Re: [w3c/manifest] Prevent Screenshots in PWAs (Issue #1154)

This is entirely anecdotal feedback from a user perspective, but I find these kinds of restrictions on native mobile app platforms incredibly irritating and trivial to work around (e.g. by just taking a photograph of the screen). It's a bit like the flawed attempts to prevent right clicking on images on web pages to prevent them being downloaded - irritating for the user and trivial to work around for someone with a little knowledge of how the web works.

The main use case I have seen for this (other than Netflix) is preventing screenshots inside banking apps, which is a genuine use case that shouldn't be taken away from users IMHO. It results in the silly situation of having to submit a photograph of a phone screen in an expense claim for example.

I understand there's an argument that some companies may choose not to use the web platform due to the absence of this feature (which is available on native app platforms), but I really think they're just fighting against the laws of physics - in that generally speaking if you can see an image with your eyes then it can be captured by a camera. At best it increases user friction as a weak mitigation of a perceived threat to a corporate interest, but rarely benefits the end user (which is ultimately who a "user agent" should represent).

Apart from that, I'm of the opinion that DRM should be kept away from the web platform as much as possible, since it's the antithesis of the open nature of the web.

Just my two cents.

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