Ask HN: Is DRM on firefox another nail in the coffin of free internet?
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I think DRM for monthly subscriptions is fine. You pay X amount a month and you get access to the service while you pay and lose access if you stop paying. That's the deal you pay for, which is clear and obvious to anyone.
I don't think DRM is necessarily and it just seems like an unnecessary hassle, but unlike things that you actually bought a perpetual license to (DVDs, CDs, games, etc.) it's really not that big of a deal.
DRM support was added in Firefox 38. You're a bit late to the party.
Yes. Mozilla didn't do anything and failed to stop it and just watched Google introduce it and Mozilla also followed suit at adding DRM into Firefox.
This 'free internet' is yet another myth and DRM is here to stay with the web being dominated by Chrome's widespread usage as it was previously done by Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Those who were involved with the Mozilla open source project or the company in the years of ~2013-2014 will heavily disagree.
There was a strong and long debate about the pros and cons. One of the strongest argument against was this here, including interoperability. I believe Cory Doctorow has also written multiple articles against DRM. I agree that DRM is generally bad.
However, the arguments for implementing it were the following: at least two other browsers will adopt the tech and that will allow it (per W3C process) to graduate from a Candidate Recommendation to a full Recommendation, making it part of the web platform.
On top, what would it mean for marketshare if people had to install a second browser just for watching movies? Would the non technical users accept and understand this without switching to a browser that they’d consider "actually feature complete"?
Without DRM support much less people would use firefox because they actually want to use the netflix and prime subscriptions.
As I haven’t seen other websites than such movie streaming sites using DRM, I don’t think it’s another mail in the coffin. It doesn’t actively hurt anyone, and it does not stop shows to be ripped and released on tpb. It’s just an alibi for movie makers.
So, what’s the fuss about it?
It's really dumb, but that's not on the browsers that implement it, but on the websites that use it.
As you pointed out, content will still be ripped so, once again, this only serves to inconvenience the users. But browsers won't force you to use netflix & al. so it's up to the user to not use those sites.
If I'm gonna shout at firefox, the fact that they aren't first implementing CSS features that the internet has been waiting for forever is probably a better reason.
What happens when wordpress starts using DRM for images, or even text? How many websites the browser "won't force you" to visit then? DRM is now one .js link/plugin/dependency away from any website.
Then I just stop visiting the sites that use it, while everyone else will just continue to do so while bitching about not liking it.
It's really simple: You either use sites with DRM and thereby accept it, or you don't. There's no point in crying about how browsers shouldn't even give you the choice.
Can I really stop visiting sites that use javascript? All of them use it. Can I really stop visiting websites that load facebook? Google trackers? Sure I can. And then I can cancel my internet service too.
If anyone applies DRM on html, you can't even use ad blockers anymore.