Why do we have to pay for gold ?

Every console that sold with free online never made money

Ps3 and Wii at the end when the novelty wore off etc

They were loss leaders in the billions per year because consoles were sold at a loss not profit game sales made up for losses.but never happened on those systems

When Sony switched to paid they made profit same with switch

Pcs are made.in bulk and sold individually at profit

Games with Gold is just a bonus for having a gold sub. There was a time when you didn't get offered anything.

If you don't like paying for gold then don't but that will limit what you can do on xbox live.

Hi and thanks for reaching out. I hope you’re doing well. I'm an Independent Advisor and a Microsoft user like you and I'll be happy to help you.

Xbox Live Gold is a subscription service that provides access to online multiplayer, free games, and discounts. Some people think it should be free but it's not because it costs money for Microsoft to maintain and improve the servers and other necessary features. The subscription fee also helps to support new games and features. Whether it's worth it or not depends on personal preference, but many players find the benefits valuable.

Just a friendly reminder though, this is a public user-to-user support forum. We're users just like you helping other users. We do not work for Microsoft and have no access to any user account so there is nothing we can do or check from within the forum. We have no input on Microsoft's policies, procedures, or design decisions. Microsoft Support personnel do not staff this forum.

Hi there Rudster1001, I'll be quoting another user here (Temhotabot) because this question is asked time and time again, but here goes.

[quote user="Temhotabot"]

Because people can't be bothered to use the SEARCH feature to see if any other threads like this exist. It isn't free for many reasons. One being that that is how MS chooses to run their business. Two being that we pay for a monitored
and enforced service. If you have an issue with another gamer you can report them and so long as what they are doing violates the Code of Conduct/Terms of Service they will be punished, the other services (you know the FREE ones) do not offer that. If you
want FREE online then you are free to choose one of the other services. Since gaming is a choice you aren't limited to using just one system/service.

[/quote]

Please bear in mind the date of this thread and try not to bump older threads in the future. Thank you.