Question: He says EME will allow publishers to dictate which browsers can implement CDMs that can interoperate with their content, and therefore control the browser market, and that this will quell innovation. I have questions about this, however. In the old but waning status quo, Adobe and Microsoft got to decide which browsers would work with Silverlight and Flash (right?) so it still wasn't possible for a developer to make a new browser that could play DRMed video without getting their permission. What is the meaningful difference from the new status quo?
Is the difference that now, publishers control content and compatibility, whereas before publishers controlled content and DRM companies controlled compatibility? Is that actually a meaningful change for users or for browser developers? It doesn't seem like it is.
> In the old but waning status quo, Adobe and Microsoft got to decide which browsers would work with Silverlight and Flash (right?)
Nope. The status quo was that any browser which implemented NPAPI (officially the Mozilla plugin API, but historically used by everyone but IE) could use Silverlight and Flash. That's how Google Chrome got Flash support initially and the reason why obscure browsers that neither Adobe and Microsoft cared about could still support both.
Is the difference that now, publishers control content and compatibility, whereas before publishers controlled content and DRM companies controlled compatibility? Is that actually a meaningful change for users or for browser developers? It doesn't seem like it is.
Am I missing something?