I am late commenting here, but it does feel like the OP was disengenuous to their approach and reponses to other posters.
IMHO, it isn´t about anti-GKC people being ¨hysterical¨, they just aren´t interested in buying a GKC, and why should they be?
GKC isn´t equivalent to buying a real physical cartridge (or disc, I suppose), so at that point you might as well just buy a digital download.
GKC isn´t doing anything better than cartridge or download, so it´s just superfluous waste with misleading ¨appearance¨ of physical equivalency.
At best I can see it´s attraction as something physical to buy somebody as a gift, but a real cartridge would generally have been as good or better then.
And of course GKC could potentially be convenient for console bundles. But that isn´t really fulfilling any specific consumer need or demand.
The arguments about physical cartridges wearing out is silly. Yes, that is the case for practically every physical product you can buy.
From a physical book, to clothing, to a house. They all wear out one day, bu this doesn´t detract from the concept of a final physical sale.
GKC remain subject to the owner´s whims, including if said company goes bankrupt, and ultimately amounts to a ¨licence¨
in a way that physical cartridges do not (even if these also are unfortunately somewhat enmeshed in ¨licence¨ concept to an extent)
I don´t even know to interpret the claim that a GKC can still be ¨redeemed¨ after the ¨network has shutdown¨. How, by magic?
I am glad to see the OP has seemingly opened up to fully engaging with other perspectives.
Obviously nobody was demanding the OP personally only buy real cartridge games.
It is sad when people´s concept of communication entails blind rejection of differing perspectives and nuances.
