Banning accounts that are the sole way a user has to access things they have 'purchased' should be made illegal. If that causes problems because it's also tied to a social media account, then that's an argument for social media companies keeping it separate.

Imagine if a car I'd bought stopped working because I stuck a 'Find my lost cat' poster up somewhere it wasn't supposed to be.

A car is not a service. It doesn't need an account.

Most things these days are service-related and absolutely need 'accounts'.

Like your XBox.

Occulus will invariably require some kind of 'account'.

'Accounts' are not evil.

XBox and Occulus have no absolutely no reason to be services. Requiring accounts for no reason is anti-consumer and therefore evil.

Of course online stores require accounts, but those are not required to use the hardware.

There is nothing anti-privacy about an 'account'. Someone having an arbitrary email address doesn't constitute a breach of privacy.

Downloading games is greatly enhanced by accounts.

Playing most games require accounts.

Banning cheaters effectively requires accounts.

It's 100% perfectly fine and there is nothing wrong with it.

The hyperbole here gets really tiring after a while.

> Playing most games require accounts.

No it does not. Most games are not multiplayer games and don't require accounts.

> Downloading games is greatly enhanced by accounts.

It's greatly enhanced by accounts _with the application vendor_ not the device manufacturer. I'd be quite upset if AMD required an account to be able to download Steam games. I _was_ quite upset when a(n offline only) game I bought on Steam required a Games for Windows Live account I didn't was.

> There is nothing anti-privacy about an 'account'. Someone having an arbitrary email address doesn't constitute a breach of privacy.

I said anti-consumer, not anti-privacy. Online only is also cancer, which is what requiring an account effectively is.

My comment wasn't against accounts (although I strongly suspect that I think that the kinds of things that should require accounts is much smaller than you do), it was against accounts that get arbitrarily cut off, or cut off because the account for accessing your media is tied to all kinds of other things that have nothing to do with accessing your media and for which you can be summarily disconnected with little to no recourse.

> Like your XBox

But you absolutely should NOT need an account to use your Xbox.

You don't need one. But it's extremely useful in most cases, necessary for many things (playing other players, game accounts) and absolutely nothing privacy-invading about it. Giving someone a random e-mail has nothing to with identity. You're giving someone a random set of characters, so that if you chose to re-engage with that entity, you have some way of doing that.

> Giving someone a random e-mail has nothing to with identity. You're giving someone a random set of characters, so that if you chose to re-engage with that entity, you have some way of doing that.

...until the entity wants forms of payment. Then you've got to keep that random sequence of characters for your life unless you're willing to part ways with your purchase.

No, your statement doesn't reflect the reality that companies do treat emails as identities.

If you're really concerned about it, you can use a VISA without your name on it.

Even though we all of that choice, almost none of us care to do it.

Finally, it has nothing to do with control over hardware.

> The tech generally 'needs' the internet to work.

Most of the time, that "need" is entirely artificial - or at least not the only way to design the device.