Arguably, that’s almost worse (and may actually be worse): Consider the DVD example.
Merely by existing, CSS (despite being pitifully broken) puts considerable leverage in the hands of the DVD CCA. Sure, hackers can distribute libdecss under the radar and mostly not get sued; anyone who sticks their head up enough to be worth hitting still has the features of their product dictated by contract with the CCA (and generally pays a cut for the privilege). Why can virtually anything with an optical drive and software rip CDs; but nothing Joe Clueless User can actually buy (short of enormously expensive pro home theatre gear that very, very, carefully toes the line) rip DVDs, despite the fact that owning a small portable device capable of playing videos is about as common as owning an MP3 player used to be? Because DVDs are DRMed, and it doesn’t have to be unbreakable, just present, to quash that entire market. Same reason why DVD players still enforce the unskippable trailers and FBI warnings (sometimes with a nod, wink ‘bug’ that allows you to get past them); because the CCA says so, and their rules are the rules for as long as the ‘hook IP’ patents last pretty much worldwide, and more or less in perpetuity in countries with DMCA-style legislation.
Since the DRM is breakable, they get the benefit of something similar to ‘price discrimination’ (in that, if it were unbreakable, anybody for whom the DRM was unacceptable would not buy; but since it is, some people will use whatever hackarounds exist, while the clueless users will still endure the restrictions).
Even when the DRM is weak, or ends up having a weak link, it can also have unpleasant effects of allowing less tractable DRM features to be mandated and burned into parts of the system that are less easy to modify: again, with DVDs, CSS is broken to hell and back. DVD-ROM drives that enforce region coding in firmware? That varies markedly by model and revision, with some having cracked firmware available, and some, 5 changes over the drive’s life, period. Devices being tivoized as a condition of having a supported client for DRMed services seems to be another fad, bypassable with varying degrees of success.
