Veep Drinking Game

Netflix and the Long Wait

The movie studios constantly complain about lower and lower ticket sales, yet don’t notice that the more they raise prices the less likely people are to sit in a theatre shoulder to shoulder, with talking people, heads in front, and an overpriced super large soda with popcorn. We now have plasma TV’s, surround sound systems, and beer at home. We also have Netflix. Netflix is of course contributing to brick and mortar video stores closing down, since they allow us to be even lazier and just log into a computer to get the movies we want to show up in our mailbox. Or even better, stream over the internet to our television.

The problem with this of course is new releases usually involve a long wait. I’ve had both Zombieland and The Hangover in the number 1 & 2 positions in my queue since they came out on DVD weeks ago. I could go buy them, but the costs of an actual DVD isn’t worth it. I could pay iTunes, Playstation, or Amazon the rental fee to download and watch it. But I’m paying Netflix a monthly subscription and don’t feel I should have to pay more just to watch a movie that they offer. So what I end up doing that most people are doing these days is, I download it from the internet for free, or find a friend who has already done that and copy it from him. This is free to me, and relatively easy to do.

  The movie studios need to wake up and see that the more they go after individuals for downloading movies illegally, they worse press they are going to get, and the more they are going to motivate a few intelligent individuals to come up with ways around the copy write protections they put into place. They need to set ticket prices at a rate that motivates people to go to the theatre, and they need to sell DVD’s to companies like Netflix at a rate that allows them to stock up on the movies. And Netflix needs to realize that they can’t keep movies on “long wait” forever, or people are going to start canceling subscriptions and going elsewhere. I’ve got quite a few friends who don’t use Netflix or Blockbuster. Not because they have a problem with the cost, but because it’s just as easy, and usually quicker to get new releases via other methods.




Comments

Quorri Scharmyn said…
The downloaded versions are often very high quality and you often can't tell the difference between them and what you would get from Netflix, especially if you're comparing it to streaming Netflix....

But, I'm sure the movie theatres could come up with 1,001 reasons why they can't afford to cut down prices on their offerings....even though they would definitely find a way to do it if some giant chain suddenly started offering the same products at half the price. Bastards.
MGD said…
I'll agree with you on the quality, but if there is one thing we have learned from MP3's is that people will accept lower quality for convience.