It's been heading that way long before steam started doing it.

Bill Gates last year (or was it 2 or 3) well anywayz he predicted that in about 7-9 years from now, we wont be using dvds...........................

Well, the Blu-Ray vs. HDVD war should start late next year or early 2006.

Bill Gates did it but you can call up and activate, no need for internet access.

I like the whole online registration and the 20, 000 that got banned deserve it.

I somehow don't like how all this authentifaction stuff develops. In some years I'll have to activate everything. And I don't really believe that all this will be too anonym. I don't think the majority of the people will really realize it when they start things like ebay. Then some guys spy our information and sell it. I just don't believe that all the data will be secure.

Than anybody can make kind of a log of my activities. When I play which game, use which software, watch whatever video. They allready know what I bid for in ebay. Perhaps this practice will be followed in other internet shops, and later in "real" shops.

Wohoo, in some years it will be possible to create a real log of most of my daily activities. Transparent citizen.

Right now I have alternatives. I wanted to buy HL2. Now I will stick to Doom3 that isn't even fixed to the M$ world and wait for Unreal 3 and hope that they will go on with Linux Support and without any activation.
I really hope more and more people will stop support programms like this... This was one of the stronger causes to use Linux - I am still more productive in Windows. But this will change.

Perhaps this is a too depressive view of the future, but I don't trust theese companies.
and it makes me sad

What happened to innocent until proven guilty?

It's kinda hard to prove yourself innocent when your crime is staring you right in the face.

That only applies to the guilty
I don't like punishing the majority of people for the misbehaving of a small percentage of people. Maybe not a small percentage, but definetly a minority.