How about this: both cultures don't understand the other's perspective. For the most part we're consumers so we understand things from the consumer's perspective. Some of us will be cogs in a large business, but we won't be making business decisions so it is hard for us to understand their perspective. Some of us may be operating businesses, but chances are that they're so small that they play by different rules than major corporations. Again, it makes it hard for us to understand their perspective. (At least I assume that there aren't any executives from Fortune 500 companies around here.) Of course the misunderstanding extends the other way too. I'll go as far as suggesting that it isn't the technology they misunderstand, but the people who use it. For example: they are probably perfectly aware that DRM doesn't stop piracy and they are probably perfectly aware that pirates aren't their customers. They probably see DRM as a way to prevent casual copying, keeping people who would buy in the habit of buying and reducing the chances that they will start pirating. What they probably don't understand, because they're so wrapped up in protecting their own interests, is that consumers see this as an attack on their rights as consumers. Things like the doctorine of first sale, lending books to friends, reading books on another vendors' device simply doesn't register as relevant to these business people because they are focussed upon business needs rather than consumer needs.

These people aren't idiots. If they were, these companies would have collapsed a long time ago. But they are people with very different objectives and perspectives from us. They aren't monsters. They are simply doing their job.