Blocking ad blockers has to be the real reason behind this convoluted bullshit. Google gets the lion’s share of its revenue from ads. The whole thing is a Trojan horse destined to make things better for them at our expense. The mere proposal is already accelerating my shift away from their products.
Something like 80% of Google’s revenue is from ads, even with that 30% cut they get from everything on their app store. So their core existence deeply conflicts with a free and open web. And it’s particularly unsettling because their web browser dominates the market, so they have the leverage to force us into their vision of the future. And this domination would be very difficult to counter. It’s the default browser on Android phones, and it is constantly flogged on Google.com, which is one of the most popular web portals in the world.
No one is saying that it should be free. The issue is that $50 for a straight port of a 13 year-old game is ridiculous when Sony’s competitor offers free backwards compatibility—and 4K upscaling. Microsoft absorbed their expenses for that as the cost of doing business, and it would be a blip on Rockstar’s balance sheet as well, since they make a perpetual avalanche of money from GTA Online. There’s really no credible justification for a price this high.