I guess because the Gen Z comp sci students are the people who are truly fluent in computers. We were immersed in the internet and digital technology from a young age, but also had the curiosity to go beneath the surface of them, and get a real understanding of how things work. Most people just use the technology superficially, even if they have grown up with the internet and computers.

And if you have the game downloaded, you still have the files. Just as much as you have a disk.

On the other hand, disks stop being produced far sooner than digital games stop being sold/hosted.

So the issue is about having DRM, not whether it’s sold on physical media or not. Digital games don’t necessarily need to have DRM either.

Why do you think a game on a physical disk won’t have securities?

Well, you can make copies of digital media too.

Sure, there’s DRM, but it doesn’t matter whether it’s digital or physical in that instance, DRM can be added either way.

I highly doubt it would have cost much to preserve a few of the original tapes.

Linux is designed to be able to do group policies like that very well

Remember, Linux originates back from the terminal days, and the vast majority of servers run Linux. If any OS is made to function well in large organizations, it’s Linux. Windows is popular on desktop for reasons other than better group policies.

Good. Free and Open Source Software should be the standard.

Hopefully I don’t need to point you towards the endless list of enshittification for why.

Honestly though, skipping it because of its cultural/religious connotations opens up a bad can of worms, because it’s not the only shunned number, and it varies from culture to culture, and you can’t really give preferential treatment to one culture over any other, as a global mainstream project like this.

In the end, a subscription service ensures your incentives align, even if you need to pay for it.