Had this conversation online today, about Hollywood and downloading movies. I believe the major studios are just poking around so far, making license deals. They don’t begin to trust downloading or know how to deal with the implications. Look at how the video business has stumbled around with high-def DVDs and that stupid format war. I covered the industry for years and can report that they’re astoundingly tech-dumb at the top. The forward-lookers have to scrape for money for things like Internet advertising.
As the NYT reported earlier this year, there remain serious consumer satisfaction issues with movie downloads. (Most people were unable to program their VCRs dept.) My feeling is movie downloads will remain geekish for another 5 years, maybe longer. This is not entirely bad because Hollywood’s usual target audience is 18-34 (or younger), a pretty savvy crowd. Too many variables with too many computers when giant files are engaged. It needs some kind of killer app.
As usual, porn will lead the way on the tech front.
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