I think I’d probably spend a hundred dollars or more straight away if all films were there I loved. I think a lot of people would pay a small amount for each film too. Blurays at $20 is too much and I’ve no interest in physical copies.
They care more about upholding copyright laws and byzantine licensing systems than about generating revenue and turning a profit.
Basically, like the rest of the copyright industries, the entire business model depends on copying requiring specialized industrial equipment. The Internet is an existential threat to that model because it is "flat" -- nothing in the technical standards of the Internet divides IP addresses into producers and consumers (for comparison, look at the standards for the cable system). Combined with the fact that a PC can run the same software as an "industrial grade" server, Hollywood et al. are facing a situation they cannot apply their business model to: one in which there are no centralized distributors they can be forced to pay for the right to distribute something.
Giving up a bit of short-term profit for the sake of protecting the long-term prospects of the industry is not so surprising. What I am more concerned with is the fact that politicians have sided with these particular industries, even though they have happily watched other obsolete business models die in the face of new technologies. The copyright industries have managed to convince everyone that their business model is in some way sacred and have co-opted governments in their strategic efforts.
I don‘t find the fact that they were able to convince politicians to aid them in this to be particularly surprising. After all, good PR is an essential part of their business model. Additionally, heir products also tend to have a certain emotional appeal.
"The very attempt at hedging their obsolete business model instead of adapting to a new situation will be their undoing."
I buy physical DVD & Blueray discs, as then I own the disc and can play it when I want.
BUT I avoid 4K Bluerays with their online-dongle.
I personally prefer buying over subscription based models (got burned several times).
Pretty much that model works well for Netflix.
I pay $10 or so a month. I don't watch 10 movies a month.
An other one is viewing over long periods of time e.g. if you're not binging them, series with north of a hundred episodes can take a long time to watch in full even if they're complete, but using a service like Netflix the series may be dropped while you're halfway through watching it.
I’d watch a lot more movies on iTunes if renting was $1 a pop.
I'm not interested in being a digital librarian. I just want access to the collections in a way that is inexpensive and close to universal.
At one time I thought Netflix was the answer, but they've carved out a much more interesting place to be - making excellent serialized television. They could drop all the movies from their collection and I would stay subscribed.
However they'd probably continue to turn a nice, steady, small income from long-tail stuff. Providing this stuff would become their core business, and they would turn from a mass-supply business to a low-margin archive.
Hoenstly, the whole thing is like watching the scifi short story "BUSINESS AS USUAL, DURING ALTERATIONS" in slo-mo.
Or maybe they should just adopt the web business model, where you don’t trade money for products like civilized humans but trade your sanity and privacy for “free” services.