Hollywood as We Know It Is Over
I love movies. Whenever I visit my dad (other side of the country), we go to see movies. However, most of the year I live with my girlfriend who falls asleep in theaters and can&#x27;t justify the cost. This leads to me not seeing movies in theaters anymore.<p>Now, I am subscribed to two streaming services. I don&#x27;t pirate. I refuse to watch anything with ads, happy to pay, and somewhat ironically, the only ads I watch to completion are trailers that I haven&#x27;t seen. I would love to catch movies as they are released but I have to wait until they&#x27;re available on the streaming service. When they are available it is usually 5$ for a &quot;rental&quot;. Is that a joke? I used to pay that at Blockbuster, and they had a physical location and employees! They&#x27;ve priced their digital content in such a way that I will only pay to see the movies that I really want to see. If it was cheaper, I&#x27;d be a constant consumer.<p>It seems that is how most things in society get priced. Not for ultimate consumption, but to maximize the profit curve. I get that is how capitalism works, but that logic doesn&#x27;t make sense to me for digital goods. They are practically zero cost to distribute once they are manufactured and your competition is people pirating them. If you&#x27;re worried about audience size, lower the cost. You&#x27;ll enable a lot more people to see a lot more movies.