> Users would absolutely switch operating systems/mobile phones if one suddenly stopped playing Netflix, streaming music, or even working with banking apps. DRM interests have all the power here because if content platforms are pulled from a platform, that platform dies for the majority of the population.
Consider what happens if they actually do this. Millions of people have that phone platform and aren't going to buy a new phone for at least a couple years. Switching phone platforms is a large time investment for most people because all your stuff is on that platform's cloud services etc.
Meanwhile most of that stuff doesn't need a phone. You're watching Netflix on your big screen TV rather than your tiny pocket device most of the time, aren't you? Your bank has a website. So if it stopped working on your phone, you wouldn't immediately buy a new phone, you would just use the website. But now the streaming service and the bank are immediately getting millions of user complaints that their app is broken.
Either of the major platforms could also use any of the malicious compliance schemes they use for other things. Find some over-broad or unreasonable contractual provision in the "must supply DRM" agreement that you don't like anyway, point to it as a justification for making a change to the DRM system in the brand new version of the OS, and disable the DRM in the older versions of the OS that are on 95% of existing devices, blaming the services for putting that term in the contract and obligating you to do it.
Then the users don't have to switch platforms, they "only" have to buy a new device and can avoid the platform transition cost. For the ones who do, the vendor gets to sell more devices. For all the ones who don't, the DRM pushers still get millions of user complaints and a strong incentive to release the app without the DRM in it.
And if they do release the app without the DRM in it, now the new devices don't need the DRM either ("we found a vulnerability in the later version too and had to disable it as well"), and now the users have no reason to switch platforms over it so the DRM can stay gone forever.
This is the same problem the incumbent duopoly causes for all other app developers. And that's bad -- the duopoly should be broken up -- but it does currently exist, and it could, if it wanted to, use that to do something good. (You might also consider what would happen if they both decided to lose DRM at once.)
> blaming the services for putting that term in the contract and obligating you to do it.
I think you're vastly overestimating customers' willingness to listen and care about whose fault it is. In practice, if Netflix (or whatever other app) suddenly stopped working on Android phones, people using Android would complain about their phones being broken whilst their iPhone-using friends continue to use the app just fine.
The media companies know that they will win that game of chicken every time. It would take a concerted effort across tech companies to really take them down, and nobody is interested in waging that war because the cost of simply implementing DRM is too low for it to be worth the struggle and the risk.
> In practice, if Netflix (or whatever other app) suddenly stopped working on Android phones, people using Android would complain about their phones being broken whilst their iPhone-using friends continue to use the app just fine.
Complaining about it and immediately buying a different phone are two different things. And in the meantime, what are they doing? Watching YouTube or whatever other service doesn't use DRM instead of Netflix, and then continuing to watch the things they started watching on that service on their TV when they get home, and then wondering why they're still paying for the one they're not using anymore.
Notice also that a huge proportion of these people don't have an iPhone because they can't afford one -- cheapest new iPhone is ~$600, cheapest new Android is ~$50 -- so switching platforms was never an option for them. And conversely, that the people whose identity and sense of self is tied up in having an iPhone are certainly not going to buy an Android over Netflix.
> The media companies know that they will win that game of chicken every time.
Evidence to the contrary. Every time one of these popular DRM systems gets cracked, do they stop using it and lose all of the customers who have that platform? No, they just keep using the broken one because not losing a lot of customers is way more important to them than the DRM.
Consider what happens if they actually do this. Millions of people have that phone platform and aren't going to buy a new phone for at least a couple years. Switching phone platforms is a large time investment for most people because all your stuff is on that platform's cloud services etc.
Meanwhile most of that stuff doesn't need a phone. You're watching Netflix on your big screen TV rather than your tiny pocket device most of the time, aren't you? Your bank has a website. So if it stopped working on your phone, you wouldn't immediately buy a new phone, you would just use the website. But now the streaming service and the bank are immediately getting millions of user complaints that their app is broken.
Either of the major platforms could also use any of the malicious compliance schemes they use for other things. Find some over-broad or unreasonable contractual provision in the "must supply DRM" agreement that you don't like anyway, point to it as a justification for making a change to the DRM system in the brand new version of the OS, and disable the DRM in the older versions of the OS that are on 95% of existing devices, blaming the services for putting that term in the contract and obligating you to do it.
Then the users don't have to switch platforms, they "only" have to buy a new device and can avoid the platform transition cost. For the ones who do, the vendor gets to sell more devices. For all the ones who don't, the DRM pushers still get millions of user complaints and a strong incentive to release the app without the DRM in it.
And if they do release the app without the DRM in it, now the new devices don't need the DRM either ("we found a vulnerability in the later version too and had to disable it as well"), and now the users have no reason to switch platforms over it so the DRM can stay gone forever.
This is the same problem the incumbent duopoly causes for all other app developers. And that's bad -- the duopoly should be broken up -- but it does currently exist, and it could, if it wanted to, use that to do something good. (You might also consider what would happen if they both decided to lose DRM at once.)