This is pretty irrelevant to the conversation. I get that you saved it at the end with for people on a tight budget, but I don't think 40 dollars a year is going to "break the bank" perse... the point is, even for people that can afford it comfortably, WHY should we be paying for this? It's yet another monthly maintenance type bill that we really shouldn't be paying for.
I mean I do agree with that. It's just not on my list of things to really give a shit about as I want to play online, don't really enjoy the PC gaming experience--and it's moot as none of my friends game online on PC and I don't play with randoms--and it's not even an noticeable expense on my income.
I totally agree that online play should be free. I just put the "tight budget" disclaimer on there to be sensitive to the fact that people who are less fortunate than I can't shrug it off as easily. For me it's a minor expense AND it usually pays for itself with the extra discounts in PSN sales and getting a couple "free" games that were things had otherwise planned to buy most years so it's not something that bothers me enough to complain about. In that sense, it's kind of like my Costo membership. It's kind of asinine to pay for the privilege to shop somewhere, but I save so much on things I have to buy like Dog food, allergy medicine and other things that are so much cheaper there vs other stores that it more than pays for itself.
But that of course varies across people as people who don't buy games digitally (or very few) and/or rarely every like (or planned to otherwise buy) any of the "free" games aren't getting that value. And they could always cut online play out of PS Plus and make it just free games and extra digital sale discounts like it was on PS3. That was the best way to do it IMO, and they just got greedy as they knew they could charge for online play and get more subs and MS was doing it (and now Nintendo too) so console only gamers have no options for free online.
So again, I do agree online play should be free. It's just such a minor thing to me that it's not on my list of things to be annoyed by, much less up in arms over. It just is what it is and has been the norm for me since Xbox Live on the original Xbox. So I'm beyond used to it, despite thinking it's something that really should be free on all platforms.