Sony, you won't get my money this time

You've probably heard about Playstation Plus. For 50€/50$ a year, you get very big demos (or "full game trials", but they are still demos, right?) and lots of games:

As a member you can expect to get your hands on at least four games a month at no extra charge. Each month there will be a selection of one PSN game, two minis and one PS one classics available on PlayStation Store for you to download. You also get premium avatars and dynamic themes each month, many of which are exclusive to members.

Whaaat??? I'm sold! No, but wait, because there's a catch... You only have access to all those games as long as you subscribe. The day you stop paying the service, you lose them all (except for special offers like the downloadable version of Little Big Planet)

So your they are not really "free" games, and you are paying to keep them for a limited time. They don't use that word, but you will be renting those games. (So, if during your Playstation Plus subscription there's a special offer to buy them cheap, can you still buy them or you are stuck with this rental?) That is one of the things I hate about this current generation of digital downloads: you don't want to think about it too much, but you know that sooner or later the service will be discontinued and you won't be able to download the stuff you paid good money for anymore. So my beautiful list of games from Steam will be gone, just like that... But at least you accept that as something that will happen in the distant future. In this case, "your" games are like hostages being held by Sony, and if you ever get tired of this service, Sony will say to you "if you ever want to see your loved games alive, you have to pay the ransom!". Are you prepared to give up all the games you've collected during your time as a Playstation Plus subscriber?

I was prepared to be a day-one customer because I thought I would keep all those games. But now I'm not going to join in, even if they promise me a downloadable version of Uncharted 2 with a personalized welcome message from Nolan North... unless they change their mind so I get to keep the games. Maybe if we all rejected this system, Sony would get the message. Otherwise, they will understand that most customers see this rental as an acceptable service, and others will copy it in the same way many publishers are already copying EA's nasty Project $10, including (naturally!) giants like the evil Ubisoft, THQ, and even Sony itself!

Playstation Plus is not that great. The only "big thing" about it would be cross-game chat, and that's not even a launch-day feature (I'm sure they will offer it in the future, though). So my advice is, buy the games you want from the Playstation Store, and forget about paying to have a taste of games you'll still have to buy. Otherwise, you'll be helping to move the games industry in the wrong direction.