Sounds like Google has found the best way to monetize
YouTube yet, and it puts itself in a pretty competitive spot versus the likes of
Netflix,
Amazon VOD, and Apple's iTunes movie store. According to
Wall Street Journal, the company's currently in talks with Lions Gate, Sony, and Warner Bros. studios over putting their content on YouTube for a rental fee, likely $3.99 -- the same price as Apple's SD movie rentals. Even more interesting is talk of getting some titles online day and date with the DVD releases. Some options could still be free with advertising, but as for paid content, Google's enticing studios over to their way of thinking with a proposed minimum fee of "just under $3 per title viewed." A three-month beta testing is apparently scheduled to begin soon among 10,000 Google employees, and after that? Well, here's hoping the G-Man manages to sign on some more studios and offer us the films in streaming HD.
posted Sep 2nd 2009 6:02PM
Someone needs to realize that these services are not going to work, and adding another is just going to complicate things. Youtube should try to steal some business from netflix and introduce "Youtube Pro" where you can pay a flat fee to be able to watch a huge library of movies, and pay a slightly higher fee for new releases. If such a service existed, I'd wager that a good deal of people would ditch their cable subscriptions in favor of just using that. I would.
I agree. Who the hell want's to pay 4 dollars to watch a movie on some crappy web browser? If I'm gonna pay 4 dollars for a movie, it is gonna be for a new release, on DVD, so I can take it home, and make a burned copy. No way in hell am I gonna pay 4 dollars to watch a movie online.
Agree. Without the overhead of having a retail store, why would the price of a rental not go down? $4 for what is likely to be lower quality than a physical rental is absurd.
Do people actually go for this? The Netflix model is much better.
Um No
$4 for an online video rental is $4 too much. Get Netflix for $9 and you'll get a far better value for your money.
My name ain't Nick, I just thought it was hilarious the first to reply are named Nick.
Ha. I never even noticed that. I was the person who replied to the 1st poster. And my name is Nick :) lol
Great news! More competition better the pricing of rentals.
Something tells me Ben Drawbaugh HATES this.
Ummm, $3-4 for cr#ppy, compressed video on their cute little site? Thanks, but no thanks.
Man, this whole "Nick" talk is riveting!