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Keep it up Film studios, you are prolonging physical media, which is what I want to be honest. :D

Gotta love people who defend spending over a grand for a phone while screeching and howling with rage over a movies costing 20 bucks...

There is a certain contradiction there, sure, but when they're essentially copies of movies that have already made their money back many times over that cost almost nothing to duplicate, it obviously a bit different to manufacturing physical electronics that even to the manufacturers cost upwards of hundreds to make, transport and repay R&D for...

If a movie has made its costs back in the cinema theatre, then had VHS, DVD and BD sales there comes a point where perhaps a more valid comparison for most movies would be a mobile phone from 20 years ago that would cost a tiny fraction of its original price now, not the latest iPhone costing a grand...
 
Do that many people watch the same movie more than once? What is the point of buying a movie?

Sometimes I just like to watch the best parts of movies I have on my local network. Will browse around for best action scenes, comedy skits, etc.
 
So Apple wants a lower price for content that they don't produce while they charge higher, than industry standard, prices for their hardware.

Exactly... So they can turn around and use those lower prices to promote and sell their hardware at whatever price they want.

Amazon will be blowing the doors out of everything soon, so the studios do need to care.
 
i'd pay 5 for 1080, 10 for 4K. Maybe 15 for same day theater release.

They better offer a way to upgrade at a reasonable amount.

I like your pricing structure above. Along the lines with my opinion, but I'd prefer 4k was in line with 1080p content prices! All they are doing is converting it different!
 
Interesting thoughts. I think there are two bigger challenges even if Disney succeeds:

1. There is a saturation point for consumers on how many streaming services they will sign up for. How many of these 10-15 dollar services, the price which each studio will want, will an average household sign up for? Even if Disney succeeds, it doesn't mean there is room for many others to follow.

2. Studios don't have the brand pull and content association of Disney. Will people really understand why they should pay 15 bucks for Lionsgate vs Sony vs Moncito Films. Disney's content, like Pixar and Lucasfilm are well know to audiences. This is not true of othe studios. Who is the studio behind Walking Dead or Just Call Me Saul or Forrest Gump? Who knows and who cares?

I'm less worried about Netflix. Studios and producers will take the money on their back-catalog. Sure, Netflix may not get every show and every studio, but they'll be able to fill their inventory. (And this lack of leverage by the studios given the massive catalog of content will keep them at the negotiating table.)

Finally, you raise an interesting question: can Netflix survey on independent content. I think so. The studios don't have any magic outside of money and relationships and show runners—and the last two can also be bought for money.

Great thoughts on saturation. For my purposes, I'm still saving over cable while spending on NetFlix, Amazon Prime, HBO Now, and MLB.TV. I can add/subtract at-will, something I never quite had the flexibility to do with a cable subscription. I miss out on some channels I wouldn't mind having, but if they were such a priority, I would have figured it out. At some point, one either decides they've spent enough, or reaches a point that they literally don't have time to justify subscribing to more than they already have.

Disney has the best shot of going solo because they own a LOT of brands and desirable content. Outside Disney, it's murkier. Perhaps mergers/partnerships from other studios if Disney succeeds?

NetFlix will be the distributor of all the smaller studios who don't have the internal resources, alone, to build their own distribution service. You're spot-on, I think.
 
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I'd be willing to pay an extra dollar or two on a rental for 4K. I generally don't buy content unless it's on sale and close to rental price anyways.
 
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Exactly at $30 I might as well get a disc that has better picture quality and that I can either resell or lend out to friends/family (which means lost sales for the movie studio). The digital version needs to not only be about instant gratification it needs to either have the same picture quality or a lower price, and honestly ideally both.

Precisely why they want you to buy a disc. They don't have to revenue share with Apple and lose control.
 
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It was also a technical achievement in 1980 that it no longer is. There is a reason technology makes things cheaper.

What your chart shows is that competition makes things cheaper. The categories on the chart where robust competition exist cost less today than 1996. The areas where the free market is constrained the cost is more expensive.
 
You're going to see less and less movies on Netflix in the future. They're investing in their own content and cutting back on bringing in content from others. This means less movies and non-Netflix originals.

While I do worry about this. Much of the Netflix content I have seen is far better written, directed and acted than the majority of crap being churned out by the big studios and network television. As a result I watch more Netflix not less.

Their current movie selection does stink. Then again so do most new movies. I'd rather they took every dime spent for all titles from 2000 and later. Then dump it into a huge library of movies from the 1910s through 1970s.

Most of the stuff I watch on there is Netflix originals or TV series where the licensing rights are dirt cheap.
 
Hollywood has no sense of value. They've lived under the protection of IP monopoly for so long that they can't get their heads around the idea that providing value results in better returns.

Exactly. I'm sure they won't moderate price when they release crap movies. I'm sure they feel that loss off HD audio and extras as well as overall picture fidelity all justify paying more than a current blu-ray. Especially when most people can't tell the difference between 4K and 1080p at typical viewing distances. Furthermore will film studios pay apple a higher cut as they bear the burden of server costs?
 
Even at $19.95 I'm not going to buy. But maybe that is Apple's plan. They don't have the bandwidth to send 4K to everyone so they need to limit the demand. Charging $20 will do that.
 
Sorry, I wouldn't even pay the $20 for a digital only copy, I tend to only buy physical copies that include digital copies.
 
I do not have a 4K TV so this is worthless to me. I would very rarely pay $20 for a movie. It would have to be one that I've already seen and want to own.

I assume you will eventually buy one. Why would you buy a movie now in HD when you could buy it in 4K? You can always downsample the 4K video. It won't hurt the visuals on a 1080 screen. Then you'll have that movie in 4K when you do have a 4K TV. While if you buy the movie in HD. When you get a 4K TV you'll be stuck with an HD movie which has to be upsampled or buy it again in 4K.
 
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I have 400 movies in my collection - I will not be buying them a second time. I thought only the nasty PPV guys that charge an extra $10 for 1080p would go for this scheme...oh wait, the studios are the nasty PPV guys...

 
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I'm sure Apple is looking out for themselves, as well as consumers. It has to be worth it to them to sell content. If it's priced too high, the volume of sales will be low. The more content their customers buy from iTunes, the more valuable the Apple ecosystem is to them. Apple has a pretty good idea of what most people are willing to pay for content.

OK, but 15% or 30% of the normal price of $30 is going to make Apple more money per sale than 15% or 30% of $20. Else, why not make the same argument about iPhone/Tablet/Mac pricing. In other words, why doesn't Apple cut it's own prices by- say- a third and make up for the per-unit loss on higher volume. I suspect many more people would be interested in iPhone/Tablet/Macs at 30% lower prices than are at the normal price. Perhaps Apple should make more money with a volume play too?

I'm not so sure the consumer finding so much fault with >$20 being so much more accepting at $20. Is $20 some magically acceptable threshold, or acceptable only because we believe that's the price that Apple wants to charge? Is it our own objective opinion or are we towing the company line?

As to "Apple having a pretty good idea," I've long been a member of this site and there are countless posts of "us" ranting & raving about $10 & $15 pricing for iTunes movies. Today, this rumor makes us think that the bad guys want $30 and Apple is "fighting for" (only) $20 per movie and many of us are falling right in line at $20. What happened to our collective sentiment about $10 or $15 being too much?

I think this "rumor" is genius in an example of how to sell the fandom on a price INCREASE. Cast the product owners as "greedy" villains, crown the saint as "fighting for us consumers" at $20, rally the troops around $20, and then reveal at:
  • $20 and have us gush about the saint winning the battle for us (so now we can pay $10 or $5 more than prices we've previously griped about as too much)
  • $25 and have us gush about the saint getting us something less than normal while continuing to bash the villain's "greed"
  • $30 and have us gush about the saint's valiant attempt to "save us money" while continuing the bashing about the villian's "greed."
In all scenarios, Apple wins, the villains lose, and the crowd happily accepts $10 or $5 more than the "too much" prices we used to gripe about. Absolute genius.
 
Stupid hollywood never learns. Take $20 instead of $0, which is the real alternative. Give people the chance to buy it legally at an affordible price as 4k rips are out there already.

EDIT: Was thinking in terms of physical product. For a digital product anything more than $5 is too much. I would never pay more than that regardless of quality.
 
Like many people, I’m pretty much done purchasing movies. I found that in except in some rare cases (some series that I might go back and rewatch the last one when a new one comes out and Pixar movies for the kids) I never go back and watch them. I may watch them if flipping the channels or they come up on a steaming service I get... I certainly won’t be purchasing at these/full prices.
 
At the end of the day forum posting price rage is just all of us enjoying how our echo chamber sounds. The only votes companies care about are the ones done in $$$. If you don't like the new price then don't pay it. If you truly are in the majority then they'll notice.
 
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Sometimes I just like to watch the best parts of movies I have on my local network. Will browse around for best action scenes, comedy skits, etc.

I generally buy movies instead of going to the movie theater. A trip to the movie theater here is about $14 for just the ticket. Then there is parking which is another $10. Most movies only cost $14.99 or $19.99 on iTunes. If you watch the movie with more than one person or more than once, the cost of purchasing it pays for itself. Rentals via iTunes are like $5-$6 each for one day, ripoff. I've fallen asleep mid way through enough rentals to know that's not cost effective for me. :(

If you have a family and multiple kids, it becomes even more cost effective than renting them. Anyone that's ever raised kids know they go from having a favorite movie they want to watch over and over and over again to having a new favorite movie they want to over and over and over again.

Typically I buy movie bundles as they are better deals. Like $50 for the whole Star Trek movie collection. I'm also selective about what I buy.

When I was younger, I didn't GAF and I would just pirate them... Then the Green Zone debacle... Which made me skittish... Then I got mail from an attorney threatening a law suit... That's when I started paying for them.

I was hoping apple would give the 4k versions of movies to people who already owned the HD version... I guess I was an idiot.

All that being said...

$30 for a 4k movie? Nah... No thanks. I'm not paying $10-$15 more for a movie in 4k. Not when HD is more than good enough for me and I own a 65" 4k HDR tv. I can barely tell the difference sometimes.
 
Even at $19.95 I'm not going to buy. But maybe that is Apple's plan. They don't have the bandwidth to send 4K to everyone so they need to limit the demand. Charging $20 will do that.

Hmmm, well with that in mind, they NEVER have enough iPhones at launch to fit demand. So perhaps they should jack up iPhone 8 to maybe $2K or $3K to better limit demand? Charging $2K or $3K should do that. If not, there's always $4K or $5K.;)
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Customers Want to Pay $15.

Customers actually want to pay nothing... or a nickel or dime. But those customers should feel similar about Apple products too. Instead, they proudly gush "shut up and take my money" and "...but who has the the most profitable phone" at just about every possible occasion. Go figure.
 
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