The danger of an always on society

[VALOCARAPTOR]

when arguments are brought up against always online, the response is that people are already always online with many different things

however I've always thought of that as a really bad argument as that just shows how much we rely on services that can be very unstable at times, and that in certain events could go out for long periods of time. I dislike the idea that we need more things to run always online as if the internet or the power goes out many systems would be out in seconds. The more society makes services rely totally on things that are easily disrupted during disasters (power lines) the more we put ourselves at risk

 

[Fraser Fitzpatrick]

I could not believe Orthy's indifference! We're definitely on a dangerous slope here. It's not as though electricity comes in different levels of effectiveness as a thing and if you have high cap broadband but sub standard electrical supply, you've got bigger problems matey.

 

[Keoul]

I feel like always online is actually worse for products.
I don't use my playstation 3 often but when I do I'm bombarded with updates before I can play a game, I only recently got a copy of Little Big Planet and even that required an update! It's several years old! why on Earth would my console need an update for that!?

The updates are my biggest gripe, DRM is not that big of an issue for me at the moment, the only one I experience is steam which isn't that bad, I mean at least I can play my games whenever I want without the server crashing, and I even have the option of playing offline.

Basically, always online is subtracting from the "fun" of games.

 

[___________________]

I just wanted a nice offline game I can enjoy without all the hassle of worrying whether or not there's a server crash or something. Got nothing to do? Pop in the game, play a bit, turn off the thing. No waiting for online related crap and all that.

 

[DoPo]

when arguments are brought up against always online, the response is that people are already always online with many different things

And you are correct - it is a bad argument because not everybody is always online. Sure, we are frequently online but "always"? No, not really. I, for example, am able to be online every day. It's simple. But that's not 24 hours a day - occasionally I travel, or some times the internet stops for a bit (in all fairness, it's rare but a couple of weeks ago it went out for about 2 hours late at night due to maintenance or something), when I moved to my current place, I didn't have internet at home for about a month, and sometimes my laptop decides to play dumb and the networking stops working. I haven't tracked down the reason yet but it's a very low priority, too - I just reset it and it fixes it. However, were I required to be always online, that would be a real problem. In fact, when I didn't have internet it was a problem - I had just started playing Heroes 6 and I had to drop it for the time due to the DRM. I could still use the internet every day (there is a computer room not far from here) but that didn't really help me when at my place.

 

[IllumInaTIma]

The main problem with always online, that even if we are always online, they are not. Even if they have some sort of perfect servers that won't overload at the release day they still have to do maintenance! So, at least once a year, for a couple of hours, ALL next XBOX players won't be able to do shit on their console. Is it so much of a problem? I dunno.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Am...oops, almost asked "am I the only one?", Erin Stout will be mad at me.

But yeah, turning off your wireless internet, but leaving your laptop running (on battery power, maybe)...that's not that outlandish, is it?

 

[Ashadowpie]

personally the more consoles turn into computers, the more i dont like them. i seriously miss the days when you just stuffed a CD or cartridge in the console, pressed start and you were playing the damn thing. no updates, no lag, no bullshit. just Game.

most annoying is the fact that i need to Install the damn game on my 360 because it is so incredibly loud when you dont, ever since i got my Elite it hums so bloody loud, it doesnt help that its also 2 feet away from me because its connected to my computer screen and internet.