Gah.
No one ever accused Apple of price-consciousness, but come on: four freaking dollars to rent a movie over the Internet? Someone didn’t get the memo that the Internet is supposed to make movie rentals cheaper, not more costly, considering you don’t have to run a physical store to rent them.
So much for progress. Guess I’ll stick with the $2 bootlegs I rent down the street.
UPDATE: Sorry, I have to add, this is why “Mac” people are so annoying, as is the Apple-obsessed media: Because none of them will call bullshit when something is legitimately bullshit. Four dollars for a movie rental in the year 2008 is an insult to modern innovation.
When I lived in the states I paid $15 a month for Netflix. Unlimited rentals. True, I couldn’t transfer the movie onto my iPhone/iPod/iWhatever and watch it three times in three different sizes over a 24-hour period.
But show me a person who wants to pay $4 to do that, and I’ll show you me, backing away slowly and making no sudden moves that might stir that lunatic into conversation.
Will wrote:
I’m not saying it’s not too much to pay, but that’s the going rate for legal downloaded movie rentals:
http://www.amazon.com/Unbox-Video-Downloads/b?ie=UTF8&node=16261631
Amazon’s been doing it for quite a while now.
Posted on 18-Jan-08 at 11:05 pm | Permalink
D. Greene wrote:
Will? A dirty heathen mac APOLOGIST!!!
Posted on 19-Jan-08 at 3:09 am | Permalink
Tom wrote:
Very true Will. Also, word is the content owners didn’t want to irritate cable companies who offer pay-per-view movie rentals, hence the $4 dollar price, and only 24 hr rental period.
When it comes to these terms (price and duration of rental), Apple is, sadly, the bitch of the content owners.
Posted on 20-Jan-08 at 8:23 pm | Permalink
Dan H. wrote:
I can’t figure Apple out. It seems that they always manage to find a way to offer up the worst of both worlds in terms of media distribution. Itunes ’sells’ music which has DRM restrictions while emusic and traditional cd retailers sell music without restrictions (with a more limited catalog) and Rhapsody/Napster/Yahoo rent access to vast music libraries for a monthly fee. I can see why someone would want to own their music and do what ever they want with it and I can see why someone would accept limitations for greater access to content but I cannot fathom why someone would purchase music through itunes getting the worst of both worlds.
Ditto with the new movie rentals. I can see why someone would like to rent from a blockbuster or independent movie rental place or why they would enjoy the convenience of netflix (through the mail of streaming over the internet) but itunes has the worst of all options in terms of flexibility in watching movies and cost. The only added convenience over traditional rentals seems to be not having to walk to the video store.
Posted on 21-Jan-08 at 7:37 am | Permalink
neill wrote:
I find the benefit of the doubt that Apple consistently receives kind of fascinating. While the industry’s continued hard-on for DRM definitely isn’t Apple’s fault, the teeming hordes of internet mobs seem to pounce on everybody *but* Apple.
Must be the white plastic and chrome?
Posted on 21-Jan-08 at 12:50 pm | Permalink
Tom wrote:
In response to your update - I’m sure that if Apple could be selling cheaper rentals, they would be. Is it expensive? Yea, but content owners always try charging too much for what they consider the right to watch new-fangled technology. On Comcast, I can watch on-demand movies in HD for $6. That’s obviously way too much, and I’ll never do it. But I don’t jump all over Comcast for that, because ultimately the content owners call the shots, and those content owners are still happy with the revenue they make from physical media sales - sales which they don’t want to threaten anymore than they already naturally are with the advent of media storage units like Apple TV. Content owners know that physical media will be obsolete eventually. Yet they’re bound and determined to get as much profit out of physical media sales as possible while at the same time charging too much for digital downloads and rentals in order to slow down adoption.
I’ll agree with you over sticking to bootlegs - yet I still know that the real bad guys aren’t the distributors like Apple or Amazon, but the enormous movie studios who have the leverage to dictate whatever price they choose. Apple has already invested a lot of money into developing the Apple TV, and without content, that product simply doesn’t sell. The studios know that, hence, Apple is forced to accept stupid high prices.
Fanboyism Disclaimer: the only Apple products I own are an iPod and iPod Shuffle, and while I think the Apple TV is cool, it doesn’t have nearly enough codecs to make me even ponder buying one.
Posted on 21-Jan-08 at 9:25 pm | Permalink
pjk wrote:
jesus Tom.
everyone knows the content owners put these restrictions. and you’re right I don’t jump all over comcast for $6 pay-per-view movies… BECAUSE COMCAST DIDN’T HOLD AN ELABORATE LAUNCH EVENT COVERED ELABORATELY BY THE NATIONAL MEDIA TO ANNOUNCE ITS MEDIOCRE PRODUCT.
holy christ. every time I post about Apple and Ron Paul…
Posted on 22-Jan-08 at 5:15 am | Permalink
daniel silliman wrote:
Which obviously means that you should post about Apple and Ron Paul. I’m thinking something, like, how Apple and Ron Paul are exactly alike and you hate them both, though you don’t really hate them, just their fanatic followers and the hype…. or something. I think it’d be fun…. just imagine, you could throw out hilarious phrases like iPaul.
Maybe.
Posted on 22-Jan-08 at 7:48 am | Permalink
neill wrote:
No, what’s bizarre is that Apple TV costs — for the version with a cute, itty bitty 40GB drive — $230. That’s $230 up-front for a box that doesn’t even function as a DVR or do ANYTHING else useful at all (oh, wait, it’ll play YouTube clips… on your 40+” widescreen television) besides allow you to spend $4 on each self-destructing movie rental. That is completely absurd.
Posted on 22-Jan-08 at 8:19 am | Permalink
Dan H. wrote:
I find Apple’s whole business model very interesting.
1) Make great looking products.
2) Fill them with quality hardware (Except when it is cheapest and costs the least such as a decent sound card for ipods)
3) Don’t be afraid to charge for them.
4) Distribute low quality media (128 kbps ACC for music and low resolution video) at the same or a greater price than competitors.
5) Make Apple sold media seemlessly integrated with apple sold hardware.
6) Make Apple sold media useless without Apple hardware or software.
Posted on 22-Jan-08 at 8:44 pm | Permalink
Tom wrote:
Ahh, so what you really don’t like is that Apple is particularly good at marketing and manipulating the media. Sooo, Apple’s really good at business, and putz journalists eat it up. Sounds like you should be criticizing the tech media, not Apple for it’s expertise.
Don’t hate the playa’. Hate the game.
Posted on 22-Jan-08 at 10:05 pm | Permalink
Tom wrote:
BTW, why do you seem to hate it when people actually respond to and discuss what you’ve written? Seems slightly counterintuitive that you’d have a blog yet get so irritated at discussion.
Posted on 22-Jan-08 at 10:22 pm | Permalink
dave wrote:
I don’t like the Jimmy Fallon guy in the Mac commercials.
The character, who probably loves Maroon 5 and “Scrubs,” is appropriate, however, to represent the average user obsessed with Mac products.
Posted on 24-Jan-08 at 10:31 pm | Permalink