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From a purely consumerist standpoint, by far the biggest problem with DRM used to be how it was falsely advertised as selling copies, when it was in fact just t
by usrusr 10y ago
From a purely consumerist standpoint, by far the biggest problem with DRM used to be how it was falsely advertised as selling copies, when it was in fact just temporary access that could end any day, even tomorrow (company/server shutdown, hardware token malfunction/loss, general incompatibility with new stuff). Now that "buying" has mostly been replaced by streaming subscriptions, this problem has disappeared: it is perfectly obvious to even the most naive user that access to the content will be gone if they cancel Netflix (or if Netflix disappears) and as a bonus, it has become just as obvious that the streaming provider knows what you stream, open, "natural" surveillance instead of hidden, deliberate. Now it is more like the cashier knows what you buy at the supermarket (how else could they do their job?), whereas before it was a bit like the loyalty card backend knows (ignoring the massive difference in centralisation between cashier and loyalty card).
- acdha 10y agoI think you've perfectly summed up the problem the average anti-DRM advocate has: it's pretty easy to get people riled up when they paid a noticeable amount of money to “buy” something which goes away. In contrast, the Netflix/Spotify model where you pay a modest amount of money for all-you-can-eat accesss is hard to get much traction with since nobody thought they owned a particular work and the total price is so much lower that few people care. I can't decide whether this is bad or a sign of progress towards training people that DRMed content is not worth much.