There is also the opinion that having a Wild West of incompatible proprietary garbage would result in DRM being less popular because it caused too much friction for users. Of course some stuff would still have it, but less would than the current state where it’s easy and invisible to users until you hit an unsupported system.
> …would result in DRM being less popular because it caused too much friction for users.
I agree. But that wouldn’t lead to more content freely available. It would lead to more content being locked in apps and unavailable in the browser.
Do you think they would’ve made an app for Linux? I don’t.
The dream that all content be available DRM free isn’t happening any time soon. Rights holders clearly don’t want it and I don’t think anyone could marshal a big enough boycott to change that.
So the choice is DRM or no content at all. Given that EME is a good outcome.
I don’t think Spotify web would have DRM if it required manually installing crap like silverlight. Music went drm free because it was inconvenient, and then when the drm was refined a bit, it’s all locked up so the web ui doesn’t work on Asahi.
By the beginning of 2007, every music service that wasn’t iTunes had failed to gain traction. The record labels wanted Apple to license FairPlay. Apple refused and Steve Jobs posted “Thoughts on Music” to the front page of Apple.com where he gave the music labels an alternative - license their music to everyone DRM free.
> The third alternative is to abolish DRMs entirely. Imagine a world where every online store sells DRM-free music encoded in open licensable formats. In such a world, any player can play music purchased from any store, and any store can sell music which is playable on all players. This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat
The record labels wanted Apple to give them a cut of each iPod sold, allow variable pricing and allow more music to be bundled instead of sold as singles. Apple refused. Some other places like Amazon and MS acquiesced.
Apple then released the iPhone. But didn’t have the rights to sell music over cellular. Both sides came back to the bargaining table and by 2009, iTunes music was DRM free.
Because users are so famously reluctant to download apps? Apple would like a word with you ;)
It's mostly devs who obsess over the downloading and running of programs as if it's a great torment. Users don't care much. They're happy to go grab things from app stores or even just download and run them. Notch was able to buy a massive mansion in Beverly Hills on the back of people downloading and running his Java desktop app.
But it makes music the one digital good I don't torrent on the reg cuz it's easier to just search it up on Amazon than on some torrent site. (The one weird exception is discographies, since they don't sell those for some reason. For them, archivists' torrents got you covered.)
