> No, the web is all about restricting users. It's baked into several HTTP error codes (403 and 401 off the top of my head). SSL is also rather popular.
This is obtuse. The HTTP and HTML specs provide standards for interoperation. Some modes of operation are forbidden for some users, and the specification provides a way for that to be communicated. It sounds like you're taking a whole-system approach to freedom, which is certainly valid (see the AGPL for a "free" response). But it's orthogonal to the issue at hand, which is interoperability. Any client can still implement the specification.
That said, I'm completely at a loss as to how you believe SSL "restricts users".
> I assume you mean that the browser shouldn't restrict users? Like, if I stream a movie from Netflix, I should be able to also save it locally so I can take parts of it to use in my fair use arts project?
The browser should implement an interoperable standard. That standard should be accessible to everyone. Any browser vendor should be able to, once they have properly implemented the specification, stream a movie from Netflix (this is the very thing that EME makes impossible).
> Sorry. Never going to happen. Forcing this use case that _people want_ off into plugins isn't going to make anything more "free".
This does not have to be reality, no matter what vendors say. There's a reason digital restriction management was forced out of the music space: it's ineffective, it's consumer-hostile, and it hinders innovation. Many of us are mad precisely because the vendors played hardball in their negotiations, and the W3C wimped out. Vendors need the web more than the web needs the vendors, but the W3C didn't take an equally hard line back and we're left with a decision that screws everyone but media companies.
> That's like selling a Roku box that can only play Ted and Youtube videos and saying that it's better because it's totally free, and open, and doesn't restrict its users. Well, sure, that is the best kind of correct. But only because you yanked everything that wasn't free. You didn't actually add any value over the standard Roku box that plays Netflix and Amazon.
The problem is, this decision hinders innovation. It is now much harder for a Roku competitor to exist, because before they can get off the ground they have to comply with byzantine demands of old media companies. "totally free, and open, and doesn't restrict its users" is the future of communication and computing (at least technically, politically is a different story). This decision is mired in the past.
Let's circle back to this:
> Forcing this use case that _people want_ off into plugins isn't going to make anything more "free".
This is exactly what EME does. The digital restriction management "extensions" are plugins. They are binary blobs, tied to specific hardware implementations. This regresses the web back to the "best viewed on Windows in IE 2.3" days, where interoperation is dead and cross-platform compatibility is a hippy dream.
And that's why people are mad at the W3C for no longer representing what the web is supposed to be.