Are you seriously arguing that Microsoft is intentionally trying to "extinguish" it's own IP? I realize that "Embrace, extend, extinguish" is a hopelessly tired and outdated meme, but trying to freshen it up by arguing they've now reached a level where they are intentionally trying to kill their OWN products as part of some grand and 30-year-in-the-past EEE "plan" is simply absurd.
I don't follow Minecraft or this issue closely, this is pure speculation, but MS could be trying to extinguish self hosted servers and would prefer all players playing on official Mincraft servers.
Yes, self-hosted servers, hypixel, etc, and java edition are clearly the target.
It was bad enough having to pay twice for the same game (java edition, then bedrock edition, as some of their friends could only play the microsoft edition on their Nintendo Switches, etc).
But if microsoft cause the 3rd party ecosystem of servers and mods to close down forcing everyone onto microsoft servers, I will ban my kids from playing at all. Quite sad, they and their friends have grown up with minecraft, it's almost the lego of our times, with a dose of capture-the-flag, though my kids also have lego and play skirmish irl.
I support your decision to ban it in your household under that circumstance. If Microsoft gets to carpet-ban us and our kids from the game, we can carpet-ban them from us and our kids. Take your responsibility as a parent seriously, spend time and engage and take care of your kids, don't depend on big centralized computer systems to keep your children safe. Teach them why it's important, and they'll grow up to value individual freedoms.
They are perfectly happy playing in the current open ecosystem, why should they be forced to change?
I'm maybe being a bit dramatic by saying I'll ban them, but they will certainly be given a lesson on taking a stand, and if necessary making sacrifices, to defend freedoms and not give in to coercion.
It's not at all 'microsoft bad', except in this case, it seems they are.
Precisely, it's a teaching opportunity. My parents denied me certain things, and while I "hated" them for it sometimes, I have grown to understand why. It did have the very real cost of making socializing more difficult, and yet precisely that prepared me for this kind of sacrifice. Long term, I'm grateful for that, they were real, actual parents.
If Microsoft wanted to extinguish self-hosted servers, all they would have to do is stop releasing the server jars and/or turn off authentication for non-Microsoft servers. They wouldn't spend so much time and energy pushing a controversial chat monitoring feature.
Java doesn't make them money outside of an initial purchase. Subscriptions to realms do. So, yes, EEE to an offering that was free to play after initial purchase.
