Well, from a purely market point of view, why would a market actor choose possibility A (get the movie for free) over possibility B (pay for the movie)? Or why

Well, from a purely market point of view, why would a market actor choose possibility A (get the movie for free) over possibility B (pay for the movie)? Or why would they choose B (pay for the movie) rather than C (not care about the movie at all)? The successful answers to these questions have always been those where people choosing B actually get something (be it a warm fuzzy feeling of supporting good movies, a nice box, or just the convenience of an interface that allows you to simply find and watch a movie). If you want to rely purely on IP protection for that movie, good luck - people can watch other people's movies, the next YouTuber's shoestring budget entertainment, or a football game? Why wouldn't they read a book, or spend an evening knitting nice red socks. There is no inherent law of nature that says that we need more film producers or film directors, or that they should make more money than the singer-songwriter in the bar down the street, or that guy who makes his living composing music for films and adverts once in a while. Or more than the guy who spent 5-10 years of his life trying to sell pet food over the internet and noticing that the business model is not competitive. It's the investors betting on (a) people finding your film more attractive than knitting red socks, and (b) you being able to monetize that fact properly. "Monetization" can come in all sorts of shapes: selling individual copies of the movie, selling licenses to distribution companies (including Netflix), putting adverts on the movie, or streaming. Given that we have Google Play and Netflix, you should think that there is some value in allowing an app store model of people buying any film they like. That this doesn't happen is partly due to the rightsholders of these films (usually larger companies) not seeing the point of that when people could also watch new movies (= more revenue for them). You could also make an argument about culture. It would open your eyes to the many ways that the entertainment industry - or the majority of it in terms of capitalization and revenue - is not concerned about culture at all, and to the many ways that what we have now - in terms of grassroots/pastime content creation, publically funded culture (e.g. orchestras and theaters in many places), and large projects (such as films or video games) - of creating, revising and sustaining cultural artifacts.