It's also a great way to kill sales ;)

Except for the fact that the last time I bought something from EA digital download wise I was only given 3 instals.

Weird, last time i bought stuff I was only given 6 months TO install, or pay $3 for another 2 years. Of course though, I never had a problem because apparently you can just move the damn installation folder and it is self contained.

I wouldm't have thought you would like this service considering this part of their terms of service

4. Use and Expiration of Content and Entitlements/General License Restrictions  

EA grants you a personal, limited, non-exclusive license to use Content and Entitlements to which you have access for your personal, private, non-commercial, non-transferable, limited uses solely as set forth herein and as set forth in any additional documentation and/or agreements applicable to the EA Services accessed by you.  Content and Entitlements and all other intellectual property rights in or on EA Services as well as the products and services offered through EA Services, are owned by EA or EA's third party licensors and is protected by United States and International copyright, trade dress, patent, and trademark laws, international conventions, and other laws protecting intellectual property and related proprietary rights. You may not copy or download any Content and/or Entitlements from an EA Service unless you are expressly authorized to do so.  In addition, unless expressly authorized by EA, you may not distribute, publicly perform or display, lease, sell, transmit, transfer, publish, edit, copy, create derivative works from, rent, sub-license, distribute, decompile, disassemble, reverse engineer or otherwise make unauthorized use of Content or Entitlements.  Any commercial use is prohibited.  You agree not to remove, obscure, or alter copyright, patent, trademark, or other proprietary rights notices affixed to Content.  Your rights are subject to your compliance with these Terms of Service as well as any other agreements applicable to the EA Services you are using.  

EA reserves all right, title and interest in Content, Entitlements and all associated copyrights, trademarks, and other intellectual property rights therein that are not expressly granted to you in these Terms of Service.  Your permitted use of Content and Entitlements described above is limited by the intellectual property rights of EA and does not include any rights to other patents or intellectual property.  Making unauthorized copies or distribution of Content and/or Entitlements found on EA Services may result in the termination of your Account(s), prohibition on use of EA Services, and further legal action.  Content and/or Entitlement owners may take criminal or civil action against you for unauthorized use of intellectual property. You agree to indemnify and hold harmless EA from any unauthorized or illegal conduct by you, or through the use of your Account, on EA Services.

5. Content and Entitlement Availability

Entitlements may only be held in Accounts belonging to legal residents of countries where access to and use of Content and Entitlements is permitted.  Entitlements may be purchased or acquired only from EA or an authorized retailer.  EA reserves the right to refuse your request(s) to acquire Entitlements, and EA reserves the right to limit or block any request to acquire Entitlements for any reason.  

We do not guarantee that any Content or Entitlement will be available at all times or at any given time or that we will continue to offer particular Content or Entitlements for any particular length of time. We reserve the right to change and update Content and Entitlements without notice to you.  If you have not used your Entitlements or Account for twenty four (24) months or more and your Account has associated Entitlements, your Entitlements will expire and your Account may be cancelled for non-use.  Once you have redeemed your Entitlements, that content is not returnable, exchangeable, or refundable for other Entitlements or for cash, or other goods or services.  

http://tos.ea.com/legalapp/WEBTERMS/US/en/PC/#section4

Would seem to suffer from some of the same problems you have with steam...

Also aparently they will be using a games for windows live style overlay in future games which will require you to log in to access online features, I can only hope it works better than the GFWL overlay.

The service also uses the old EA download manager and is basically a rebranding of the old EA store

Or maybe it was that.  After I read that bullshit I was pissed.

Who said that I like this service?

I like that there is competition, it makes me hope that one day we will see a good DD-service.

Competition is one thing, fragmentation is another.

So you are sayin you want more publishers to remove their content from 3rd party DD platforms and set up there own service so you don't have price competition as content is only available on one service and you need to have a seperate profile and freinds list for each publisher? 

That sounds like a nighmare to me.

There is already a tone of competition in the PC DD space, Apple are soon to launch their own app store for example which will sell games, MS is ramping up games for windows and are planing to intergrate it into Win 8 and then ther are Direct 2 Drive, Impulse, Desura, GoG, Little indie, Amazon, DL Gamer, GamesPlanet, GameTap, GetGames, GamersGate, Game Downloads, BeamDog, YuPlay, BigGameDownloads, GameAgent, Strategy First, GameArena, GameStreamer, GameTree and probably more I don't know about. We really don't need publisher sepecific DD serivces especially if they are going to start making games and content exclusive to their own services. And EA, Activision (actually 2 as Blizzard have their own), Ubisoft already do have online DD services.

Valve and Blizzard already do it. The only difference is that they are some of the bigger players in the PC gaming market.

Last time I used that argument, I got a counter-argument that said EA has got rid of those limits.

And I would rather they didn't, especially Blizzard as they don't lower their prices for years, at least valve regularly puts their games on sale and lower prices quickly. 

And that changes.... what exactly?