The music industry lost 10 years believing that DRM works and it may never recover. Now the publishing industry is looking to do the same . . .
Software is the only medium in which DRM has any hope of succeeding long-term, and that's only because it typically needs to be managed as a service. Video can tolerate it for now because the file sizes are too large to conveniently separate from the physical media, but that won't be true for long.
For most people, DRM doesn't bother them at all until stuff stops working.
So far, DVDs pretty much play in every DVD player. (If less PC makers would ship Windows without third party DVD software, more people would care.)
Music was closest to having real DRM problems, but almost every non-hacker I know is perfectly fine with Apple's DRM because they only listen to music in iTunes or on an iPod. If other devices ever really became popular, non-DRM music might finally become essential to the average person.
So as long as the average person only uses the Kindle (or Nook or Sony) and never tries to port their DRMed ebooks to a new, incompatible device, they won't feel the pain of DRM. But first we need average people to start using ereaders for a while, which I think is close to happening.
Sadly, I think book DRM could be successful. Amazon is trying to create a de facto platform - rather than just a device - and so long as they port it to as many devices as they can, it will do well. Many are avoiding Apple's book service for this reason.
Game consoles have been successful so far with closed systems, and they've learned over the years how to improve their security, a key one being forced firmware updates.
That's a very particular case because no one has the expectation of being able to play a game for one system on another, and there are legitimate technical reasons for that being hard to do.
The music industry lost 10 years believing that DRM works and it may never recover.
I think it's fair to say that they still believe it - or rather, they haven't moved on to the only valid business model in this day and age: music as a service.
To wit, pg's advice to wannabe music startups: "Don't do it, and if you do, be prepared for a long and bloody fight".
Software is the only medium in which DRM has any hope of succeeding long-term, and that's only because it typically needs to be managed as a service. Video can tolerate it for now because the file sizes are too large to conveniently separate from the physical media, but that won't be true for long.