Secondly, the issue isn't that google added DRM to chrome, it's that the DRM was pushed into an ostensibly open standard, but the implementation of that open standard is locked behind a licensing agreement with Google because it's illegal to make a compatible client under the DMCA, since that would be considered copyright circumvention.
If instead google and HBO had made a specialized browser app to handle the DRM or even just a browser extension that enabled the browser to understand a nonstandard html tag, then the argument that Google is using Chrome's footprint to to modify open standards to make it harder for people to compete with them starts to fall flat on its face (cw. no one is complaining that an HBO app for android and iOS is a monopoly that needs to be broken up). But doing it that way makes it much harder for HBO to acquire customers, because it requires customers to install a new app on their PC or an extension in their browser.
> Secondly, the issue isn't that google added DRM to chrome, it's that the DRM was pushed into an ostensibly open standard, but the implementation of that open standard is locked behind a licensing agreement with Google because it's illegal to make a compatible client under the DMCA, since that would be considered copyright circumvention.
It's not locked behind a licensing agreement with Google. It just unambiguously isn't. Google's own implementation is, but they aren't even the majority provider of EME CDM modules in the market, and there are several competitors, as well as an entirely free specification for one.
The problem for these smaller browser vendors isn't building their own EME modules, it's convincing major content streaming websites to trust their modules, which they don't. And that really isn't any different to the fact that if they were to start running their own certificate signing authority there's no reason why lots of sites would start trusting them either.
Secondly, the issue isn't that google added DRM to chrome, it's that the DRM was pushed into an ostensibly open standard, but the implementation of that open standard is locked behind a licensing agreement with Google because it's illegal to make a compatible client under the DMCA, since that would be considered copyright circumvention.
If instead google and HBO had made a specialized browser app to handle the DRM or even just a browser extension that enabled the browser to understand a nonstandard html tag, then the argument that Google is using Chrome's footprint to to modify open standards to make it harder for people to compete with them starts to fall flat on its face (cw. no one is complaining that an HBO app for android and iOS is a monopoly that needs to be broken up). But doing it that way makes it much harder for HBO to acquire customers, because it requires customers to install a new app on their PC or an extension in their browser.