[w3ctag/design-reviews] Question: can the web platform express "protected playback unavailable" without breaking the sandbox model? (Issue #1299)

dingjethw created an issue (w3ctag/design-reviews#1299)

## Summary

On mobile, subscription video often cannot be played in a browser: the service
serves an app-download page instead of a player, or playback fails where the
browser has to negotiate content protection. Ordinary video plays fine in the
same browser on the same device, so this is not a decoding or bandwidth limit.

Two shapes of the same gap:

1. The browser exposes a content-protection system the service will not accept,
   so the user never reaches a player. The refusal happens above the web
   platform, and the page has no way to detect it and degrade.
2. The browser exposes no content-protection system the service can use, so the
   page fails at playback start.

In both cases the web platform has no vocabulary for "premium playback is not
available here": a page cannot distinguish "this content is not licensed for
this platform" from "this browser is not on the list".

## The question

Is this an architectural gap that the web platform should close? Specifically:

- Should there be a defined way for an application to learn that protected
  playback is unavailable (a capability signal), so it can degrade instead of
  failing? Media Capabilities covers decoding, not licensing.
- Is it architecturally acceptable for a platform to provide its own secure
  media pipeline behind the same API surface as EME, i.e. keeping the sandbox
  while making tamper-resistance a platform property rather than a CDM
  download? If so, who defines the conformance criteria?
- If neither is acceptable, the alternative is that some content categories are
  permanently outside the web platform on some platforms. Is that an explicit
  design position the TAG is comfortable with?

## Viewpoints so far

- Content providers: the bar is a business/licensing decision above the web
  platform, and it is not published.
- Browser vendors: the API surface exists; what is missing is a way to surface
  the refusal.
- A platform vendor willing to offer a secure pipeline cannot express it in the
  current model.

## Context

- Discussion and prior art: https://github.com/w3c/exploration-ig/issues/15
- Raised at TPAC 2026 Dublin in the Media WG / Media & Entertainment IG
  conversations; a corresponding scoping issue is being filed in Media WG.

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