[dmarg]

>>No one is obliged to give you money. Finding a business model that works is your problem, not your customers.<<

This struck a chord with me and is exactly the reason why Hollywood and the Music Industry are flailing. They are trying to continue their business model that worked for so long into this new day and age. Adapt or die essentially.

[untog]

But what is that new model, exactly? If "paying money in return for receiving goods" doesn't work, how will they make these multi-million dollar cultural phenomenons?

I agree that the current system is broken, but saying you'll pirate until the studios work out it feels like an irresponsible point of view, to me.

[DanielBMarkham]

Look at it this way:

Throughout history, there have been things that were hard to do: create a picture that looked like a landscape, create a complex piece of music from nothing, give somebody a ride 20 miles to the next town, correspond with somebody halfway around the world.

During this time, it was very common for people to come and pay just for the experience of the event, which was , in some cases, truly magical. Open-air powered carriages? Who wouldn't pay a lot of money to see and ride in one for a few minutes? A room with a few painted landscapes from far-off shores? It's a cultural event.

People and companies paid lots of money to increase the spectacle and social attractiveness of these experiences. Not only could you hear a collection of a dozen stringed instruments play, you could do so in the presence of a duke!

This is exactly where Hollywood is today. They're doing their damnedest to prevent the inevitable slide into commoditization that has occurred with every other art form and experience. The market eliminates inefficiencies. Today I can see pictures of just about anywhere in the world for nothing. I can listen to hundreds of instruments play -- any one of tens of thousands of songs -- for free. I can travel in luxury in a modern vehicle owned by my neighbor, while doing all of these other things, to the nearest town for pennies.

So the question isn't "how do you make these multi-million dollar cultural phenomenons". That's like asking "Who will be the next Beethoven?" Beethoven's dead, and the symphony, while it lives on as a cultural phenomenon, is no longer the primary means of consuming music.

So there's your answer: movies will no longer be the primary means of consuming long-form audio-visual entertainment. They will continue to exist for a long period of time just as the symphony does, and the experience of being with the actors and director for a first showing in a glitzy theater will probably never go away, but the bits and bytes of the thing will have virtually no value at all. Things change. That's just life. Always been like this.

[Sir_Substance]

One of the key problems that studios are having is overinvestment.

When you're investing hundreds of millions in your movies, and tens in your tv shows, the bar is set very high.

Now, when the distribution of that content required factories and fleets of trucks, it funneled all the money in the world into a small number of operators, because the cost of entry was so high, so very few people could operate in that space. That allowed very high investments, because the worlds disposable income was being split between a small number of people.

Today, the cost of production and distribution has dropped like a stone, and there are more players as a result. However, these companies are still investing like it's the 1970's.

Lets be clear here: Total number of films released in 1970: 1967 http://www.imdb.com/search/title/?release_date=1970&title_ty...

Total number of films released in 2014: 7320 http://www.imdb.com/search/title/?release_date=2014&title_ty...

It's not a monopoly any more. Small studios can beat big ones. It's not about finding a different way to charge the customer, it's about restructuring your investment strategy.

[path411]

"Paying money in return for receiving goods" still works fine. Most people are willing to pay if given reasonable terms and ease of access. Steam is a pretty big flagship of how to make a business that competes with pirating.

Media companies are stuck in the dark ages where instead of trying to increase value of their product/service, they instead double down on increasing revenue per viewer with horrible anti-customer policies like 10-minute unskippable ads on a DVD you bought.

[tomjen3]

A more expensive netflix with up to date content. Make sure it has everything (like spotify) and charge me 4 times the price of netflix. Have a cheaper tie for those who wants to pay less and get what netflix has now.

The key point is everything (or close to it) in one service.

Second, structure new programs to include more merch. Disney probably makes more on stuff from frozen than they did on frozen itself. Lossleaders aren't unheard of.

But above all, be bold, be decisive. Don't just run around and act like a bunch of babies.

[michaelbuddy]

You mean you don't like watching all those unskippable previews and commercials on your blu-ray, or "downloading" the included digital drm file off your disney DVD so you can take your copy of cinderella with you anywhere, anytime.* Or what about renting that great movie and having a 24 hour window to watch it.

*Maximum of 2 downloads. Approved devices only, Void where prohibited