>I'm astounded at HN's ability to spin anything as a negative.
Usually I'm right there with you, but Google doesn't exactly have a good public perception around products and services without good profit margins. If they're not making money from it, it could be shut down at any moment (even for paid physical hardware, like the Nexus Q). "Too cheap" is a real fear.
You buy in at $170.
You subscribe for the 4k offering @ $10 / month.
They shutter the service after 1 year after you've paid $120 in monthly fees.
In total, you're out $290. You got a "free" Chromecast Ultra ($60), so you're only out $210.
That's honestly not that bad. Sure, you could have just bought a new XBox One S, but the value of those degrade over time, as well and, as much as MS wants you to believe it, the One S is not a 4K system. It's hard to measure the value of the entertainment you got using it. In my case, I definitely would have achieved $210 in entertainment value out of the system over the course of a year.
Maybe they'll revisit the pricing in a year instead of just cancelling it...
So you've paid $290 (plus the cost of the games) for one year of service, and that's not that bad? I don't know about you, but I have an Xbox One and it's lasted me more than one year for the $300 I paid for it, 4k or not.
I'm not even entirely sure what you're arguing... that it's okay to pay $300/yr for a video game system plus the cost of video games? That if you paid $300 for an Xbox and Microsoft discontinued the system after a year you'd be okay with the price?
Assuming the worst like you have, you paid $300 for a video game system that didn't include any video games and after a year you weren't allowed to play it anymore. That's pretty fucking awful. Even if Microsoft stops making the Xbox One, you still get to keep playing the games you bought.
Usually I'm right there with you, but Google doesn't exactly have a good public perception around products and services without good profit margins. If they're not making money from it, it could be shut down at any moment (even for paid physical hardware, like the Nexus Q). "Too cheap" is a real fear.