Nearly Half Of All Consumers Not Interested In Downloading
ABI Research conducted an interesting study on current attitudes towards digital downloading and found out that 48% of all consumers say that they would never pay money to download a film.
In many ways this study is a little surprising and in many ways it’s not. 48% is a pretty high number to say the least and with just about everyone planning on unveiling their own digital download service, many companies may be in for a bit of a shock when they find out that consumers really aren’t demanding these services yet.
On the other hand, there could be hope if the studios get their acts together and offer a more compelling downloading product. I think that part of why this number is so high is in large part because of how weaksauce the current downloading systems are. First they give you limited selection, then they make you pay almost as much as a DVD, just to rent a downloaded film and finally they make it a royal pain in the neck if you want to watch it on your TV set. Oh and to top it all, for doing the right thing and buying your movie instead of stealing it off the bit torrent networks, you get a large heaping dose of DRM with your file. No wonder half of the population isn’t interested in this.
While the report didn’t give the percentage, I wonder what it would have been if they asked about downloading music instead. In the music industry there is plenty of variety, 99 cents is a reasonable price to pay, you can buy unprotected mp3s at places like emusic and you’re allowed to put them on you mp3 players, your laptop, I can even get my music onto my cell phone.
When I see things like Walmart’s latest scheme, where you not only pay to buy your DVD, but then they make you pay again if you want to download the film on top of it, I say no way. It’s simply not worth the extra $2 for me to wait 6 hours to download some film when all I have to do is pop that same DVD into my laptop.
What the content owners don’t realize is that they really aren’t competing with DVDs when it comes to digital downloads, they are competing with the Pirate Bay. Instead of penalizing consumers for buying their product, they should be offering DRM free products at a reasonable price. If they would open up their complete archives for downloading at $3 per movie, they’d be able to compete with the pirates, but at $9.99 for a DRM file, they’ll continue to see leakage to the darknet.
While I don’t condone piracy, I do believe that consumers should have more control over their entertainment choices. Looking back, had it not been for Napster, we never would have seen pay music services take off, yet here we are seven years later and we still haven’t seen a viable movie download service come to market. If the studios want to keep dragging their heels then that’s their right, but with consumers now creating their own content and with fragmentation spreading throughout our culture, the six studios who’ve controlled what we watch, when we watch and how we watch it are quickly losing control. If the studios want to convince that other half of the population to join in on the digital revolution, then they need to offer a more compelling solution to their customers.
Posted on December 17th, 2006 by Davis
Filed under: DRM, DVDs, Media, Movies, VOD
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