It would be nice if people just said what they were thinking.
We wanted to juice our PSN subscriber numbers, so we're forcing everybody to make a PSN account, so hopefully they spend more money with us in the future
I want to say it was a clause of the FCC's Fairness Doctrine, wherein newscasters were legally required to present information on events and political matters as unbiased as possible on publicly-issued airwaves. It lost a lot of its steam when cable became commonplace, as cable networks were technically closed-circuit systems, and then it went out the door with the internet. On top of which, stations like Fox News claiming to be entertainment and not news stations helped their cause. The original idea was that if the FCC was to grant you a broadcast license, you were obliged to operate in the interest of the public, and the doctrine expressly forbade operating for personal gain.
I mean it's mostly just something to say, I haven't put a lot of thought into it. But there are things that are objectively true, and objectively false. If a company states something that is objectively false, then they should be held accountable. This PSN issue is an area where it becomes subjective, or at least difficult to prove, and then we're right back where we started.