The only thing that irks me a bit is Sony announced people are going to pay for online while destroying Microsoft over their DRM policies. No one called Sony out on that in the media, and even in 2014 people think Xbox LIVE should be free but everyone is OK with Sony charging for PSN.

The thing is, is that unlike the PC the console manufacturers have to MAKE and MAINTAIN the services themselves, rather than PC gaming which is less unified. Plus Sony has over 8 million PS Plus subscribers now - that's hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue a year. Maybe they will put it to good use.

Think about it, if we didn't have a service like XBOX LIVE or PlayStation Plus we'd have the PS2 online all over again. People were complaining about PSN's offerings when it was free, even though I thought PSN was great and really compared well with Xbox Live despite being free. Now imagine if we had to go back to PS2 online.... yeah..... that works on the PC because it's a PC, but on a console in 2013 that wouldn't fly.

If anything, maybe Sony and Microsoft should offer a super stripped down free online multiplayer then. Maybe limit hours you can play free on it, or have many ads - some even intrusive (for example, show up while you play as a notification). Oh wait MS already does ads and charges you (at least they did with the 360). Or it can be free online multiplayer but you don't get a friends list or message list or something.

What do you guys think?

I personally don't mind since it's less than $5/month and you get free games each month, but I can understand why people wouldn't want to pay another fee to play their games online.

You saw people upset last gen because one console did it and the other did not. You sure as hell didn't see much complaining when the other console jumped on board.

Sega pioneered all of this back on the Dreamcast. I am humbled and gracious that they took online console gaming out of the ghetto, otherwise you're right, we'd probably be back in the PS2 days. Could you imagine?

Activision would have a CoD Field Pass required to play online, plus you'd need a CoD account.
EA would have some sports online pass requiring an EA account, plus something else for their non-sports games (bundle and save!).
Crapcom would go HAM with all sorts of shenanigans.
Ubisoft would require UPlay for all their games with yet another separate account required.

Terrible.

I have no problem with it if it's being used to give us better servers, if not then I don't see the point.

Extremely good points. I didn't think about that.

Its an annoying thing to pay for. I pay $40 a year for Live and that money could easily be spent on something else. And online features are not really any better behind a paywall.

Because in my view, it's a ripoff.

why

Well I think both are nonsense and I dont like either

Because it's not good enough to be worth extra cost.