That, and it was slightly more justifiable when these companies were first setting up and operating networks for the services and matchmaking. Economies of scale should have nullified that by now, though.

The other big one I don't see people mentioning, but that I remember clearly, was that if you wanted to use Netflix on 360, you had to pay for Live. I think that, above anything else in my friend group, was the move that normalized paying for online services on a console.