> Neither the red tapes nor DIVX destroyed themselves. Red tapes were rewound by a store, and any DIVX disc could be converted to unlimited watching if you paid for it.

I loved the story of DIVX. As a format, it never actually got hacked to unlock unlimited viewing of the far-cheaper-than-DVD discs.

It never got hacked not because its security was great (after all - a static disk which received unlock codes over dialup, had to have some significant attack surface), but because it sucked and wasn't worth hacking.

Video quality was lower than that of DVD's and soon enough after release, the pricing of used DVD's was close enough that buying DIVX made no sense at all. To say nothing of paying a premium price for all of that in the players.

Having now read about Red tapes, it seems like pure folly that DIVX should have been attempted.

Root of the comment thread was about Flexplay which literally did destroy itself. It shipped in a vacuum sealed bag with an oxygen reactive dye that rendered the disc useless about 48 hours after opening the package.

It didnt make it out of the test marketing stage, thankfully.

unlimited watching... until the servers went offline.

Morally - I don't see much difference, and think the push towards "rent everything, own nothing" is a bad, bad idea for social cohesion, economic equality, and general health and happiness.

Realistically - there is a considerable difference in the resources required to create a digital copy of a good vs a physical copy. The digital good has the slight upside that when companies abuse consumers through predatory pricing practices (literal rent-seeking...), they are destroying slightly less of the environment in the process.

Digital rental is less wasteful.