DLNA is everywhere but seems never to have taken off. Anyone want to elaborate on how or why it's so terrible? Has it been tripped up by DRM or is it just bad UI?
There are a whole host of issues. DLNA was defined back in 2003 and makes some choices that don't make a lot of sense now. It was designed to be used by set top boxes and computers in a mostly static environment - it doesn't really take mobile use cases into account. For example, the concept of streaming media does not exist in DLNA (it assumes that you'll always have the full file at the start). It also imposes a lot of UI choices (all DLNA devices are presented as a hierarchy of folders).
It's a standard that all DLNA providers implement and everyone does a little bit differently. Between devices from the same company it can work alright, but any time you need to connect up devices between manufacturers it's a crap shoot.
It's not really a bad standard, it's just an old standard, designed for use cases that already have pretty ok solutions (plug your computer into your TV, copy the files to whatever device you want them on, etc). It doesn't address the use cases most people have for their media now (i.e. can I play spotify on my TV).
