If any one vendor - it doesn't matter whether it's a browser, or an operating system, or a graphics card, or a monitor, etc. - agrees to add DRM technology, they hope they'll get an increase in usage / sales at the margin by convincing shy media producers to distribute.

The only way to stop it is to band together and refuse across the board. Individually, everybody gets picked off. You can't be the only monitor that can't play movies, or the only browser that can't show the latest episode of GoT.

One might argue that these people would never pay for content and so mustn't be considered when talking about paid content. But given a chance not to jump through hoops and with geography specific pricing, there are ways to get people to pay. That could add up when done right on a large population base. Right now the big content houses are literally leaving money on the table and encouraging piracy (to put it in a different way)!

For me, a DRM-free experience is one I can enjoy on all platforms and devices I have. It also has a much better general UX.

Measured in all ways I can measure quality, DRM only reduces it. Thus sites like TPB still has the upper hand for people who care about quality, portability and UX.

WRT movies:

WEBDL is usually 4-5GB

720p Bluray: 6GB

1080p: 8GB and up.

I'm not sure how true that is. Currently getting content is easy enough that the average consumer doesn't use it, but at least back in the mid 00's the technical people in my social circle got introduced to torrents by people who didn't know how turn off a computer except by unplugging it. They we're willing to take all sorts of risks with their computer on sketchy sites the second it became the easiest way to get their content.

If torrents and piracy become the easiest way again, I could easily see regular people going right back to it.

I still really don't think the protests happened because people suddenly became aware of abstract consequences of an obscure deal proposal. But exactly at that time, in an unrelated case, FBI shut down Megavideo, widely used by regular people then. This is what they took as a future of Internet under SOPA, and that's why, I believe (based on first-hand experience), they went to the streets.

I strongly believe that the convenience of Netflix and iTunes only exists because of piracy, and the industry would never have chosen it otherwise. They'd be stuck on pay per view.

Piracy does have serious negative side effects on both content creators and end users. It's kind of a hacker fantasy that it doesn't.

Ordinary consumers get it via sneaker-net on a USB key that they can now plug directly into their TV. Before that there was pirated DVD's and video cassettes, but the ease and cost of piracy is still improving faster than legitimate methods.

HD .mkv files can be viewed on virtually any device, including "smart" TVs long forgotten by their manufacturers which do not support Netflix/Roku/whatever apps, open source devices, smartphones, or regular computers. Usually, you just need to plug in a USB drive and press play.

They can also be of arbitrary high quality. And usually higher, not lower than streaming sources which adjust to network conditions.

It's true that the plans at legitimate distributors are currently very inexpensive. A good seedbox will run higher than Spotify and Netflix subscriptions plus a bowl of nachos but neither the quality, nor the choice, or convenience are even close to piracy.

You can download entire BluRay disks, about 40GB, 4K shows, 10GB IIRC.

You are wrong. Pirates have the same or HIGHER quality video in most cases.

In the US, maybe. In some other, less capitalist countries… well, paying for non-physical things seemed ridiculous. Still kinda does, but app stores have somewhat changed that.