RE: Mozilla blog: DRM and the Challenge of Serving Users

cobaco wrote:
>
> On 2014-05-16 09:39 Gervase Markham wrote:
>
> > If you were a significant proportion of the world's population, I'm
> > sure things would look very different.
>
> really? I keep hearing even those championing DRM-supporting actions
> say/write things like 'nobody likes DRM, but ...'.  (heck, you're doing
> it in the mail I'm replying to)
>
> I think the need to phrase things that apologetically makes abundantly
> clear how widespread the support for DRM isn't, at least  on the end-
> user side

What you fail to realize is that the web is far bigger than technically
adept and informed engineers and advocates you think represent "everyone".
You've managed to be fooled by your own echo-chamber.  Outside of Cory
Doctorow's anti-DRM propaganda at The Guardian, can you show me any other
mainstream media outlet that even considered this development "news worthy"?
Do you *really* think that the average man-on-the-street really knows or
cares about this?

Here's what I think would be news-worthy: all of a sudden the 18.62% of the
global population that uses Firefox today (http://gs.statcounter.com/) woke
up tomorrow and were unable to watch their favorite video content on their
laptops. They'd bitch, complain and hear from their neighbor/work
colleague/other family member that they can still watch Netflix on Chrome or
Internet Explorer.  We're talking about user who think that the stylized
blue E automatically = "the internet", and who start each web session by
going to Yahoo! or AOL. In your zeal to represent those opposed to content
protection, you've completely ignored and marginalized the majority of web
users today.

(True story: when I set about to switch my 75 year old father from Internet
Explorer to Firefox a number of years back, I placed a shortcut on his
Windows desktop to launch Firefox, and then changed the icon for that
shortcut to the "blue E" - he was happy, he had his internet back.)


>
> The responses I've seen/heard, e.g. in the comment section at [1] Show
> overwhelmingly that I'm not alone in that view (strangely comments
> supporting mozilla's actions are strangely absent)
>
> [1]  https://hacks.mozilla.org/2014/05/reconciling-mozillas-mission-
> and-w3c-eme/comment-page-1/#comments

Again, this is hardly a representative sampling of the general population.
Instead, it is a collection of anti DRM advocates hating on Mozilla, because
they need to vent their frustration somewhere. I get it, we all do.


> >
> > Hypocrisy is saying one thing in public and doing another in private.
> >
> > We are saying "we don't like DRM, but sadly we have to implement it"
> > in public, and we are doing exactly that, in public.
>
> Mozilla doesn't "have to", Mozilla is "choosing to"
> That's a crucial difference and not one you get to sweep under the rug

Mozilla doesn't operated based upon good wishes and "community fan support"
- it takes users and money to keep that organization afloat. Payroll,
offices, infrastructure... all of that costs something. Have you ever
considered how they make their money?  One primary source is through
"search" - yup, every time you search for something in Firefox, if you use
the search field in the top right corner, a little cash-register in Mountain
View goes "cha-ching" and they get paid.

This works well when you have a decent market share - less well when you
don't. Just ask the people behind Flock, SwiftFox, Camino, SeaMonkey,
Rockmelt...

No users ultimately results in no money - a point that Mozilla painfully
pointed out in their announcement(s).

>
> If Mozilla feels it can't resist the pressure of Hollywood to ram DRM
> through our unwilling throats, then meh
>
> BUT mozilla then doesn't get to make that choice while still pretending
> it's doing anything other then caving in. Mozilla doesn't get to keep
> the moral high ground if they make this choice (and there will probably
> be a fork as a result of this)

There are already plenty of forks of Gecko. Go ahead, choose another and use
it, nobody will stop you, and I am quite sure that one will surface that
will explicitly not include support for EME. YOU AND EVERYONE ELSE OPPOSED
TO EME ARE FREE TO GO THAT ROUTE!

But showing up here at the W3C, hating on an organization that made a
business decision that directly related to the financial and business health
of their organization is not only pointless, it is annoying. It will change
nothing.

JF

Received on Friday, 16 May 2014 19:27:16 UTC