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Comment on The End of Indie Web Browsers: You Can (Not) Compete

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I for one would love to see new browsers come forward and explicitly state that they are not implementing EME in any way, and see just how that plays out.

My optimistic (maybe too deeply rose colored) vision would be for viewership of EME-locked content to drop off so far that the companies using it have to give up and reopen distribution.

My optimistic (maybe too deeply rose colored) vision would be for viewership of EME-locked content to drop off so far that the companies using it have to give up and reopen distribution.

They never had open distribution, they just had plug-ins.

All web browsers put together do not have enough market share of video views to make a material difference. Most major video services have less than 10% of views via personal computers at all, and could shift 80% of that to an application without much issue.

If those numbers are reasonably solid, I can see a positive outcome to refusal of EME support. Now I'm even more convinced it's a good idea.

How? I cannot understand that logic at all.

If only 10% of DRMed viewership is through EME in browsers, then dropping EME from browsers is far easier than if it were, say, 50 or 75%.

I could see this having an impact for existing browsers with a larger marketshare. I'd be worried if Firefox were to start and we'd see their influence drop. That would be the unfortunate reality of affecting the user experience of accessing media streaming websites.

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