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It's amazing to me that big media still doesn't understand that competing on convenience is how they will turn casual thieves into happy customers. Making your

It's amazing to me that big media still doesn't understand that competing on convenience is how they will turn casual thieves into happy customers. Making your products as easy or easier to consume by legal means than not is how to win.

houseabsolute 17y ago
Seems to me like they probably did some kind of cost-benefit calculation that factored this in. They probably looked at it and said, "Rentals of DVDs that might otherwise have been bought are hurting us more than piracy that could be avoided by the earlier rentals." And, given how few pirates are likely to ever be paying customers (as piracy advocates frequently trumpet when studios issue bloated piracy cost numbers), I can see how this analysis might turn out to favor their current course of action.
- pyre 17y ago
  > And, given how few pirates are likely to ever be paying customers (as piracy advocates frequently trumpet when studios issue bloated piracy cost numbers) The argument is more of "1 download != 1 lost sale" because I can download and watch more movies for free than I could afford to watch at all but the lowest of prices. And even then "1 download != 1 watched movie" because I might be someone that is compulsively downloading as much as I can. In that case, the amount of movies that I can download is only limited by the bandwidth available to me (and the access to downloadable pirated movies). I could easily be downloading more movies than I could afford to buy/rent at any price. Therefore saying that each movie I've download is a 'lost sale' is disingenuous because converting me to a paying customer would only net you a revenue for a fraction of the amount of movies I've downloaded. The people that are compulsively 'hoarding' movies are not likely to become paying customers, but what percentage of downloaders/pirates are they? The studios don't have the answers to these questions as much as they might like to seem like they do. They only trot out the raw numbers for shock value, though I wager that behind closed doors they might have a better understanding that these numbers are bunk.
  - houseabsolute 17y ago
    > though I wager that behind closed doors they might have a better understanding that these numbers are bunk. The sentiment behind that wager is why I think this deal with Netflix is calculated, and that the outcome will be favorable (short run, long run all bets are off) for both the studios and Netflix.
anigbrowl 17y ago
We do understand that. But the economics of doing so are a lot more challenging than most people realize (see my long rant elsewhere in the thread).

houseabsolute 17y ago

Seems to me like they probably did some kind of cost-benefit calculation that factored this in. They probably looked at it and said, "Rentals of DVDs that might otherwise have been bought are hurting us more than piracy that could be avoided by the earlier rentals." And, given how few pirates are likely to ever be paying customers (as piracy advocates frequently trumpet when studios issue bloated piracy cost numbers), I can see how this analysis might turn out to favor their current course of action.

pyre 17y ago
> And, given how few pirates are likely to ever be paying customers (as piracy advocates frequently trumpet when studios issue bloated piracy cost numbers) The argument is more of "1 download != 1 lost sale" because I can download and watch more movies for free than I could afford to watch at all but the lowest of prices. And even then "1 download != 1 watched movie" because I might be someone that is compulsively downloading as much as I can. In that case, the amount of movies that I can download is only limited by the bandwidth available to me (and the access to downloadable pirated movies). I could easily be downloading more movies than I could afford to buy/rent at any price. Therefore saying that each movie I've download is a 'lost sale' is disingenuous because converting me to a paying customer would only net you a revenue for a fraction of the amount of movies I've downloaded. The people that are compulsively 'hoarding' movies are not likely to become paying customers, but what percentage of downloaders/pirates are they? The studios don't have the answers to these questions as much as they might like to seem like they do. They only trot out the raw numbers for shock value, though I wager that behind closed doors they might have a better understanding that these numbers are bunk.
- houseabsolute 17y ago
  > though I wager that behind closed doors they might have a better understanding that these numbers are bunk. The sentiment behind that wager is why I think this deal with Netflix is calculated, and that the outcome will be favorable (short run, long run all bets are off) for both the studios and Netflix.

anigbrowl 17y ago

We do understand that. But the economics of doing so are a lot more challenging than most people realize (see my long rant elsewhere in the thread).