Price aside (which goes down over time), Live is the only thing in which the 360 doesn't fare equal or below the PS3. That's why home is important, not because people will die to get a PS3 to have Home, but because if it delivers half what promises, it will tear into pieces the only technical advantage MS has over Sony now. It could even force MS to make Live Gold free, which I think it would destroy the expected biggest source of future profits. Think what 50$ a year is when they are getting about 6$ in terms of royalties for each game sold.
As soon as I bought my PS3, I cancelled my Live account (a very tricky and difficult process, by the way). I miss not being able to play some table tennis or MotoGP online every now and then, but paying every month for something I would only use sporadically makes me feel ripped-off. Probably, my biggest single reason to support PS3 in this generation over 360 is not to help MS change the rules of the gaming world to a constantly paying model.
