Mildly sad is also that you seem to fault GP for not “exploring” more, instead of the insane practice of DRMing everything in the first place. I never have purchased DRM protected media and never will - I’d rather pirate everything digital and but physical hard copies.

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PaulRobinson 4 hours ago | parent [-]

I don’t actually think it’s their fault, and if they feel I’m faulting them, that wasn’t the intention.

I think it’s sad that what we thought everyone saw as a nonsense is now so normalised that alternatives are just disappearing from view. Everyone should be encouraged to explore.

Piracy is your preferred option, but when that became more mainstream we actually ended up creating the market for more DRM, in the form of iTunes, Spotify and others. I’m not sure I want the future of digital media to be entirely subscription-based like that.

What might be a better solution is showing that media creators can achieve more of their own objectives through releasing media without DRM. This only works if their objectives are not entirely around making money from media sales, and more aligned to influence, or audience building.

I’m actually surprised at this point that musicians - given they don’t make money from streaming services and see them as tools to build audiences for live tours where they really make their money - don’t just jump over already.

	▲	sallveburrpi 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I was just talking about books, but sure for music there are tons of alternative options as well. I detest streaming platforms and it’s pretty easy to buy music directly from the creators in almost all cases - except maybe the top “superstars” but I would argue that they are probably doing fine anyway… Also physical records still exist for music as well. Lots of artists can do just fine with living from media sales. Look I’m not saying “pirate everything and never pay the artists” - I’m saying “never pay the predatory tech companies that have inserted themselves between us and artists”