I figured today I would continue the theme of internet piracy.
But instead of a rant today, I think I might give a better business model to the corporations out there. I, as a consumer of multimedia as a form of entertainment, feel I am qualified to speak on this subject as this is what I want to see happen. And from what I've read around the internet, I'm probably not the only one.
The fact of the matter is the old delivery systems for getting media into a household are failing. Who buys a CD now days? Or a DVD? You can't very well fit a CD or DVD into a smartphone can you? And VHS? who even knows what that is any more. I have to smile at the fact that when I have children I will be recalling tales of when there was no such thing as the internet (or probably more to the point when all there was was dial up), when a 1 gig flash drive cost $300 (yip I remember those days), when I brought movies on VHS and a TV took up a small corner of your room instead of fitting neatly on the wall. I will be telling them about mobile phones the size of bricks (and just as indestructible) and how laptops were the size of suitcases with less power than the clock on my wall. Sometimes its a wonder what has happened in my life time alone. What I'm describing here is the last 20 years of technology ... what will it look like in 20 years time from now?
Back to the point. There is no CD drive on my smartphone. Its more of a pain in the butt to buy a CD, rip it, then convert it, then upload it to my phone. I can do all that from my phone. Or I can skip the CD part and just download from someone who has done it for me then upload to my phone. This option being a lot cheaper of course. If you use a service like iTunes then you pay a fee, if you use bit torrents ...
CDs, DVDs, even Blurays, these are all forms of media that will die out soon. Probably in the next 5 years. DVDs are knocking on that door already because a Bluray player will only set you back a couple dollars more than a DVD player (if you can find a DVD player). CDs are all but extinct from services like iTunes.
This is not a piece on the extinction of physical media. This is to show that in a very short time, we are looking at the extinction of any media that is not digital. And any company that produces media, whether it be movies, TV shows, music ... what ever, will need to accept this. Its already happened effectively. Bit torrents and piracy now allow the user to download say a TV show, watch it at their leisure, watch said TV show over and over again at the user's convenience and be ad free. How can classical TV channels compete with that? A user watching a show without those annoying ads (which are on at exactly the same time on every channel so you can't just flip between shows) and enjoying the show when they have time to watch it.
How dare we do anything that is makes our lives easier.
What is needed is a service that allows people access to this. I currently pay for subscription TV. Me and my husband do so because he wants to watch his sports games. They are only available on this service. Which I think is wrong but hey that's another rant. This service is terrible. I love to watch documentaries. But channels that were typically known for their documentaries have now deteriorated into a mass of hillbilly reality shows. What I really want to watch is hidden deep in amongst the steaming piles of crap reality TV that they fill these channels with. And often these shows are on at 2am in the morning. Hello ... I sleep at this time of the day.
I watch documentaries so I can increase my knowledge and expand my mind. Watching hillbillies fish for cat fish by getting them to bite of their arms feels more like killing my brain cells. Or watching a bunch of guys with no jobs fight over a storage locker. I'm sure that appeals to those who didn't finish high school.
If bango music would make a suitable sound track ... I turn it off. So the subscription service I pay for often goes unwatched for long periods of time as usually there is only one game a week my husband wants to watch and even then its only for a couple months a year. I feel a bit ripped off.
What me and so many others want is a service where we could pay say a flat fee and get to download and or stream what ever we wanted and watch it when we wanted. Kind of like Netflix. Or Hulu. But for the whole world. I already pay an arm and a leg for the crappy internet in my country. Why can't I have an account somewhere that lets me watch all this stuff and view it when I want as I want?
Because too many big name companies are afraid they will loose money.
Tough titties ... your already loosing money so to speak with every download because you would rather ignore what the people want, label them criminals, and not take their money than give them what they are starving for.
I have no sympathy.
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