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Back in the real world, the web is not inevitable. The alternative to HTML5 DRM is for vendors to turn away from the web and HTML5 altogether. The web is still

Back in the real world, the web is not inevitable. The alternative to HTML5 DRM is for vendors to turn away from the web and HTML5 altogether. The web is still open by default, versus other platforms being closed by default. The best architecture is to support fine-grained plugins with well-defined semantics than just some big black box <object> element that could be running anything.

comex 14y ago
Indeed. Vendors won't be forced to make a HTML5 version - on the desktop the formula that's allowed them to provide browser plugins hasn't changed, and on mobile they're already making an iOS app and an Android app because today, apps provide a better experience than websites anyway. Sure, your niche mobile platform will be left without any way to experience the content, whereas if not for DRM they could provide an HTML5 player as a least common denominator, but it probably doesn't have enough users for them to terribly mind. That's not to say that HTML5 EME addresses this, just that nobody is going to be forced to use HTML5 in any case. (It's possible that a proprietary but common CDM standard could be created to allow the least common denominator on mobile, since the regular route of browser plugins won't work there, but that would be its own can of worms.)