4 ms·

Actually, it doesn't quite treat it as a 'market failure'. It does indeed take it seriously and beat it at part of its own game (releasing shows when people wa

Actually, it doesn't quite treat it as a 'market failure'. It does indeed take it seriously and beat it at part of its own game (releasing shows when people want them) but it still can't compete on price. And I think that doesn't matter. Give people easy, legal access to the shows at a decent price and they'll pay. (Well, some won't, but some never will.) That's the best you can hope for.

jcr 16y ago
Actually, they are competing on price -- they offer advertisement supported downloads for free 1 week after initial release and TV airing. This does mean they are not competing on timeliness with the free/ad version, but it's a reasonable trade-off.
- gilgad13 16y ago
  Downloads, or just streams?
danilocampos 16y ago
Competing by convenience can buy you a lot of price flexibility. The less mainstream the content, the more challenging piracy becomes. The iTunes model was built with this in mind: make it absurdly easy to buy any song, make the price reasonable enough to pay for the convenience. It's a smart way to deal with content.
ZoFreX 16y ago
I've always said this regarding piracy - the reason many people pirate is that it is faster, easier and cheaper than paying for content. There is no system by which I can pay money to watch TV shows as soon as they are done airing in the USA, I either have to wait for the DVDs, hope the show airs here too, or pirate it. To regurgitate a popular TV quote: Shut up and take my money! Those services that do exist are all inferior to piracy. LoveFilm streaming does not work well on my PC, and has a poor selection on the PS3 (not to mention that if any torrent website was down as long as PSN has been, someone would have created a new one by now). Hopefully one day systems will exist whereby I can play any song and watch any film or tv episode from my home via the internet in exchange for cash. I'd probably pay £100 a month for that (Spotify is a bargain at £10 a month) - but I can't. On the TV side of things, there is no existing service that even comes close to piracy + XBMC.
- mmt 16y ago
  Hopefully one day systems will exist whereby I can play any song and watch any film or tv episode from my home via the internet in exchange for cash. I hope so, too, and I'm in the US. I'd probably pay £100 a month for that That's a bit steeper than I'd pay, but I'm not not a heavy consumer of content (and, basically, never consume individual[1] songs). I might still pay that if it were for my entire household and not per device, since I could offer it to renters as a benefit. I would even go so far as to pay à la carte for the content, but only if it were a reasonable "rental" price. The current Amazon prices are too steep, especially since the selection is so limited and the interface is separate from Netflix's service. I'm not, however, willing to "buy" a permanent license, especially to a TV show. [1] As opposed to radio-style where someone else picks which songs are played.
- rick888 16y ago
  "I've always said this regarding piracy - the reason many people pirate is that it is faster, easier and cheaper than paying for content." It's the beginning of the entitlement generation. People aren't getting what they want, so they take it. Unless the content is $0 and you can get it whenever you want, the vast majority of people pirating will not stop. I've haven't seen the end of the excuses. There are plenty of legal services for music (trying for free and buying for cheap). Yet, piracy is stronger than ever. What makes you think it will be any different for movies? I also think about piracy when I start a new business idea. I no longer release any commercial apps..only commercial services.
  - nitrogen 16y ago
    I see two troublesome arguments here that are often used by the media industries: 1. "It's those @$#% kids!" In other words, promulgating and perpetuating an unnecessary generational divide. The "entitlement generation" will soon enough be running the show, so the incumbents are only doing humanity a disservice by taking a scorched-earth-like policy instead of figuring out how to run a sustainable business that satisfies the demands of the technology-enabled consumer. 2. "Pirates gonna pirate." There is no "pirate" demographic, no one reason why people copy instead of buying. Maybe they've watched the first season of a show on Hulu, but the later seasons are unavailable. Maybe they'll pay for content or watch ads, but not both at the same time (Hulu). Maybe they missed an episode of their favorite show and don't want to wait 30 days to a year for it to show up on Hulu/Netflix/DVD. Assuming that all pirates are of equally dubious moral character is defeatist, elitist, and self-damaging. It's defeatist and self-damaging because it's ignoring the potential to expand one's market to reach some of the pirates. Each incremental step out of the inglorious dark ages of big media and into the digital light will capture another n% of the currently-pirate market. It's elitist because it regards having a different moral code as inferior, when in reality, it's just different. This addresses your second-to-last paragraph. Pandora is a pain because it's deliberately crippled. If you get a mix you don't like, you can only downvote or skip a few songs before you're forced to listen to whatever they play, and that restriction applies across all of your stations. In other cases, it's a deficiency of marketing/awareness/trust, user interface, selection, ISP bandwidth/throttling, or pricing. Finally, give it time. The typical college graduate has probably "acquired" more music over the past 7 years of their lives than they could ever have hoped to pay for. Some of those will eventually convert to paying customers as they begin earning real money, and their increased access to creative content during school may have inspired them to greater societal contributions, from which all of us can benefit.

jcr 16y ago

Actually, they are competing on price -- they offer advertisement supported downloads for free 1 week after initial release and TV airing. This does mean they are not competing on timeliness with the free/ad version, but it's a reasonable trade-off.

gilgad13 16y ago
Downloads, or just streams?

danilocampos 16y ago

Competing by convenience can buy you a lot of price flexibility. The less mainstream the content, the more challenging piracy becomes. The iTunes model was built with this in mind: make it absurdly easy to buy any song, make the price reasonable enough to pay for the convenience. It's a smart way to deal with content.

ZoFreX 16y ago

I've always said this regarding piracy - the reason many people pirate is that it is faster, easier and cheaper than paying for content. There is no system by which I can pay money to watch TV shows as soon as they are done airing in the USA, I either have to wait for the DVDs, hope the show airs here too, or pirate it. To regurgitate a popular TV quote: Shut up and take my money! Those services that do exist are all inferior to piracy. LoveFilm streaming does not work well on my PC, and has a poor selection on the PS3 (not to mention that if any torrent website was down as long as PSN has been, someone would have created a new one by now). Hopefully one day systems will exist whereby I can play any song and watch any film or tv episode from my home via the internet in exchange for cash. I'd probably pay £100 a month for that (Spotify is a bargain at £10 a month) - but I can't. On the TV side of things, there is no existing service that even comes close to piracy + XBMC.

mmt 16y ago
Hopefully one day systems will exist whereby I can play any song and watch any film or tv episode from my home via the internet in exchange for cash. I hope so, too, and I'm in the US. I'd probably pay £100 a month for that That's a bit steeper than I'd pay, but I'm not not a heavy consumer of content (and, basically, never consume individual[1] songs). I might still pay that if it were for my entire household and not per device, since I could offer it to renters as a benefit. I would even go so far as to pay à la carte for the content, but only if it were a reasonable "rental" price. The current Amazon prices are too steep, especially since the selection is so limited and the interface is separate from Netflix's service. I'm not, however, willing to "buy" a permanent license, especially to a TV show. [1] As opposed to radio-style where someone else picks which songs are played.
rick888 16y ago
"I've always said this regarding piracy - the reason many people pirate is that it is faster, easier and cheaper than paying for content." It's the beginning of the entitlement generation. People aren't getting what they want, so they take it. Unless the content is $0 and you can get it whenever you want, the vast majority of people pirating will not stop. I've haven't seen the end of the excuses. There are plenty of legal services for music (trying for free and buying for cheap). Yet, piracy is stronger than ever. What makes you think it will be any different for movies? I also think about piracy when I start a new business idea. I no longer release any commercial apps..only commercial services.
- nitrogen 16y ago
  I see two troublesome arguments here that are often used by the media industries: 1. "It's those @$#% kids!" In other words, promulgating and perpetuating an unnecessary generational divide. The "entitlement generation" will soon enough be running the show, so the incumbents are only doing humanity a disservice by taking a scorched-earth-like policy instead of figuring out how to run a sustainable business that satisfies the demands of the technology-enabled consumer. 2. "Pirates gonna pirate." There is no "pirate" demographic, no one reason why people copy instead of buying. Maybe they've watched the first season of a show on Hulu, but the later seasons are unavailable. Maybe they'll pay for content or watch ads, but not both at the same time (Hulu). Maybe they missed an episode of their favorite show and don't want to wait 30 days to a year for it to show up on Hulu/Netflix/DVD. Assuming that all pirates are of equally dubious moral character is defeatist, elitist, and self-damaging. It's defeatist and self-damaging because it's ignoring the potential to expand one's market to reach some of the pirates. Each incremental step out of the inglorious dark ages of big media and into the digital light will capture another n% of the currently-pirate market. It's elitist because it regards having a different moral code as inferior, when in reality, it's just different. This addresses your second-to-last paragraph. Pandora is a pain because it's deliberately crippled. If you get a mix you don't like, you can only downvote or skip a few songs before you're forced to listen to whatever they play, and that restriction applies across all of your stations. In other cases, it's a deficiency of marketing/awareness/trust, user interface, selection, ISP bandwidth/throttling, or pricing. Finally, give it time. The typical college graduate has probably "acquired" more music over the past 7 years of their lives than they could ever have hoped to pay for. Some of those will eventually convert to paying customers as they begin earning real money, and their increased access to creative content during school may have inspired them to greater societal contributions, from which all of us can benefit.