Companies should be regulated to offer No as an option, and to make that option for all intents are purposes equally represented. No other way will work. Abuse makes a lot of money.
- Does every program need to support offline account? (what about MMO games?)
- Does every program need to support online account? (tongue in cheek, for people who prefer online services)
- What if I don't want to install a particular Windows update because I dislike something about it? Right now I can stay forever on an obsolete version (I assume), but that's not "equally represented" - my computer is broken now.
I think it's very hard (or borderline impossible) to do what you ask for. Even in Open Source, where choice is almost a religion, not all options are equally easy for users.
I don't think it's hard. If the software uses an online account, it should clearly say so before buying. Not just Windows, games often do this too, for example I just bought Bloons TD 6, and discovered that it didn't sync my progress over Steam cloud. Turns out I have to register, in order to be able to sync progress. Would have been nice to know beforehand.
Regarding the options I'm sure you have seen many cookie prompts. Often the Accept all is inviting, and the Reject all is smaller text, or outright hidden or unavailable. But there are cookie prompts that just have uniform buttons for Accept all, Reject all. Simple.
Now, I realize that no matter how I phrase this, it can (and would) be abused. I'm not clever enough to avoid that. But as I look at history, humans don't play nice just because. Many of the nice things that we have now all stand on regulation, which previous, bad behavior prompted. For a little example, the common charger for phones. If phone companies can be regulated into one charger standard, I'm sure we could also make software options look and behave equal.
Just FYI but on the store page Steam lists features a game has. If it does not list Steam Cloud, then it does not use Steam Cloud for save games. Bloons TD 6 does not list Steam Cloud.
> Does every program need to support offline account? (what about MMO games?)
MMOs are all about connecting to other other people, hard to do that offline. Reductio ad absurdum is not a valid argument for social issues.
I do however think that all multiplayer games should publicise their server components, at least when the operator shuts them down.
> What if I don't want to install a particular Windows update because I dislike something about it? Right now I can stay forever on an obsolete version (I assume), but that's not "equally represented" - my computer is broken now.
Security updates and bug fixes should not mean forced functionality changes, yes.
