okay, thanks for the numbers. they sure are enormous.
some points though:
people would buy far fewer DVDs
people are anyway not buying DVDs, whether the studios like it or not. the studios can't do anything about it. I can't remember the last time I bought either a movie DVD or a music DVD. I go to spotify or netflix, or a movie theater, so simply won't watch it, if DVD is my only option. Others might be different though.
I doubt it at that price point
If I go to the theater once, the absolute minimum I spend is 20$ (ticket + popcorn), and this is for a single guy. If I had a family, it would be in the 50-100$ range, especially in big cities. so 50$ is actually much cheaper, and my guess is many people would go for it.
One thing is sure - the whole situation is fucked up. It has to change, it will change. It is just that the transition period is going to be awful. And we get to watch it, and be a part of it.
> people are anyway not buying DVDs, whether the studios like it or not
You're really out of touch with reality. In 2011, the top 100 movies sold 146,455,878 DVD copies (estimated, not all retailers disclose exact numbers).
Here's last week's North American DVD (non-Blu-Ray) sales:
> If I had a family, it would be in the 50-100$ range, especially in big cities. so 50$ is actually much cheaper, and my guess is many people would go for it.
This is working against you... in arguing that people would spend $50/mo for this because it's an alternative to theaters, you're also arguing it would cannibalize the revenue from box office sales. Remember it was 480 million subscribers for just the MPAA's 6 studios to break even if the box office revenue was untouched.
There's only around a billion computers in the world -- so here's a good recap of your plan: Get every single computer owner in the world to subscribe to a $50/month studio-backed streaming service. If they can't get every computer owner in the world to subscribe, then they will make less money than they do today not offering the service.
That's all it takes to see why the service doesn't exist.
Do you have numbers on year-over-year sales for DVDs?
While they're still big, I would assume that they're declining.I think what the parent commenter was trying to make as the streaming is how people are going to be consuming information. Not everyone's there yet, of course, but thats where things are shifting to.
It would make sense for MPAA to set itself up to succeed in the coming world where the majority of people want to stream their entertainment,rather than trying to preserve a model that is slowly being phased out.
What would make sense is to set itself up to succeed in the streaming world AND try to preserve a model that is slowly being phased out. Which, unsurprisingly, is exactly what they're doing. They ARE licensing movies to Netflix, Amazon VOD/Prime, iTunes, Hulu, etc. after all. They're just picking and choosing what parts of their catalog to stream and when to offer it such that it won't cannibalize the revenue from DVD sales and other sources they don't need to give up yet.
All they have to do to maximize revenue in the coming world is to shift timelines -- release more movies faster on the streaming services as the effect of doing so has less of an effect on other distribution channels.
I would agree with you, but they're trying to preserve the dying model's functions in the new model, which doesn't operate like that.
I completely agree with you, that doing something like you mentioned makes sense, but it doesn't excuse them from trying to censor the internet, buy congress and be an online bully that gets to take down entire sites for actions their users have done.
some points though:
people would buy far fewer DVDs people are anyway not buying DVDs, whether the studios like it or not. the studios can't do anything about it. I can't remember the last time I bought either a movie DVD or a music DVD. I go to spotify or netflix, or a movie theater, so simply won't watch it, if DVD is my only option. Others might be different though.
I doubt it at that price point If I go to the theater once, the absolute minimum I spend is 20$ (ticket + popcorn), and this is for a single guy. If I had a family, it would be in the 50-100$ range, especially in big cities. so 50$ is actually much cheaper, and my guess is many people would go for it.
One thing is sure - the whole situation is fucked up. It has to change, it will change. It is just that the transition period is going to be awful. And we get to watch it, and be a part of it.