[sami36]

I wish Netflix would transition fast to an HBO model where they produce their own content. I could see them establishing a kickstarter like content crowd-funding option (opt-in) for say 15 $ / month extra where users would vote on shows, finance them & bring them to life. just imagine what/if scenarios would have played out when "Arrested development" was canceled if we had such an option back then.

My point is, if kickstarter can start raising sums as high a 4 Mil $ for project eternity & 6 Mil $ for Star Citizen, the days when AAA movies could be crowd-funded is not far from us. I'm looking forward to the day when big studios & their greedy shortsightedness get disrupted. The penultimate frontier of disintermediation. fingers crossed

[shardling]

They have the American version of "House of Cards", the original version of which is probably one of the best televesion dramas ever made.

Their sitting on a lot of data on both what people say they like, and what they actually watch, and they're no doubt looking to do more content production.

[bookcasey]

I'm not saying a Kickstarter type model wouldn't work, but keep in mind that one episode of a show like Game of Thrones* can cost around five million dollars to produce.

* http://www.westeros.org/GoT/Features/Entry/3988/

[conroy]

Remember that they also have the exclusive rights to the new season of Arrested Development. So it sounds to me like they are moving in the HBO direction.

[NegativeK]

You want crowdfunding to address shortsightedness? I don't see these as being compatible.

[sami36]

I want crowd-funding to address consumer choice,editorial & artistic freedom, consumer friendly consumption mechanisms, platform lock-in and profit concentration. Crowdfunding is very much compatible with all of these requirements. Theo only thing standing between us & that world is a few quarters of Kickstarter/ IndieGogo/ Rally/ GoFundme growing their user bases.

Latest Netflix estimates say that 1 episode of Arrested development will cost 1.5 million $. Going with an average rate of 3$ per episode would mean 500,000 average pledges would be enough to fund such an enterprise. (36$ per user per season)

Two games on Kickstarter, Double Fine Adventure/ Star Citizen had a pledger base of about ~90,000 users. We're half an order of magnitude from that. 2~3 years in internet time is an eternity, I'm confident that producing quality content will soon migrate online. I think the studios obsession with piracy & control will soon backfire on them. Google is going after them with premium channels, Amazon & Netflix are both toying with content in-house & Apple has the market power to eventually twist their arms.