Well that was quite a quickly resolved bait and switch.
We did this already.
the one that’ll make Netflix look like Blockbuster
there will be no more companies like Netflix
There will be no more companies like Netflix because Netflix was not like other companies so there will be more companies like Netflix which are like Netflix but not.
But where will I turn for all the terrible sequels of the movies I used to like 20 years ago?
You tube?
What is needed is a sort of “Netflix, but for video.”
You mean no more companies like Netflix and Amazon Streaming and Hulu and Crackle and Google Play and Apple TV?
Yeah, sounds like we’re really in a limited market. Media wants their work to be distributed, like authors want to sell books. Whether it’s a physical book or ebook publishing houses are caring less and less. So are movie distribution places, who don’t really care if you go to the movie theatre or not.
Youtube is a gem, I hope they never change. The sheer volume of old bad films available there is incredible.
Collectively, humanity would be better if they disabled comments. You have to admit that, at least…
Fuckin’ A, Bubba.
I understand it’s a pet issue, but could you be a little less over the top? There ain’t gonna’ be a “next Netflix” in this analogy. The first sale doctrine doesn’t apply to Netflix’s streaming. You’d no doubt have issues applying it to content purchased from Amazon Video. There is right now no legal business you could run based on redistributing streams without the consent of the broadcaster (at the minimum)
Now, applying it more widely, right now DRM in the browser is limited to some popular but limited purposes, namely streaming. It’s already here, it’s established, and it isn’t going away. If they can’t break the decryption module into a separate piece, they’ll just keep on using Flash/Silverlight/some new plug-in. So as far as that goes, the W3C’s recommendation is irrelevant, except that its implementation would get us one more step towards eliminating those plug-ins.
I do see a different risk, which is that if the barrier for entry in using DRM was lowered, you could see it on other kinds of content… Imagine the browser having to cede control of a section of screen to have the module render an image and/or text on a web page.
I think he’s required by his position to post a variant of this weekly.
Which is the position, basically, of most browser vendors towards this issue.
You can have DRM in Flash or DRM but no Flash. Pick one. (Flash being also Silverlight…)
I’d rather have Flash uninstalled from my system, like I was able to do with Java.
Well, they’re likely to be in public domain, so that’s not going to happen. There are a lot of good old movies that are in public domain, too. Anything that has a copyright has probably served YouTube with take down notices.
Humanity would actually be better if anyone who tried to comment on YouTube was immediately neutered.
You would be surprised… there are more uploads than can be policed effectively. Once I found a few old public domain ones the recommended list went to all kinds of stuff and movies that are definitely not in public domain yet. Yeah they don’t last long run but they last longer than I would have given it a few years ago.
Occasionally I find pockets of human goodness. But, few and far between. Niche interest videos are much less likely to be a cesspool.
That’s all I need now. If I start perusing YouTube, I will never get anything done! 
It can be quite distracting… not that I know or anything like that…errr oh look I haven’t seen that one yet I will be back later.
I have that Chrome extension that has disabled comments. It’s the healthiest thing I ever did for my online brain.
