Comment by kuhsaft
1 month ago
Steam is a bit different, since that originated as a PC digital marketplace before complete root-of-trust DRM from HW->bootloader->OS->SW.
If anything, I would bet on a shift where Steam on Linux requires a signed OS like Windows Secure Boot. Call of Duty and Battlefield 6 already require Windows Secure Boot.
Wait, a signed Linux OS with Secure Boot already exists. It's Android Play Protect.
Also on Linux, you only get Widevine L3, which limits video and audio quality for DRM web content.
Pirating is more of a problem of mismanaged price versus revenues. In the '90 in East Europe everybody was pirating because we couldn't afford any software not because "we wanted to steal". As soon as I got a decent salary I just bought the damn stuff and spared me of the headache of dealing with pirated things.
The people pushing for drastic technical measures to "prevent pirating" are probably accountants, that have no other idea of how to generate value and they imagine all "pirated content" will be converted to paid - which is not the case.
I live in Nigeria and I hate piracy, yet books her are so darn expensive that the average middle class citizen resorts to piracy. I think regional pricing will really help out with this.
> spared me of the headache of dealing with pirated things
Without any sort of DRM and today's internet speeds, pirating digital media would probably be like Napster
Greenheart Games famously purposely released a different version of Game Dev Tycoon for pirating. You can read the blog post here: https://www.greenheartgames.com/2013/04/29/what-happens-when...
Most of the software I use depend on centralized functionality. Example: convenient online invitation, sharing of resources and integrations (for productivity), accomplishments, ladders and updates (for games).
For music media, there are a lot of people (67%) using streaming (random source: https://ifpi-website-cms.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/IFPI_GMR...) which is a totally different service than having a list of songs on your device then struggling with organizing/synchronizing/keeping up to date.
Media and software do not "work" like physical goods. Value should be extracted from them but a lot of earth population is poor and could still "use" the media/software (example: 57% of world population has less than 10$ income per day source: https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$model$markers$mountain$enc...)
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Ironically the drm measures are a huge part in why I tend to go for pirated content, as its more convenient to me AND of higher quality.
I went 100% legit on VST plugins years ago and regretted that decision so much when I had to change systems. It literally takes weeks to transfer hundreds of these, there are so many different DRM schemes and installer systems, it drives you insane.
Shifting goalposts: you said there's no marketplace, I pointed out a highly prominent one, and your counterargument is… they don't count because other different things exist.
I wish I could edit my original post, but I meant to switch the causality around.
What I’d meant was, a paid digital marketplace will end up with some form of DRM.
And furthermore, economic incentives will drive devices to implement some form of trusted computing.