This is why @pluralistic is such an essential writer: he can tell the history you lived through and make you see it again. In this case the story of superior technology - the VCR - which was disinvented as media corps got their hooks into regulators and law. Why *are* there DVD players and not DVD recorders? Why *do* DVD players have anti-features like region encoding that nobody actively wants? Another world is possible! https://pluralistic.net/2026/08/25/gammamax/#felony-contempt-of-business-model