This would make sense if it were less expensive to manufacture a Blu-Ray player with HDCP than without, or if there were a significant number of consumers who e

This would make sense if it were less expensive to manufacture a Blu-Ray player with HDCP than without, or if there were a significant number of consumers who explicitly prefer HDCP. Neither of these is true, so not using HDCP makes the device more valuable for the exact same cost (or maybe slightly less).