That's exactly the nonsense we're talking about here.
Distribution channel doesn't mean anything. There are strong correlations between being able to put on a show and production values, but it's not causative.
Define a movie by its actual qualities. Runtime, dialogue(?), even picture format... But forget about distribution. Lots of people have cinemas in their houses now. Where they don't have to pay £30 to be surrounded by sweaty strangers and sit on uncomfortable and dirty seats. Plus snacks and transport.
If you don't like going to the cinema, why do you care about Cannes at all? It is a film festival which celebrate cinema and the associated mystique and glamour. Nobody is preventing you from watching whatever you want in your home cinema.
Again, I think you need to separate the building from the art.
That's not saying other forms of entertainment cannot have value, just that Cannes is about a certain form.
Conflating "form" with distribution as if the latter affects the first.
No, I'll give you a chance... But how do you think they review these things? It used to be DVD screeners but (ironically, here) Cannes set up an online VOD service for screeners. How do you assess something that has to be available via cinemas, on computer via a wonky streaming service?
This rule is simple (and classic French) protectionism of a distribution channel that is failing to compete.
I think it was David Lynch who said "If you haven't see my movies in a cinema, then you haven't seen my movies".
You may not care for this difference, but why does it anger you so that others do?
They were backed via Kickstarter and promised backers a "pre-release" download. Because they wanted to be eligible for an Academy Award nomination they ended up releasing the movie in LA (and New York I think?) for the minimum run necessary and then waited another couple of months for the official release as digital download.
Because of the Academy Award rules they held back the "pre-release" downloads until just before the release of the digital download version. They angered a lot of backers by saying it was still technically a pre-release because the digital download hadn't been available yet although the film had already been in cinemas and available for private screenings for months at that point.
It's a good example for bad communication. Especially when upset backers were basically told the "pre-release" would happen at the last possible moment to combat file sharing, but that's another tangent.
Made-for-TV movies have their own competition and awards, like the Emmy awards.
I don't see how this will make Cannes less relevant. It doesn't make Cannes less relevant that it doesn't award daytime soaps or commercials or whatever. Focus on a specific niche - cinematic movies - arguably will help it stay relevant, as long as cinemas exists.
(Whether cinemas will continue to exist is a different question. I suspect Netflix is a much larger threat to traditional flow TV than to cinemas.)
In any case, Cannes is not "forcing" anybody to do anything. They are just clarifying what kind of movies can be considered for the festival.