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Standardization makes it easy and reliable. If those that insist on DRM need to navigate unreliable, mediocre technology, it requires more development effort and delivers a sub-par user experience, thus leaving the door open for DRM-free competitors.

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No, because Google, Microsoft, and Apple could have coordinated on implementing EME even without an official W3C stamp of approval. Or they could have implemented 3 separate APIs for DRM. Netflix and others would be mildly inconvenienced, but that's something they could deal with. As long as content producers insist on DRM, which they do for video, the sub par user experience is going to be with the platforms that don't support Netflix.

Reminder that HTML5 started without an official W3C stamp of approval. (Hell, it started with the W3C membership voting against any further work on HTML, thus the formation of the WHATWG.)

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