University. Cyberethics is a required course where I graduated from, and it goes deep into open source licensing and the free software movement. I can tell you from experience presenting on open source licensing and the free software movement during that class that almost no one in the class gave a shit about it. It was quite sad to see so many people uninterested in a topic I'm so passionate about, especially because these are the types of people who would go on to be my coworkers.

The fact of the matter is that most people (including programmers) will never care about it, simply because they refuse to understand how important it is or how they can make money from it. It seems to me that people just want to conform to the systems that already exist (copyright and proprietary software) instead of challenging and changing the way we view, write, and interact with software.

But of course, that only really applies to students who graduate with a Bachelor's in CS, and likely doesn't apply to every university. The layperson still has absolutely no idea what "open source" even means or why it is important. In fact, the layperson is often brainwashed into thinking that the best thing for enterprises is the best thing for them, so in all likelihood most people would rather fight for copyright than against it, even if they had been informed on open source licensing and the free software movement. US businesses do a damn good job of brainwashing their consumers into echoing their views.

That's a strawman argument, sorry. You're arguing as if all developers are publishers. You just said it "A can often be B," but A is not always B.

Publishers do this bullshit. Period. And in small shops, developers are the publishers, sure. But when they make those decisions, they don't make them in their roles of developers. They do so in their roles of publishers. And also, not all publishers and not all developers-turned-publishers are dicks.

But I understand what you're saying. When they are dicks, they are dicks.

this part of it is really frustrating for me.

step 1. purchase game that looks cool
step 2. disagree with TOS
step 3. too bad, get fucked

:(

We're on the exact opposite sides of this argument.

Being able to host your own servers means there is a much higher potential to have servers located close to you, giving you much lower latency. If there aren't, host your own. This is great for people in, for example, Australia, who often get really poor support in terms of servers in large games. Not an issue when they can host as many as they want.

As for security, what's more secure than having a server with a password only me and my friends know? On top of that, when a server is my own, I know when it's going to be down. When the studio is the one controlling all the servers, you are at their whim.

As for games not needing to last decades... why? Do you want to be kicked off of a service you paid for, then expected to buy a new one that's basically the same thing (which you will also eventually be kicked off)? Especially when the original still (in theory) functions perfectly?