lol, props to Google for refunding the costs of the hardware, games, and DLC, though.
I might've actually bought one, except that I didn't want to be stranded with an outlay of hundreds of dollars for a bricked streaming device. If I'd known up front that they'd have refunded my costs (or even a percentage of them) if they shut down the service in some timeframe, I'd have totally bought one.
Same. If they told me "we'll refund you 100% if we shut down go nuts" I would have gone nuts as the service was solid. The funny thing is it would have helped their "uptake" numbers and might have stalled or prevented the shutdown!
This was a concern with early adopters of Steam, as well; and Valve made it clear that if Steam were to shut down that purchasers would have an opportunity to download their purchases.
Of course, this was long before they sold ephemeral digital things like trading cards and stickers, and before many games were heavily dependent on the continuation of online services.
>This was a concern with early adopters of Steam, as well; and Valve made it clear that if Steam were to shut down that purchasers would have an opportunity to download their purchases.
I didn't realize this. I'm looking to build a pc in the coming months, and the fact that valve has a plan in place is comforting
Exactly! Google doesn't get this. Google has a commitment image problem. As a consumer I've not seen them address this with the seriousness it deserves.
Since they won't commit to their products, their customers are reluctant to commit as well.
Yeah, I'm not using any new Google products unless it's for a one off use.
And I'm reconsidering the existing services I'm dependent on as well.
GMail, for example. While I have no doubt GMail will continue to exist as long as email exists, Google's spam blocking (not just filtering...blocking, where the email doesn't even make it to the inbox), has become far too aggressive. And the frequent UI changes are becoming unsustainable.
Also, the nagging suspicion that Google is having silent data loss issues across their products is not helping either.
I might've actually bought one, except that I didn't want to be stranded with an outlay of hundreds of dollars for a bricked streaming device. If I'd known up front that they'd have refunded my costs (or even a percentage of them) if they shut down the service in some timeframe, I'd have totally bought one.