They will setup DRM, or render the full site in canvas, or with wasm, or something, or requires a TPM trusted signatured in an approved web browser or some shit.
The new generation will accept a limited client, because they know mostly locked down phones. So only a few will not accept it, and they will not have to care about it a single bit.
They'll win over the masses, which is what they really care about. But they won't ever defeat the die-hards.
Not really.
https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/digital-cont...
https://9to5mac.com/2023/09/25/streaming-video-piracy/#:~:te...
https://torrentfreak.com/online-piracy-continues-to-rise-wit...
https://torrentfreak.com/sharp-rise-in-piracy-rates-across-s...
Netflix may have dampened torrents at some point, but boy are those making a comeback with the splintered enshittifcation prone streaming world we live in.
And TPM checks are really hard to bypass.
All that to watch a few videos without a 20 second ads?
Not sure it's event worth it.
Long before I had an adblocker, I developed "banner blindness", the real benefit my adblocker gives me is less info leaking out to the platforms. (and since ublock/umatrix is so great, also more security and better loading times, but these are cherries)
If that counts as a "practical purpose" is up to you.
Previously Google was not a monopoly in so many areas. Now the Internet goes through Google. It caters to investors, not to users. It controls search engine, and a browser, and phones. It can decide what is happening on client side, and on search server side.
The wild west of the Internet has ended. We have the corporate Internet now, that is surveilled and scanned, and they became quite efficient with that.
Previously you could find pirate links through Google, this has ended. You could run pirate software, but software more and more ask OS for approval to be executed. Android will scan sideloaded apps for example.
While environment becomes safer, it also becomes more controlled by corporations. Piracy eventually will be very hard to do. All blockades can be broken, but there more and more of them.
That was going to be WEI [1] but they shelved it for now. I expect they will be more subtle with the next project release after it gets renamed.
[1] - https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/08/your-computer-should-s...