https://widevine.com/solutions/widevine-providers

And surprise surprise, the blog post in question appears to be very thinly disguised marketing for one of those third parties.

Also, the Google service was free and came with no SLA or support, meaning anybody remotely serious about DRM was not relying it on in the first place.

It never stopped a thing. Clearly, it only exists to cover someone's arses and check some boxes off the requirement lists.

And yet, some people put actual effort into integrating it, and keep shipping mandatory DRM modules that run with deranged levels of privilege in places like TrustZone. They keep restricting some browsers and phones from being able to view Full HD content - despite that Full HD footage being on every shady pirate streaming website that runs on ads for online slot machines and penis enlargement pills, and the 4K versions of that very same content being available day 1 in any torrent search engine. Because some cheeky madman somewhere has a few exploits, and one exploit is all it takes for DRM to stay broken forever.

Punish the legitimate users, and completely fail to deter the pirates. Security theater at its finest.

Every time I read of how modern economics eliminate waste and inefficiency, this kind of DRM stands out as a counterexample. It never worked and never will - nonetheless, here it is.

Some people keep writing and signing the licensing deals with those stupid requirements that don't touch reality in them. Other people keep needing to fulfill them. And so, the strange useless cover-your-arse-ware lingers in every device, like the smell of stale piss in a public toilet. With no care for how unwelcome it is.