if live isn't worth it for everything it has now? why would it be worth it for everything minus the multiplayer lol

That is mostly incorrect. While the value of Xbox Live Gold would be diminished and there would certainly be plenty of people not buying Gold, there would still be one key feature that a surprising (not to me surprising, but to others) amount of people will pay to use; and that is party chat. It's one of those things that I could simply not do without. I would pay the same amount as I'm paying now just to use that feature and I know plenty of other people that would too.

Actually the original XBL had a 16 player "Voice Chat" section but that was all you could do. Unless they drastically changed it since last time I used it, you couldn't play games or do anything else on the console while in Voice Chat. And generally, more than 5-6 other people made it pretty laggy. Not the same thing as Party Chat. But anyway, I didn't literally mean Party Chat has always been an XBL feature as in its been there every day the service has been up, I meant more in the sense that since it's been around, it's always been treated like a key XBLG feature.

Ugh..

Is online play a feature of the PS3? Yes it is. Does it matter that other systems have it? No it does not.
Party Chat is an XBL feature. So is Xbox Music. So is Xbox Video. Game Room? Hey that's an XBL feature. You ever heard of Internet Explorer? Guess what? XBL feature.

Per usual, you're looking at this in a way to make it as trivial for MS as possible. "Oh, what? An XBL feature? Yeah right, you can do it on the PS Vita too!".

Well for starters, what the **** is a Vita? And secondly, why does that matter? The thread author is asking if MP was completely free, if people would still pay for other features. I would bet I could search for threads about XBLG that you have posted in and find posts where you talk about how important the Party Chat feature is to people.

It's ok. No one here is saying MS is the only ones who can provide a feature like Party Chat. We are simply saying it is a feature of XBL. It's also a feature of this Vita thing you're talking about.

Sure a lot of them do. Game chat is not the same as party chat though and the point still stands that a greater amount than you say would be willing to pay for that feature alone. Certainly more than around 5% 

I probably wouldn't have paid originally as I wouldn't really have understood about the benefits of party chat. If asked the question now, the answer is yes, if the question was asked without having had the experience I have now then the answer would likely be no. I also have Netflix and Sky subscriptions so that may still have tipped me, although I can use my PS3 instead.

Gold is nice, having party chat, netflix, and the weekly xbla sales... but without MP i doubt i'd be willing to dump the money every year for such basic features. I would probably just end up using my PS3 or PC for netflix.