I’m just baffled by someone insisting absurd definition to defend unnecessary enshittification while using all the technical terms and how they function incorrect.
Also, context of this particular thread started with initial comment that PC multiplayer is free, but Xbox online multiplayer (Not any other feature) - which is, identical in its technological basis and requirement - need payment. Then you simply asserted that such functionality was never free on consoles. I don’t remember original Xbox requiring me any payment to access XIII’s multiplayer mode, but memory is memory, so with no Xbox to test with, I will just accept that point was incorrect on my part.
Then you went off-track stating that method of connection to server or time of implementing technology makes it so that those doesn’t count as multiplayer on console. Followed by arguments that is not even possible to do.
If there is anything that I misunderstood from the context is that I just presumed that you were being careful with your claim. Upon reading again, I was indeed very wrong on that. PS3’s PSN and Nintendo exists. Consoles always had infrastructure to pull from, the very same infrastructure to PC multiplayer. Companies simply decided to charge more because they could.