4 ms·
> I'd much rather go through the turnstile, as awkward as it can be if you've got a suitcase, etc, than be forced to watch advertisements during my subway ride.
by chimeracoder 12y ago
> I'd much rather go through the turnstile, as awkward as it can be if you've got a suitcase, etc, than be forced to watch advertisements during my subway ride...
That's quite a false dichotomy, since the service clearly can exist independently of DRM (both technically and economically).
Furthermore, this dichotomy doesn't work either in your analogy (there are ads on the subway, and yet I still have to pay) or in the real case we're talking about (Hulu+ is paid service locked down by DRM, and it still shows advertisements).
- rayiner 12y agoI don't think Netflix, Amazon Video, etc, which don't show advertisements, could exist economically without DRM.
- shmerl 12y agoAmazon sells music perfectly without any DRM. It doesn't just exist - it brings them tons of profit. GOG sells games without DRM - and having growing profits. And etc. and etc. Your point disproved.
- rayiner 12y agoYou're assuming that market mechanics for music and movies is the same.
- shmerl 12y agoI assume that DRM has no effect on piracy (it doesn't) and it always degrades usability (it does). Which means scraping it off always has no financial impact except for improving usability of the service and reducing costs of using DRM itself. Better usability + more user friendliness = more satisfied users + more new users = more profit.
- rayiner 12y agoI don't think it's a reasonable assumption to make that DRM has no effect on piracy. It won't stop sophisticated pirates, but I do think it stops people from releasing an easy-to-use app that lets your grandma store Netflix movies locally.
- shmerl 12y ago> I don't think it's a reasonable assumption to make that DRM has no effect on piracy. It's not just reasonable, it's easily demonstrated in practice, when goods released with DRM are pirated almost right away (with DRM being scraped off). Sophisticated pirates are needed to break DRM. Unsophisticated ones get it from them without any hassle. Which means that DRM has no effect altogether except on legitimate users! I.e. the vast majority of pirates never deal with any DRM, and experience of legitimate users is always degraded by it. It's pure common sense that removing DRM would always improve any service. And the fact that it's not happening is caused by other reasons (see above).
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- mikeash 12y agoWhy bother with letting grandma store Netflix movies locally in a hypothetical DRM-free world when you can just use BitTorrent to download them now? There's no reason a BitTorrent movie downloader couldn't be made just as easy to use as a Netflix downloader. If one doesn't already exist, it's not because DRM is somehow stopping it.
- sp332 12y agoGrandma doesn't need to store Netflix movies locally. She can head to the Pirate Bay (with adblock lol) and download the video that a "sophisticated pirate" kindly ripped earlier. She never has to deal with the DRM at all.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- 12y ago
- tzs 12y agoI believe he's talking about (1) movies, not music, and (2) streaming rental, not download sales.
- shmerl 12y agoDRM for movies is not needed the same way it's not needed for music. About renting vs. sales see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7745797 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7745797