Netflix siding with the devil. Supports 30-day rental ban on new movie releases.

Mark it on your calendars folks. Today is the day that Netflix, once the great and pioneering business in the movie world, is now no more. They are merely an extension of studio lobbyists right hand. The dark picture is far from fictional nor is the 30-day rental ban. As of late, studios have been frantically trying to cook up schemes to return their profits to the more prosperous days when they held an outright monopoly on physical media and content. The internet and digital led way to more consumer friendly technologies and services which in turn caused those deep pockets of studios to dry up. Forget adapting to change and reinventing your business model. It seems instead of actually “getting with the times”, studios prefer to lock down and push their market further into the past with a 30-day rental ban.

The topic isn’t new and has been raised several times before. It’s just as it sounds — new movies are buy only for the first 30-days. You see, the idiots that run these movie studios think that since most people rent movies, if they take away our right to do so we’ll have no other option but to buy said content. They’re forgetting the main reason we rent in the first place. Movies are being released in more and more quantity in hopes that for ever 10 movies, 1 will be a blockbuster hit. Fruitlessly throwing away money on god awful movies is dumb. That’s why we rent. **Studios take note**

What’s even more disturbing and downright sad is that Netflix, a rental service themselves is siding with Hollywood. Surprising at first until you realize that even Netflix isn’t enjoying success like they used to. Naturally, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Nice Netflix. Real nice.

The only thing this artificial ban will produce is more pirating and less people buying movies. Ok, I’ll make one concession. Initially, with a buy only option, we may see an increase in movie sales. That is until consumers quickly become fed up, waiting until the 30-day mark has passed and then unleashing rental mania. Either way you look at it, the movie studios and Hollywood’s failure to adapt to the year 2002 (as they’re stuck in 1984) is only the proverbial “shooting of the foot”. If they loose so much money to where we begin seeing a 5:1 ratio of terrible to good movies instead of the current bajillion:1 ratio (rough scientific estimate) then so be it. I won’t complain.

The fact that Netflix is rolling over is disappointing. Hopefully other startups and digital based companies don’t follow suit. Netflix was great and still is. But climbing into bed with the enemy is a sure way to get killed. Think it’s coming?

TechCrunch

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Author: Mike Norris

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Gadget lover, smartphone collector, and beer connoisseur. I've been writing about gadgets for three years now and loving every minute of it. Outside of the digital landscape, I enjoy being active outdoors. I'm always up for a good conversation, so feel free to drop me a line!