[fabrice_d]

Just to focus a bit on DRM/Widevine: the fact that Google decides who can use Widevine absolutely helps them to weaken competing platforms / OSes.

If you are an upcoming OS and want to get well known apps like Netflix and Spotify, you need to get Widevine support from Google. I'll let you imagine how that can go, from actual technical issues to bullshit reasons to slow down progress.

If we accept the idea that DRM is useful, at least the DRM vendors should be independent from OS vendors.

[izacus]

And before Chrome we (in streaming industry) had to negotiate and wait for the mercy of every single OS, set-top-box and mobile vendor specially and then cross negotiate with every single content provider (since they had to approve that DRM implementation for the platform is good enough for them).

It's indescribeable how better the current situation is for the state of the web and users themselves. There's a reason even Mozilla uses Widevine.

[strongpigeon]

That is an interesting and somewhat fair point. I guess the argument here is that because of Google's dominant share in Chrome with Widevine for DRM, they can harm competing platforms by blocking access to that tech. There might be something to that argument. I'm having a hard time steel-manning it, but I can see some points to be made through it after all.

[Mindwipe]

> Just to focus a bit on DRM/Widevine: the fact that Google decides who can use Widevine absolutely helps them to weaken competing platforms / OSes.

There are multiple other widely used DRM systems. PlayReady is very licensable (it's just not free), and used by many sites. Fairplay is also widely supported. Adobe would probably still sell someone Primetime if they could find someone to pay for it. Until very recently some of the largest pay TV operators in the world (Sky et al) didn't support Widevine and required installation of third party helper software from a different DRM provider.