Steam
Steam, in case you don't know, is an on-line game content delivery system created by Valve Software. The idea is to deliver patches and updates to gaming software through this client. It also validates user licenses thus greatly reducing piracy. All great ideas. But,(you knew there had to be a but) the implementation of this system was one of the worse ever conceived in the history of computer software.
First, there were not enough content servers to handle the load. Second, the installers had to be downloaded. Some installers were nearly 400 MB. Way too large to be done effectively on dial-up Internet access. Now I didn't have that issue since I have cable but what Valve seemed to forget is that many (if not most) of their customer base still access the Internet via dial-up. Third, if you have no access to the Internet or are unable to access the content servers, you can't play. You can't play a game that you paid for off-line. A game that you bought under the understanding that it had an on-line and an off-line component. I know that most End User License Agreements reserve the right to change but this is a little extreme.
Valve makes my top ten list for "How to Piss Off the Most People in the Littlest Amount of Time"
