I'm not saying they shouldn't monetize their service at all, if the market is there and they don't get punished by their userbase for doing so, then of course they should do it. 

What you said was that if I don't allow a company to monetize their service, they will eventually discontinue it or remove functionality. I cited the two other biggest online gaming services and how they are doing fine from either light monetization (PSN) or practically no monetization at all (Steam), as exceptions to this rule. That's all.

Yeah, and I'm saying we DON'T know how well they are doing. We don't have detailed enough financial information on those two services. We can't just look at the company as a whole (especially for Sony) to judge how costly and profitable their online services are. AND, each company may run those services differently. Some may be more efficient, some may have lower quality and funcitonality (and security).

So, any argument based on the details of the service is pointless. My argument is a general one. Companies should monetize their service in a way that results in the max profit. If they over do and they lose customers, then they lose profits. But to simply say a company shouldn't monetize their service is pure BS. A business is ABOUT monetizing services. If you cannot do that, then you are essentially going to go bankrupt.

One last note. You do have to take into account that these services may be loss leaders. So I'm not necessarily saying that MS has to monetize Xbox Live. It may be making a loss, but as a result of their strong online service they may be selling more consoles and getting more developers for the platform.

Like I said though, we need more data to evaluate MS's decision.

One last time now.

"But to simply say a company shouldn't monetize their service is pure BS."

 That is not what I said.

You have a nice argument and all, but it's not what we were talking about.

I am going to do the same thing I did this gen wait a few years see who offers the best deal and purchase that console. Not liking the way MS is going though a ton of kinect support which I dont have and dont want, focus on Downloadable games which while some can be fun dont offer the same epic experience most retail games do. I would have cancelled my live subscription over a year ago but I am now addicted to Gears 3 multiplayer.

it's pretty funny my country still have about zero non-game ads and only get youtube/dailymotion
hope MS give me these apps in topic later so maybe i can complain it

More PSN users than PS3s confirmed. oO

PSN accounts: PSP, PS Vita, PS3, Playstation Forums (!!!).

I know anectdotal evidence, but every PS3 user I know in real life has at least 2 accounts. 1 for Europe and 1 for US. Some for Japanese content etc.

I don't think people understand the announcement. They assume ads will be popping up everywhere.
Do you use the hulu app? Hulu provides their own ads, it is built into their app. If I use Hulu on the PC or the Xbox, I get the same ads.

But this is saying MS gives the functionality to provide the ads. What does this mean? Let's say you're too cheap to subscribe to netflix. They could launch a Free NetFlix Lite - and allow basically a copy of the netflix app to run, except with commercials added automatically. If a site like Hulu wants targetted advertising, they can only gauge what you might like based on what you watch on Hulu. As a platform, MS is better set up to know about the user - based on games, shows, time spent, % of money spent on certain types of entertainment, etc. MS Handles the advertising, and coordinated with the content provider, who focuses on content. It would allow smaller providers more targeted advertising, and encourages more free services. It also allows smaller companies who may have trouble securing advertisers to provide content.
In short, until MS starts to abuse it, there's no cause for concern. More TV ads are why we have a bunch of channels today. Ads pay for more entertainment. No ads, no shows.

Its across PS3, PSP and PSV. As I said, we don't know how many dupes, if somebody insisted it was 30 million with some sort of evidence I might believe that, maybe. 20 seems more believable, but I really don't know.

No problem. I use hulu and there are ads on that. Shit for the popular shows on the frontpage it's like regular tv. What's worse is that anytime you skip to a scene, you have to watch a commercial. So, you start the show, commercial. Skip the opening credits, commercial. Skip one minute forward, commercial. Basically, don't skip anything or you'll get an extra commercial lol.

Your argument is flawed. Those 3 are free services. They make money off of ads to continue the service.

Live is a paid service and they also make money off of video and game sales. Adverts is wrong on a paid service if you like it or not.

MS are just being greedy and you as a gamer shouldn't stick up for thid type of action.