It reminds me of what happened to cable TV. Back in the 1980s cable channels all had definite brands to uphold. The cable bundle meant, however, that you had to take them all or leave them all. You couldn't pick your favorite news channel, you had to get all of them. Like the Discovery Channel? You pay for the Hallmark Channel.

Cable channels thus don't have any motivation to be any good. They get paid whether or not you like them, whether or not you watch them. So why bother?

The cable industry "thrived" for many years by simply jacking up the price, something that people tolerated for a while but each time they increase the price they lose a few subscribers, every time there is a funeral a cable TV subscriber is gone and they don't get replaced by anyone new.

It irks me that young people who didn't live through this think anything is going to be different with GAME PASS. Each time I see that logo on my Xbox it makes my blood boil -- I am thinking about getting rid of it since it doesn't play music well, doesn't play HEVC videos at all, and there aren't that many games I want to play on it. I still keep it though because it plays Blu-Ray.