The entire point of DRM-Free is precisely to provide the ability to sidestep that problem, ie, if you're going out of your way to buy DRM-Free installers for longevity / game preservation reasons and not backing them up, then you're doing it wrong. Someone here used the example of going into a high-street store, buying a music CD and then instead of bringing it home, you leave it in the store and travel to the store to listen to it each time, then react with surprise that you lose it when the store closes with your only copy of your CD still inside vs the common sense of keeping a copy at home...

I don't know what games you're referring to but as someone who owns +2,000 games stretching back to the 80's, the vast majority of old games don't get updated at all (doubly so for the many developers no longer in business or reacquired by a different studio), nor can you even rebuy many of them "digitally" (eg, No One Lives Forever). For moddable games with community levels, etc, the vast majority of mods, source ports, etc, still work perfectly fine. Eg, the many mods / community levels for Thief 1-2, Morrowind, Oblivion, Torchlight, Deus Ex, etc, games still work just as well for the older disc versions as they do "digital" versions. Doom 1-2 don't need rebuying to drop the WADs into GZDoom - the 25 years apart files even CRC the same. ScummVM games don't need rebuying either to drop the data files into that. Thief's NewDark works just as well for retail discs as it does GOG. Most widescreen tweaks as listed on WSGF, work just as well for retail discs and many new digital releases rarely contain unofficial / widescreen patches or modern source-ports, so you end up tweaking the "updated" versions anyway.

Likewise, being on Steam and having DRM hardly guarantees updates. See the many examples including how Bioshock 1-2 Remastered were abandoned by devs in an appalling state still with newly introduced game-breaking bugs and save-game corruption (that the originals didn't even have). Or see Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director's Cut (that was both accidentally based on an earlier build and thus reintroduces chronic stutter plus is visually uglier in many scenes due to being based on a console build). And by far most "premium updates" these days are endless paid-for Remasters. You own Baldur's Gate original, NWN Diamond, on Steam? Ker-ching - better open that wallet because the Enhanced / Definitive editions of many remade games sure aren't given out for free "because DRM and Steam"...

Overall, it sounds like you're mixing up several arguments and seeing it through some severely rose-tinted spectacles as although some new GOG games are lacking / lagging in updates, many games on Steam new & old alike are also a buggy abandoned mess with 'DRM vs developer laziness' clearly being two completely different issues.

That's false. Steam forces their client to update whether you want it or not, which causes problems in various cases (they drop support for your OS, it breaks under Wine, etc.). Since there's no other way of getting and running your games, that means you're either screwed or you have to waste time finding workarounds. I've re-bought games on GOG that I had on Steam just to get rid of the forced client issues, which have become an increasing problem in the past year or so. That was your fault. Let's hypothetically say Steam and GOG both shut down and see what happens:

Case 1: you didn't bother to download your games. You lost them all on Steam, and on GOG.
Case 2: you did download your games. You still lost them all on Steam regardless, but you do have your GOG games.

DRM-free wins, objectively and factually. Sticking your head in the sand and proclaiming that there's no difference does not actually make it true. I get that you're butt-hurt about the dotemu thing, but that was on you; just face it and take responsibility.

I lost Manhunt 2 when Direct2Drive shut down, but that was on me because I never backed it up and ignored emails about it closing down. If you're not backing up your GOG games, or at least don't do it when GOG announce something is changing, then it's on you. Has zero to do with DRM, which prevents backing up from even being a real thing.

I've never seen so many fallacies disguised as a try at nuance while poorly hiding a lack of underlying understanding of the issue at hand. And as a cherry on the top of all that crap, you shielded yourself from future criticism by indirectly dismissing everyone who might disagree with you as a fanboy inside an echo-chamber.

I guess I have myself to blame for continuing to read after 'nothing wrong with DRM'.

You never truly own something and it can be taken away at a moment's notice.

Also, bulky software to load a game, so there is no need for that

I'm just not interested in DRM of any type. If the game has DRM, it's not for me. I just want the game.

Prices usually don't differ. Taxes are included in the purchase price of firmware. State taxes on imports in the US to, say, residents of NY or California are added with postage. (It's cheaper to buy products from Amazon.com and pay shipping than to buy from Amazon.com.au at the moment, though this could change. When we lived in Britain it was the reverse, because Amazon was competing with the local companies for market share.)
Also Europe uses PAL (like Australia) which is a superior standard.
The USA uses NTSC.
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Are you sure? My spouse (who lived in the US more recently than me, I was there when I was in grade six, which was before the invention of the DVD and, in fact, even the Sony Betamax) recalls the same process. As well as Australia, I can confirm absolutely the process works in models for sale in the UK and Europe (unsurprisingly, in The Netherlands the price of a Philips device matchs or beats any imports). If you google your brand & model, there are specific instructions on how to remove region enforcement (typically all require the same six-key combination when viewing the DVD set-up screen on a particular menu).

PS This does not invalidate your point, though, I seem to recall that people can buy a player that is not region-locked, a bit like buying a computer that has been pre-overclocked versus overclocking a vanilla CPU/GPU yourself (but less complicated).

edit: Gog cannot have two links in one paragraph.
edit2: added post scriptum.