Are you kidding? DRM is great. I love being able to just pay money to Netflix in return for content. DRM enables that nice, clear-cut transaction. What's the alternative? Judging by the rest of the web, it involves tracking your internet activity and throwing advertising in your face.
The only way it would be an issue is if you're trying to rip the stream. But if you've paid the provider for streaming only, rather than to download and keep a copy, then that's also not really degrading the quality of service. Similarly, the prohibition on bringing a video camera in to record cinema screenings does not reduce the quality of the cinema experience.
In general, I don't really see a problem with DRM that is temporally bound to the moment of consumption.
It is crippling usability in several ways:
1. DRM is usually not portable (or not ported at least). I.e. most probably it's tied to certain devices / operating systems / applications and etc. For the end user it translates to "you can't watch it on the device / operating system / application of your choice".
2. DRM prevents backups. If the service goes bust or you lose connectivity - you have no access to your data.
3. DRM poses a security / privacy threat. Being transparent doesn't make it any better - it only makes it worse (think of a hidden camera).
All those are clearly examples of degraded usability no matter how "transparent" some DRM is.
I don't think backups are relevant to DRM-laden streaming video, given that it's someone else's data that you happen to be observing.
I'm not sure what you mean by a security and privacy threat. Surely it is no more of a threat than visiting potentially untrusted websites, or using closed-source or unverified open-source binaries, in the first place?
It's not the case for any normal standard portable format (video, audio, etc.). They can be accessed on any platform. DRM prevents that limiting your options where and how to use it. If you take tapes analogy, you can play your tape in any player. Imagine a tape which is only playable in Sony player or whatever. It's clearly a defective product in my view.
> I don't think backups are relevant to DRM-laden streaming video, given that it's someone else's data that you happen to be observing.
That's exactly the point. It means usability is reduced if anything goes wrong with the service or you can't connect to it or whatever other similar reason.
> I'm not sure what you mean by a security and privacy threat.
Since DRM is based on distrusting the user (assuming all of them are potential criminals by default), symmetrical treatment for it from the user's side should be "always potential malware by default". Here is a good example of this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_rootkit
Since DRM is always a black box / closed code, it adds to the reasons to never trust it.
The same arguments apply to the issue of backups. It would be highly unusual for the only copy of a media product to be only accessible via a DRM-encumbered streaming video service.
I do see your point on the lack of trust though. In this case, hopefully Mozilla's sandboxing approach would go some way towards mitigating that. And the inevitable disassembly of whatever closed-source binary they release.
If you put that in perspective of recent privacy / mass surveillance issues, DRM is a perfect ground for various agencies to put their effort it. After all, DRM is already by design intended to spy on users and control what they do, plus DRM is massively deployed because many consumers accept it without second thought.
Essential means technically and financially essential. I.e. without it the service can't work or can't bring profit. DRM is neither of that. Those who require DRM [publishers] have no technical or financial reasons to justify it. No valid ones at least (all reasons they usually voice are false, and their true reasons they usually don't voice).
1. Monopolistic lock-in. DRM is more than often used to control the market. It happened with Apple in the past, and was one of the key reasons that music publishers realized that being DRM-free is actually better for them.
This reason also includes DRM derivatives like DMCA-1201 and the like. It's all about control (over the markets, over users and etc.).
2. Covering one's incompetence. DRM is used to justify failing sales (i.e. when execs are questioned about why the product performs poorly, they say "Pirates! But worry not - we put more DRM in place").
3. Ignorance and / or stupidity (many execs have no clue and might believe that DRM actually provides some benefit). This type can be called DRM Lysenkoism.
None of these reasons are valid, all of them are crooked and anti-user, but they are often present in various combinations.
How does this benefit the publisher? They already have a exclusive rights to whatever particular movie you're watching.
When publishers realize that monopoly falls to some other hands, they quickly become sober and find common sense. When monopoly remains theirs, they pretend that DRM is needed for other reasons.
A turnstile isn't very hard to jump over. If the turnstile is the only enforcement mechanism, anyone who wants a free subway ride just has to vault over (or perhaps also glance around to see if there are cops nearby, google whether there are monitored cameras, or pull a hoodie over their face).
There's an alternative, though: most places in Europe, there are no turnstiles, and nothing preventing you from getting on public transit without paying. It's a "trust but verify" system: you are required to validate your ticket before you get on the train, and occasionally someone comes around the train to check if you have a valid ticket, and issues a fine if you don't have one.
With this method, the users aren't inconvenienced, enforcement costs are reduced, and everyone's happy. With the turnstile, you get massive queues at busy stations during rush hour, and by making this one mechanical device your sole point of enforcement, you've actually made it more likely that people who don't want to pay will cheat the system.
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).
About renting vs. sales see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7745797
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.
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).
Similarly, some places don't use DRM. I don't think it's made it into the video space yet, but legitimate DRM-free music is common. It seems to work pretty well.
To say that DRM enables the service to exist only works if there's no other, better way. But there is, and the only reason we don't get to have it is because of customer-hostile policies from media companies.
So: NO.
How hard would it be to make an app that made this easy for non-technical users, without DRM?
And in any case, this misses the point: non-technical users won't distribute pirated content, even if they could rip it. Who are they going to distribute it to? Friends? Whoever wants free movies, can get them easily. But the main advantage of streaming, on-demand-ness, remains in the hands of the big players, who can afford to lease the servers and pay for the bandwidth.
I don't know, but however long, it apparently wasn't prohibitive. And I don't think it'd be tough to clone.
Edit: To be clear, I'm saying that people will pay for a legal streaming service even if they could rip it off for free.
It isn't hard to screen-record, and it never will be. As long as that exists, what's the point of DRM anyway?
Now let the market decide.