News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me by TeMPOraL on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @12:23PM (#19555804)
Media companies would rejoice. Since such a coordinated move from Google, Microsoft and Apple would destroy streaming for everyone indiscriminately, it would re-level the playing field and enable everyone to start competing anew. Disney, HBO and others would fork Chromium and add DRM support back, then market the shit out of it. They'd start signing deals with phone and TV manufacturers to get their DRM back, each preferably in a way that excludes the others. There'd be a lot of churn as whole media space gets re-balkanized, but that's all good, since churn means they make money.

A lot of smaller companies would die, and a lot of users would suffer - but none of the parties involved actually cares about the users; we're just a natural resource to be stripmined.

Re:I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me by hrktb on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @02:24PM (#19557108)
The internet before streaming (when downloading postage stamp clips took 3 hours) was close to that described state, and people just exchanged burned CDRs right and left.

Even elderly people were using and watching pirated stuff installed by their kids as they just couldn’t bother.

No DRM support in major browsers would mean pirating becomes the #1 way to see anything again.

Re:I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me by TeMPOraL on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @02:40PM (#19557263)
That is a realistic outcome.

Then again, the way media companies are balkanizing the streaming space, this could become (again) a reality soon anyway.

Re:I tried creating a web browser, and Google blocked me by jhasse on Tuesday April 02, 2019 @12:32PM (#19555921)
Just as the only browser with DRM would have a huge advantage in that scenario, the one streaming service without DRM would have, too. I honestly think Netflix would take that chance for their own content.