Would the outcome have been the same without people in the media repeatedly bringing this to everyone’s attention? Probably not, because there would have been no public pressure against it, while the shadow groups that want this would have still been lobbying the politicians.

Something bad is going to happen.
Some people advocate to stop that bad thing.
Even more people are holding their clutches that the bad thing might happen.
Because of public pressure, action is undertaken to prevent the bad thing from happening.
Thanks to those efforts, the bad thing is successfully averted.

Some random person: that bad thing was never going to happen, look at all those gullible people who were panicking over nothing, we could have just done nothing and the outcome would have been the same.

Also known as the “preparedness paradox”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preparedness_paradox

Putin is so popular in Russia, that even the dead vote for him.

A non exhaustive list of what makes them awful: https://expertbeacon.com/why-is-paypal-so-bad/

Afaik, the issue that was making the most victims, was that they were facilitating scammers that targeted sellers:
5. Good Luck Recouping Losses as a Seller in Disputes.
89% of sellers experienced dispute resolution problems with PayPal in 2021 surveys. Despite providing evidence the item shipped or service rendered, they lost cases and sums averaging $622.
This is driven by PayPal‘s buyer-favored review round taking 1-2 weeks. This favors scamming buyers at the expense of legitimate businesses.

Iirc, there was a time when Paypal always sided with the buyer, irregardless of evidence or past track record, the review process was useless. Once scammers picked up on this and began scamming sellers en masse, Paypal still kept their policy unchanged for years and sellers started to raise their prices on platforms that forced them to accept Paypal (ebay used to do this). Ebay has since tossed Paypal off their platform. I don’t know if Paypal ever improved.

When calling that number, the caller will need somekind of proof that they are in control of the car that they are trying to opt out of ads. Afaik, the easiest way to accomplish that when requiring a phonecall, would be pairing phone and car. But obviously Stellantis is not going for easy with this setup, so this is purely speculation on my part.

Apart from how insane it is to put obtrusive ads on a car dashboard, having to link your phone to your car and then call a phone number to opt out of touchscreen display ads is 🤯

There is going to be a reason that they’ve set it up like that.

It appears that in the future, Itch will allow creators to opt out of payment providers, meaning that it’s probably on a per game basis, not per platform. That Itch and Steam are not making a per game solution now, is most likely because their current software doesn’t allow it and they need time to rework it. Itch has promised various changes already, Steam has been mum afaik.

Source for Itch: “For NSFW pages, this will include a new step where creators must confirm that their content is allowable under the policies of the respective payment processors linked to their account.”. https://itch.io/updates/update-on-nsfw-content

I only use Steam myself, so I hadn’t checked Itch Io’s communication yet. I don’t know the platform myself so it’s quite possible that I’m misinterpreting this, but to me it appears that Itch Io will allow creators to delist payment options that they are not compliant with: “For NSFW pages, this will include a new step where creators must confirm that their content is allowable under the policies of the respective payment processors linked to their account.”.

Source: https://itch.io/updates/update-on-nsfw-content

Do you have a source of where they are saying that?

I have seen an article about the Australian political action group that was claiming credit for getting the games banned. The story behind the start of the controversy.

And I have seen an article about the communication from Steam that they were banning games which were in conflict with the rules of their payment providers. The result basically.

But I’ve only seen conjecture and speculation about what went on to get from the start to the result. I haven’t seen any article that spelled out exactly what the different payment providers demanded from the gaming platforms, nor anything about what they discussed in between them.

Edit: after 12 hours there’s 4 downvoters and 0 sources. Another victory for vibes over facts.

I don’t get why the gaming platforms are removing games instead of removing the objecting payment providers as a payment option for purchasing those particular games.

If visa doesn’t want people to purchase game X with Visa, then remove Visa as payment option for buying game X.

Canceling to downgrade your 365 subscription is the “normal” Microsoft way, so that part is not a new scummy practice that was invented for this scummy occasion. I do hope this forced upsell comes back to bite Microsoft in the ass, most consumers won’t be aware of the downgrade option, but consumer agencies shouldn’t let this slide, it’s setting a very bad precedent.

The ms instructions:

1. Go to Services & subscriptions and if prompted, sign in with the Microsoft account associated with your subscription.
2. Find your current subscription and select Manage > Cancel subscription.
3. The Cancel page will show you the features of your current subscription plan. If you’re switching to another plan with less features, select the plan that works for you.
4. Follow the instructions to complete the switch. Your existing subscription might not change immediately, but it will automatically change to the new plan when the plan renews. You won’t be charged for the new plan until it renews into that plan.
   https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/switch-between-microsoft-365-subscriptions-3fcc1efc-2722-427f-8efa-db94b9b0a36b