There's been quite a bit of whining on the forums lately concerning the new features in the Xbox 360 update: Games on Demand and the Avatar Marketplace. Personally, I doubt I'll use either one of these, for the simple reason that I do not value them enough to pay the prices currently charged for them. That's all anyone should need to say to justify their purchasing decisions, but for some reason, that's not good enough. I'm going to address some of the common complaints here: 
 
"Microsoft only cares about money!" 
 
This falls into the category of self-evident statements like "There cannot be a round square." Yes, Microsoft cares about money. And? Is this in contrast to other corporations that don't care about money? There's a word for those sort of companies: Bankrupt (or mythical). Also, I'm sure all the gamers making this statement as if it's some sort of revelation don't care about money themselves...which explains why they spent hundreds of dollars on a piece of electronic entertainment.

"Buying virtual clothes is a ripoff!" 
 
As opposed to the hundreds of hours of your life that you put into, say, an RPG, amassing virtual artifacts and gold: That's not a ripoff? I hate to break it to you, but gaming in general is not terribly productive. Hell, it's not productive at all. It's not supposed to be. Gaming's a hobby; it's just supposed to be fun. If somebody likes to play dress-up with their little Xbox guy and drive around an RC Warthog, and can do it for a few dollars, well, good for them. 
 
"Games on Demand are more expensive than buying them at GameStop!" 
 
This is true, but isn't the free market a grand thing? Some people might find it a positive tradeoff to pay more for a game and download it, instead of taking their time and gas money to go to a game store. If this isn't you, then don't use Games on Demand. This is not tricky. 
 
"Getting a licensed product for your Avatar is like paying a company so you can advertise for them!" 
 
Yeah...and buying an Adidas T-shirt in real life isn't? 
 
"This is the last straw! I'm done with Xbox!" 
 
Okay, how is the quality of the Xbox 360 gaming experience any different now than it was a week before this update? Usually the people saying this are the same ones who said Games on Demand and the Avatar Marketplace are overpriced anyway. To these people I say: The 360 is now unacceptable, because there's a service offered on it that you don't want and doesn't affect your gaming in the slightest? Whatever. 
 
All right, I think I'm hitting "tl;dr" at this point, so I'll wrap this up. In conclusion, you are not being ripped off when a company is offering to sell you something that you didn't know about yesterday, don't want today, and won't need ever.