EA famously uses online-only DRM in many of their modern titles; if you get banned from, say, SimCity, you can't run the game at all. There is no "offline mode".
Also, SimCity eventually got an offline mode.
For the record I am against always on DRM so I did not buy this game nor any other game that uses it. I don't believe we need to codify laws banning the practice or any such thing that requires software developers to build things they don't want to build (with the exception of critical fields such as healthcare and aviation).
It's desirable in that a one time purchase does not entitle a customer to a lifetime of server resources; they paid for the game and they can certainly keep the game, but they don't have a right to the services required by the game (those are recurring costs). This makes sense since the alternative is forcing EA to pay to host servers for people that violated their terms of service.
You are correct that it got an offline mode eventually, I overlooked this. But this demonstrates that the market corrected this problem: Enough consumers complained to force a change. Therefore, is there need for external intervention? The simple solution to always-on DRM seems to be to just avoid buying any products that use it.
Only in a limited form e.g. exhaustion doctrine prevents you from restricting resale. If someone wants to resell their exclusive Ferrari, there's nothing Ferrari can legally do (though this'll probably get you blacklisted from ever receiving an exclusive vehicle).
In general, terms can't go against existing laws and have to be 'conscionable' to be enforceable (i.e. they can't be obviously 'unfair').
Sounds like discrimination to me, and not desirable.
But I'm arguing that when you hear "X is discrimination" then it's wrong to automatically imply that X is bad or X should be changed - there's just a narrow subset of discrimination that's immoral and should be avoided; and there's a narrow subset of discrimination that's illegal discrimination (there's some overlap between these two subsets but they are not exactly the same of course), but most discrimination - and certainly the default situation - is just reasonable human activity of us applying common sense and acting according to the specific situation instead of blindly acting the same no matter what like robots would, it's completely normal to adapt to the specific person and act differently to be most suitable with them, make adjustments and custom approaches for different individuals which definitely is discrimination but there's nothing a priori wrong with that. For example, custom pricing is one form of discrimination - offering a discount for students or senior peole is certainly discrimination, but we generally consider that it's entirely appropriate.
And in certain cases a lack of discrimination would be completely immoral - for example, the concept of "reasonable accomodations" is a requirement for discrimination; for example, a policy that forbids electronic devices in an exam does not discriminate in any way and applies equally to anyone (in colloquial language one might call it a "discriminatory policy" but that's wrong; perhaps I'm nitpicking on that but it a misuse of words to mean their exact opposite), but as it forbids hearing aids for people who need them, then that non-discrimination is bad; and also simply equally allowing all devices would be bad for other reasons, so ADA and equivalent laws require to discriminate and apply different rules to people with different abilities.
So if you see a practice that seems definitely bad and harmful, then "is it discrimination?" is the wrong question to ask, since it's very likely that it may be harmful but not discrimination, or it may be discrimination but nothing wrong with it; these aren't edge cases, the overlap is just partial. The proper question to ask is whether the criteria of the discrimination is fair (the up-thread issue of discriminating upon wealth certainly is debatable whether that should or should not be acceptable) and whether the results of that discrimination are appropriate.
The example on ability to repay is closely related to discrimination by pure wealth, but there are businesses with even more straightforward criteria, e.g. financial services that are offered only to individuals with net worth above a certain (quite large) amount, and having less money than that automatically disqualifies you from that service even if you were able and willing to pay the involved fees.
That was not the issue. The question was whether it is desirable.
Personally it leaves a bad taste. It reminds me of a fashion brand that doesn't sell to obese people (can't remember the name but it was in a documentary).
Are you allowing everybody who want to have sex with you to have sex with you or are you discriminating to a select few / unique person ?
Discriminations is part of human nature.
As for software, well, EA has the right to ban me from their servers if I hack their games, even if I did pay for the product, and this makes sense because it ruins everyone else's experience. I don't pay for HN but if I did they still would have a right to ban my account if I start posting slurs or other abusive content.
Is it desirable? Of course it's desirable; imagine having no control over your own creations and having to deal with the consequences of other people abusing it.