OK, so I actually happen to be an elected government official, and I additionally have spent a lot of my time working on attempts at getting legislative relief from DRM. And, you know what kind of sucks? At the end of the day, democracies reduce back down to personal responsibility, as you rely on people to vote, lobby, and even donate.
So like, here's the question: if we are going to give the people we know at Google a pass for their injustice because "don't hate the player, hate the game"... are we also going to give them a pass when they don't get involved in the attempt to get the laws changed against Google?
Most of the people I've known who work for Google seem to like Google, in no small part because of all of those benefits they receive due to all of the injustices they are enabling. Even if they feel a bit bad about what Google is doing, they still refuse to get involved because they claim it will get them in trouble at work... which is just the same problem, just shifted around a bit.
At the end of the day, all we have is "personal responsibility": if you keep shifting the blame for the things that happen in the world to the system and keep waiting for other people to come up with a solution, you've done nothing but become a demonstration for the tragedy of the commons.
Capitalism demands that companies do things that aren't good for consumers in order to maximize profits. Through the lens of game theory, a lot more corporate behavior makes a lot more sense. Until regulation makes it more expensive for a company to do user-hostile things than not, they'll keep making those decisions as rational actors. Developers are a fungible commodity. I'm not saying that change never comes from developers, just that when it does, I've found that it was because it was wrapped in a pitch of how to do something another way to make even MORE profit. So long as a thing is legal, or legal enough (risk of getting caught * negotiated penalty amount vs potential profit), what motivation would they have to not do it?
Alternatively, if you allow a legislative environment where bad behavior is rewarded, then—shocker!—bad behavior will be common.
Most people and companies engaging in bad behavior aren't doing it because they're evil, they're doing it because they don't care about good/evil as much as they care about money. If you just change the rules for how to make money (and not end up in jail), they will change their behavior in an instant.
Changing laws may be difficult, but your proposed solution involves changing the brains of a large number of people. Harder, not easier.
So like, here's the question: if we are going to give the people we know at Google a pass for their injustice because "don't hate the player, hate the game"... are we also going to give them a pass when they don't get involved in the attempt to get the laws changed against Google?
Most of the people I've known who work for Google seem to like Google, in no small part because of all of those benefits they receive due to all of the injustices they are enabling. Even if they feel a bit bad about what Google is doing, they still refuse to get involved because they claim it will get them in trouble at work... which is just the same problem, just shifted around a bit.
At the end of the day, all we have is "personal responsibility": if you keep shifting the blame for the things that happen in the world to the system and keep waiting for other people to come up with a solution, you've done nothing but become a demonstration for the tragedy of the commons.