here.

Or maybe they don't share your opinion of the value involved? It's very egotistical to think your opinion is the obvious truth that sheep ignore due to lack of willpower. I bought Modern Warfare 2 on day one for $60 and got more than my money's worth, thanks.
On topic:
Isn't this what Battlefield Bad Company 2 did? Some official dedicated servers and you can have your own through an official server provider? Yes, that is exactly what Bad Company 2 did... and hey guess what, people loved that game, even old-school PC FPS gamers.

Same. Also, I have never played on a Bad Company 2 server without stable pings. Why? Because nobody's roommate is downloading Batman XXX while I am trying to blast people in the face.
All that being said, the topic creator is actually a perfect example of why it is important to not get swept up in the "fun" of hate. Clearly he was just looking for an opportunity to bitch. Especially since Activision is apparently "robbing" people by selling games :p

I think what he means is that in order to host a dedicated server, you have to have a server to host it on. Valve doesn't provide server hardware free of charge, do they?
Still, this is pretty steep. From what I can make of the article, you're not renting an actual server, to manage as you please, you are renting CPU time on a server along with lots of other people, to run a single gameserver. This is of course cheaper than renting an actual hardware server from a server host, but you certainly don't get nearly as much value for your money either.
The head admin of my gaming community rents a server from a server host. I believe it costs about $60 a month. That server, of which he is the only user, and which he can manage as he pleases, runs our full time dedicated servers for UT2004, UT3, BF2, TF2, Trackmania and TeamSpeak, as well as our website and a number of other websites. He can install any mods he wishes for any of the games. He can basically do anything he wants. Compare that to paying $15 a month for a single server process for a single game that you have little control over, on a machine shared with lots of other people.
Also, I wondered about this turn of phrase: "Unranked servers that are able to support up to 24 players will cost .99 cents per player per month". What does that mean, exactly? Does it cost (24*0.99) $23.76 a month? Or does it cost $0.99 every time a player logs onto the server? Or just every time a unique player within a given month logs on?

Yes I agree, but by disallowing custom servers completely they effectively kill off any kind of modding community, creativity or anything of the kind, which is shit. I bought mw2 recently just for a LAN, and I have to say, there is absolutely no dev support at all. The matchmaking system with only listen servers sucks ass, and there are hackers everywhere. But it won't do any good just complaining about it, just ignore them and give them as little as possible of your money (I felt shivers down my spine when I paid for mw2 and saw Kotick's ugly face eating my money) Instead, support awesome developers who care about their game and it's community and future, like unknown worlds who are developing natural selection 2, giving players alpha access (with dedicated servers) and the ability to comment and add your opinion on almost everything they do.

No, we most certainly do NOT need any such thing.
Frankly, if people are willing to pay 15$ for a map pack, then more power to the people who can make them do so, because they'll almost certainly make better use of the money, IMHO.
Personally, I've never bought any Call of Duty games, but if people are passionate/hyped enough about the franchise to pay through the nose for every related product, who are you to try to prevent them from doing so?
If you get so incensed about Activision's practices, then I'd point out that price gouging according to brand is alive and well in many other sectors of the economy (basically, any luxury item).
What's so bad about it? No one's forcing YOU to buy Activision's products, just like no one's forcing anyone to buy designer clothes.

No, but any computing device that can run the tools Valve provide can work as a server.
I've used Gameservers before, so the mechanics work like this; when you choose an unranked server, you choose how many players you want the server to top out on, and they bill you accordingly. Gameservers makes it very easy, so if there's one company that runs servers exclusively, they're an excellent choice. Still, one should have freedom of provider.

It wouldn't be a problem if Activision were the only game in town that would keep raising their prices. Thing is, other companies raise their prices when they see the customer paying that much eagerly for the title. If Activision didn't charge $60 for the PC version of Modern Warfare 2, we wouldn't be seeing other companies following the leader.
Come next generation, do you think Sony will still have free online play? Of course not. If people are so willing to throw cash at Microsoft to play online, you can bet Sony will get into it. I see online play eventually moving to "PlayStation Plus" when it's time for the PS4. Nintendo won't half-step, either; they'll jump into this insanity whole-hog.
It's like the frog-in-a-pot; raise temperatures gradually, and the consumer will never know they're being cooked alive.

While I basically agree with your sentiment, I do see one small problem. Most media products are priced the same within their category, meaning that all new CDs cost the same, all new DVDs cost the same, and all new games cost the same. There are exceptions to the rule, but not many, as long as we're talking retail, at least here in Denmark. All new PC games cost 400 kr = $68.75 here. If the price of some titles is driven up, it'll probably drive the rest of them up as well. But not all games are worth that much. New developers often make smaller games to begin with, making it harder for them to "break into" the retail market. If the rule is that you have to sell your game at a certain high price, then only big AAA productions full of hype will be able to compete.
I had hoped that the expansion of DD as a delivery method would result in more competition and thus lower prices (there are less expenses with DD than with retail, so they should be able to compete on price), but sadly, that appears not to be the case. All the major DD outlets appear to bet on ease of purchase and speed of delivery to win the day. And unfortunately, they seem to be right. Lots of people are more than willing to pay the same, or even more than the retail price of a game, just so they don't have to get up out of their chair. Even though they are getting less product for their money.

Personally, I see plenty of price differences between different products, if not at the original price, then when it comes to sales (not even going into indie games, since they're a small part of the market).
If people feel a product is not worth the asking price, they know that (with a few exceptions) they've only got to wait a year or so to see appear on sale somewhere.
That is, imho, the actual positive aspect of DD portals. At any given time, a new game is competing not only against other new games priced the same, but also against older games priced lower.
Therefore, someone who buys a new product for full price only does so either because it's especially good, or because of brand.
This is why I'm not really worried about Acivision-Blizzard's practices. Most of the other publishers are savvy enough to know they don't have the kind of brand recognition/loyalty to do the same stuff.
Contrary to what you might think, these people are not stupid, they just want to make the most money they can. Most of them are perfectly capable of recognizing when they can get away with something that seems like a rip-off to us, and when they can't.
And frankly, enough with the apocalyptic predictions about the future of gaming. In the fifteen years or so I've been playing video games, I've heard a lot of them, and they've almost never come true. I'm still buying games (mostly PC ones) at about the same price I've always paid for them, with about the same number of release that actually interest me.
The only things that changed is the way I buy them and the number of games I buy on sale (both a consequence of download services).