supp99: You don't seem to see the the internet has undermined capitalism completely. You have no power over these businesses, the reason we live in this modern videogame dystopia where games are literally being destroyed as we speak is because the great myth of capitalism is bullshit.
We have exactly zero ability to influence the blizzard and EA's of the world because there a sucker born every minute. The vast majority of the game playing masses do not care, why do you think world of warcraft even exists? You don't have a nuanced point of view. I've literally watched games having been stolen out from under us,. the literate half of the PC game community from the 90's without us being able to do shit because the internet has radically undermined customers power.
The whole ideology of vote with your dollars and "We have the power" is 100% bullshit because the internet enabled companies to gain access to the people with impulse control problems. Think about this - gacha and mobile games profits are entirely dependent on less than 1% of the users. Before the internet no business could ever hope to sustain itself on such a small group of people. The internet now gives 24/7 access to the stupidest and richest among our species.
I think the vast majority of gamers have values that are very different from mine and that's fine. I don't think it makes them idiots, it just makes them very different.
And yeah, most people don't care that much about preservation. If you look at history, librarians, scholars, philosophers, scientists and others who cared about the preservation of human thoughts were not exactly the majority (in more enlightened societies, they are listened to though).
I don't see capitalism as pure evil, but I agree that the belief that the market system can fully represent our values is naive. Checks have to be put in place to enforce our sensibilities (and ironically, even the most ardent free market nut will want to see some of his values enshrined into law).
I agree that business people have traditionally had too much control over intellectual property and I agree that mainstram views on ownership of intellectual property can be weird.
To me, once you put something out there, it no longer belongs to you, at least not fully. At the same time, you usually spend a lot of time creating intellectual property and it is fair (and pragmatical) that you should benefit from it.
I think the right balance is to allow the creator to be the sole person who can (or allow others to) financially benefit from the work for a time after which it becomes part of the public domain. Technically, this is was is supposed to happen, though rights on intellectual property get extended for way too long.
Also, I think that those who hold the rights to intellectual property have a duty to preserve it. I think that too should be enforced into law.
So you see, while you blame the free market and the internet for the world's woes, I prefer to see those things simply as tools to an end. Concerning the cause of how strict control of intellectual property falls into the hands of those that don't care that much for it, I put the blame strictly on a lack of common sense or at least a lack of will to enforce it.
