We're better off if we can draw some clear lines that make it obvious when the tradeoffs get extreme. If you're saying "here's a closed-loop unhackable console

We're better off if we can draw some clear lines that make it obvious when the tradeoffs get extreme. If you're saying "here's a closed-loop unhackable console", or "here's a closed-loop media player" that's fundamentally a different value proposition than "here's a closed-loop unhackable general purpose computing device." It's sort of a toys versus tools dichotomy-- I'm fundamentally less bothered if someone sells me a permanently sealed and potted Game Boy, than intentionally crippling conventional desktop hardware. Creeping DRM feels like they're trying to push the "tools" back into the "toy" category. Part of this is likely a "we want our cake and to eat it too" mindset. They want to use more or less off-the-shelf technologies to make their sealed boxes. Why do you think most of the consoles eventually ended up as x86-64 or PPC derivatives-- they can freeload on all the work being done elsewhere. So they have to move from old-school hardware obscurity-- weird media formats which can't be readily wired to a normal PC, undocumented custom hardware-- to software lockdown. But another part of it is the growing available functionality. The toys are becoming tools-- they want to put a browser and a media player and an online storefront onto their console, and then you're pretty damn close to "general purpose computing device" territory. So they need to find a way to justify the lockdown value proposition even on a device that has obvious user-tappable potential.