Most movies / tv shows are already currently available digitally or without DRM (Netflix, Hulu, Apple, Amazon, etc).
I think the point of all of these articles is that they should be available day one, for $1.99 or some other trivial amount, until then they are just being ignorant.
This is not going to happen. Early adoptor content will always be higher, just like it is for many other things. The new Stephen King book is going to be $25 in hardcover for a while before it is $5.00 in paperback because all of his rabid fans are happy to pay that much to read his new work immediately.
The same goes for media, there is going to be a premium price period, even if it is digitally distributed, because it makes business sense to do so overall.
> Most movies / tv shows are already currently available digitally or without DRM (Netflix, Hulu, Apple, Amazon, etc).
NO. NO. NO. Where did you get this information? It might be that the US of A is nearing such a state of affairs, but over here in Europe, these services are either not available or devoid of content.
For instance, I like to follow Continuum, Justified and Game of Thrones. The only one of these that is available online over here is Justified.
"Watchever", the service that carries it, however, is crippled by weird licensing deals where seasons of TV series appear and disappear seemingly at random, because they only get the rights for a limited amount of time. So if I get a Watchever subscription, I _might_ be able to watch Justified _some of the time_.
As for the other two, they are just not available online. The poor sods that can stand to watch it in the dubbed version with commercial breaks will get to see both series on free TV with a delay of more than a year.
There is no reason to assume that watching Game of Thrones with a one year delay is problematic in any way. After all, everybody (in Germany) watches it at the same time, one year later, right?
For GoT there is actually a third option. I can get a subscription with Sky for 35€ per month, where I'll get tons of sports television and one TV series of interest: Game of Thrones.
Oh, and that subscription? First time you can cancel it is after 24 months. So if I want to watch two seasons of GoT, it'll cost me a mere 840€.
Do you see the problem here? If HBO were to shut up and take my money, I'd gladly pay ten bucks per episode to stream it. But that would be soooooo 21st century, wouldn't it?
All of those shows are created in the USA. Like most content it is going to take a while to move to other markets, there is no way around this. I really like watching shows on BBC, I have to wait for them to show up here. This is the way of life, and price discrimination (because it makes business sense).
> Do you see the problem here? If HBO were to shut up and take my money, I'd gladly pay ten bucks per episode to stream it. But that would be soooooo 21st century, wouldn't it?
Unfortunately HBO doesn't want your $7/month on Netflix to watch an entire season of Game of Thrones, then cancel. It costs $6 million/episode. They make more money by not catering to you as a customer even at $10/episode with no locked in money like they currently have via subscription model.
The thing is, there is no Netflix here. Neither is HBO by the way (yes, we _can't_ subscribe to HBO in Germany). There is currently no way for me to give them any money directly and the indirect methods are all horribly unattractive, as described above.
HBO is making money over here with licensing deals that cater to old-money television channels. This is short-sighted, since there are only two options regarding what can happen:
a) Everybody pirates GoT
b) There is long-term brand damage (to the GoT brand, not HBO), since the entire country is de-coupled from the viral GoT-hype.
They've found they are making more money as they currently stand, than if they switch which is why they unfortunately haven't. HBO revenue is at an all time high.
>Most movies / tv shows are already currently available digitally or without DRM (Netflix, Hulu, Apple, Amazon, etc).
I'd just like to point out that this is categorically untrue. What's available legally is a fraction of what's been produced, and even that fraction is fragmented across so many platforms with a lot of their own quirks and limitations.
And there is only one country in the world where it even approaches truth.
> for $1.99 or some other trivial amount, until then they are just being ignorant.
How did you get to this number? Its pretty bold to call them ignorant for pricing it this way if you don't have the economics to back this up. Fact of the matter is, content isn't cheap to produce and at some point either the cost to produce a Breaking Bad goes down, or there is a model that can keep the lights on for these studios.
Those long tail prices ($1.99/ep on iTunes and the like) are heavily subsidized by advertising during the airing of the show. Cable networks make almost more than half of their yearly revenue from advertising. The true price of each episode may be much more than $1.99 once you factor in how much is being paid by advertiser. A day one $1.99/ep may not even be economically feasible. The fact that television media costs so much more upfront has nothing to do with (consumer) price discrimination.
> This is not going to happen. Early adoptor content will always be higher, just like it is for many other things. The new Stephen King book is going to be $25 in hardcover for a while before it is $5.00 in paperback because all of his rabid fans are happy to pay that much to read his new work immediately.
Not entirely correct. For one, hard cover books are viewed as a luxury item by most. They last longer, look better, are easier to read (bigger print), etc. That does cost extra money, although I'm fairly sure they do get more of a profit from hard cover books.
Second, there are types of media where what you're stating isn't true. Take music, for instance. The price of CDs don't generally go down as an album ages. In fact, I seem to remember stores like Best Buy typically selling them for cheaper the first few days of a release.
Going to see a movie in a theater on Friday night for $10/person I think would be considered a luxury by many also.
I think the point I'm making is that the movies and music you want to be available day one for $CHEAP is not going to happen just because price discrimination makes sense for entertainment which isn't a necessity.
I think the point of all of these articles is that they should be available day one, for $1.99 or some other trivial amount, until then they are just being ignorant.
This is not going to happen. Early adoptor content will always be higher, just like it is for many other things. The new Stephen King book is going to be $25 in hardcover for a while before it is $5.00 in paperback because all of his rabid fans are happy to pay that much to read his new work immediately.
The same goes for media, there is going to be a premium price period, even if it is digitally distributed, because it makes business sense to do so overall.