When it comes to software you never really own it like you do a car or refrigerator. You only own a license to use the software. It has always been that way and software publishers are merely leveraging modern technology to enforce that idea now.
They have always fought against the idea of trading games or letting friends borrow them but the technology and infrastructure just wasn't there in the 1980s and 90s. I'm sure if they could have foreseen the internet and ROMs they would have built in self destruct mechanisms into every cartridge ever made. From their point of view, your rant is equivalent to: I miss the days before everybody locked their doors, when I could just go into anybody's house and take whatever I want. We could argue about whether that view is correct or not, but it is why DRM exists in modern games.
