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Well, that's what you might guess from the title and from the first half of the article where he posits that Apple _could_ buy Hollywood if it wanted to. But t

• jonnathanson 15y ago
  Where strategic acquisition of distribution would make some sense is as a competitive advantage over Amazon and Netflix (and over any similar competitors who might emerge). But to secure exclusive rights on key pieces of content, Apple would need to pay an exhorbitant amount of cash -- essentially, protection money to Hollywood to keep content out of competitive hands. This also forces Apple into the game of picking hits, by betting on which pieces of content are going to be worth buying exclusive rights for. Hit-picking is a notoriously tricky business. (Even Hollywood gets it right only about 10% of the time). Strategic, overall partnerships with key content providers -- HBO, for instance -- might make a great deal of sense. But to do so would be to place Apple's fate in the hands of HBO's development arm, i.e., to bet that HBO will keep turning out hits at the rate it currently is. Perhaps a hybrid approach here is best: prime the pump with some exclusive, big-studio content, but over time, focus on developing a content ecosystem that is attractive to content developers the way the App Store is to software developers. Hollywood is a very pricey middle-man for content development; the long-term goal should be to build up the independent development system. If nothing else, this forces Hollywood's costs down by introducing legitimate competition.