Techdirt is rocking my world today. I had know idea Walmart and Amazon had jumped in the DVD by mail game and just heard Blockbuster jumped in the game last week. Now the price war is has started. Walmart, Blockbuster and Netflix are duking it out starting at $17 a month. That's pretty sweet.
The guys at techdirt wonder how well Blockbuster can leverage their local stores, but what I want to know is this, why bother with the mailing at that point Blockbuster? Why can't I just swing in and pick up the next three videos on my wish list and walk out with a card swipe if I choose and skip wasting the 3-6 day mail turnaround time. At this point it's pretty much an all you can eat membership at Blockbuster for $17 a month and no more worrying about late fees. I like it.
And finally, why are we still continuing to ship bits on plastic disks when its far more cost effective and effecient to ship them via the internet?
As long as the movie industry thinks it's a good idea to lock music to one computer with DRM it will always be more easy for consumers to rent or buy it on plastic and then rip it to digital devices sans-DRM so they can watch it when, where and how they want. Meanwhile the movie industry will still be under the grand illusion that somehow clinging to it's very costly and inneficient plastic disks is best because once upon a time it was secure. Though, now digitizing content from plastic is actually just as easy and sometimes easier than copying a pure ditial music form. So, the movie industry is going to foolishly hang on to a ridiculous fantasy surrounging the security of distributing music on plastic disks for as long as possible. Meanwhile the market will shift to a purely digital market where millions of new film artists and consumers bypass the middle men and .
Techdirt:Blockbuster Goes Into Price War Mode
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