https://isoul.uk/tags/technology/Recent content in Technology on isoul.ukHugo -- gohugo.ioen-GB© 2026Fri, 02 Oct 2026 09:29:45 +0100https://isoul.uk/posts/digital-was-supposed-to-be-better/Thu, 01 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0000https://isoul.uk/posts/digital-was-supposed-to-be-better/<p>In 2011, Valve co-founder Gabe Newell said something about piracy that has stuck with me:</p> <blockquote><p>&ldquo;Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem.&rdquo;<sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1" class="footnote-ref" role="doc-noteref">1</a></sup></p> </blockquote><p>His point was fairly simple. If an unauthorised service is easier to use than the one selling the product, the seller has a problem.</p> <p>At the time, that could mean waiting months for something to reach your country, dealing with region locks or restrictive DRM, or hunting down a physical copy while an unauthorised version was already online.</p>