Posted by Derek Janssen on 01/02/07 00:11

dgates wrote:

> On 1 Jan 2007 15:24:36 -0800, "altcollect" <altcollect@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>>Is anyone purchasing movie downloads from sites like Amazon?
>>I understand why selecting and downloading favorite music tracks (mp3)
>>would catch on, but don't understand paying $10.00 to download a movie.
>
>
> If downloading were (a LOT) faster, and if my home were configured
> correctly so that my computer could output to the big family room TV,
> I could certainly see paying a little more than the price of a video
> store rental to download a DVD quality movie to watch.
>
> Something tells me the technology's not there yet, so Amazon must be
> offering something else, eh?

I think in one sense, we could answer that question a "yes", but not as
a compliment:
http://money.cnn.com/2006/09/18/technology/lewis_unbox.fortune/index.htm

Point is, Amazon's download service only exists because:
A) they wanted the chutzpah of announcing it literally a day before Apple's,
B) they wanted to grab deals with every other studio early, and leave
Steve with nothing but his own Disney/Pixar/Miramax to sell,
C) they tried to kiss up to the other studios ("C'mon, you don't wanna
play in the snooty rich kid's yard!") by letting them charge any
unreasonably exorbitant fees they liked, unlike Steve's "communist"
$9.99 flat-prices, which they'd been publicly complaining about, and
D) since Amazon wasn't in the hardware business, they didn't really know
how all this "download" stuff worked--They just figured, we'd, like,
want a movie on our computer, 'n stuff, so we wouldn't have to leave the
house.

(Meanwhile, Jobs/Apple is still a month away from announcing that iTV
wireless living-room interface box for the Apple Store downloads, even
though we're all pretty much just doing it for our portable iPods, which
Amazon can't handle.)

Derek Janssen (IOW, it's Wal-Mart v. Netflix all over again)
ejanss@comcast.net

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