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greatbearWell, I thought today would not be so bad (as far as keeping me outta here ranting uncontrollably) but I was mistaken.
I overheard a conversation between two people (paraphrased for clarity here, of course):
"I hear Disney is coming out with these new cheap DVDs that are supposed to take the place of rentals. You buy them for a cheap price, take them home, and you have a period of time to watch them before they shut off." "Hey, that's a cool idea. No more rushing them back to the store to avoid late fees."
It went on from there, but that was the gist of it.
You stupid, ignorant, foolish fucks. What is the matter with you??? Oh, cool! Let's go and spend our hard earned cash on something that goes bad the day after you use it!
Let me back up here for those out of the loop. There is a company that developed a 'technology' to make self-destructing DVDs. The premise is you obtain a disk which has a predetermined lifespan. It works in any player, but once removed from it's vacuum-sealed package, exposure to the air slowly begins to turn the disk black, and therefore unreadable. Kind of a neat idea, in the case of promotional materials and sensitive items. But for the general public at large? Fuck that. Why? Let me count the ways...
#1 - The Environment. Disney, in their ever-conquering desire to sell entertainment to the masses puts their huge marketing bulldozer behind this scheme (make that scam) with all the (supposed) benefits of the consumer being touted (No late fees! No rushing back to the store! No mailing back rented disks! Simple! Convenient! Blah blah blah) while conveniently ignoring the fact that they are contributing to the ever-increasing wasteful use of resources and materials that end up all too soon in the trash.
#2 - Simple Economics. I read where these disks, which will supposedly contain Disney's catalog movies, will cost about 6-7 bux, bought at retail stores of all kinds, not just those which normally stock movies. Well, 6-7 dollars for something that you can only watch for one day is far too much to pay when cable/satellite pay-per-view movies generally are far cheaper, with no cast-off trash as a byproduct. Couple this with the fact that mass-market retail killers like Wal-Mart often sell REAL DVD movies for that price that remain usable indefinitely and you see that it's doomed for failure.
#3 - Customer Manipulation. This is yet another salvo fired into the battle to make people accustomed to pay over and over for the same thing. Remember DIVX? That failed attempt by Circuit City to create what were basically pay-per-view DVDs? It was a case where you get the consumer to buy a physical product and charge them not only a subscription to be able to play these things in the first place, but either a fee for each time played after the initial 48 hour 'free' period or a large one-time charge (which made the product cost as much as a standard DVD) to make the disk playable indefinitely (which is to say as long as you subscribed to the service). Well, this failed miserably, and rightly so. The players themselves were at least usable as a standard DVD player, but all those DIVX disks, whether they had been converted to indefinite playback or not, became useless. More money thrown away.
#4 - "Bottled Water Syndrome". This is a variation of #3, but it helps in the effort to make people pay for things that they can get for nothing. Less than 20 years ago if you told someone that they would be buying bottles of plain water at a price in many cases higher than soft drinks, you would have been told to go pound sand. Now look around you. Hey, unless the water in your particular city is laced with dysentary, you are not benefitting one bit by paying for a bottle of water.
#5 - Curbing Piracy. This is SO fucking rich. These disks are being marketed as a means to curb piracy by virtue of their low cost, easy availability and breadth of product line. Never mind the fact that none of these three facts have been put into practice yet. By making these disks so ubiquitous there should be no reason for going after pirated disks or downloading from the internet. Dont these companies realize that the first thing a lot of people are going to do is plop these disks into their computers and MAKE BACKUPS? Or from there, even SHARE THEM ON THE NET? Hell, you are BEGGING for this to happen with this fucking scheme. Get real!
If a stoopid idea like this becomes popular, you can rest assured that more insidious forms of sleazeball marketing will follow. Common sense be damned.
Am I truly missing something here? All I see this shit good for are promotional giveaways at best. Never mind the fact the trash would still pile up. Look at all the AOL disks you find everywhere throughout the years overselling their shitty service. The subscibers are paying high rates to put this crap everywhere, and we are all going to pay the price for it in the long run. How many endless TONS of that shit is out there?
I am fucking sick of behemoth corporations crying because they are not making ENOUGH profit. "We only made 1.5 billion in profit last year, we were expecting to make 2 billion." Where is this goddam greed gonna stop?
Hopeless, hopeless, hopeless. It's to the point where I giggle and titter when I hear about some big company falling apart under the weight of it's own greed. I am considering making up a kind of "Corporate Dead Pool" where people make little bets on which big company implodes next due to greed/scandal/lawsuits/bad management, etc. And dont for one moment call this 'un-American' of me.
Sheesh. I thought today would be all sunshine and lollipops but it didnt work out that way. You people are gonna hate me for raining on your parades!
I overheard a conversation between two people (paraphrased for clarity here, of course):
"I hear Disney is coming out with these new cheap DVDs that are supposed to take the place of rentals. You buy them for a cheap price, take them home, and you have a period of time to watch them before they shut off." "Hey, that's a cool idea. No more rushing them back to the store to avoid late fees."
It went on from there, but that was the gist of it.
You stupid, ignorant, foolish fucks. What is the matter with you??? Oh, cool! Let's go and spend our hard earned cash on something that goes bad the day after you use it!
Let me back up here for those out of the loop. There is a company that developed a 'technology' to make self-destructing DVDs. The premise is you obtain a disk which has a predetermined lifespan. It works in any player, but once removed from it's vacuum-sealed package, exposure to the air slowly begins to turn the disk black, and therefore unreadable. Kind of a neat idea, in the case of promotional materials and sensitive items. But for the general public at large? Fuck that. Why? Let me count the ways...
#1 - The Environment. Disney, in their ever-conquering desire to sell entertainment to the masses puts their huge marketing bulldozer behind this scheme (make that scam) with all the (supposed) benefits of the consumer being touted (No late fees! No rushing back to the store! No mailing back rented disks! Simple! Convenient! Blah blah blah) while conveniently ignoring the fact that they are contributing to the ever-increasing wasteful use of resources and materials that end up all too soon in the trash.
#2 - Simple Economics. I read where these disks, which will supposedly contain Disney's catalog movies, will cost about 6-7 bux, bought at retail stores of all kinds, not just those which normally stock movies. Well, 6-7 dollars for something that you can only watch for one day is far too much to pay when cable/satellite pay-per-view movies generally are far cheaper, with no cast-off trash as a byproduct. Couple this with the fact that mass-market retail killers like Wal-Mart often sell REAL DVD movies for that price that remain usable indefinitely and you see that it's doomed for failure.
#3 - Customer Manipulation. This is yet another salvo fired into the battle to make people accustomed to pay over and over for the same thing. Remember DIVX? That failed attempt by Circuit City to create what were basically pay-per-view DVDs? It was a case where you get the consumer to buy a physical product and charge them not only a subscription to be able to play these things in the first place, but either a fee for each time played after the initial 48 hour 'free' period or a large one-time charge (which made the product cost as much as a standard DVD) to make the disk playable indefinitely (which is to say as long as you subscribed to the service). Well, this failed miserably, and rightly so. The players themselves were at least usable as a standard DVD player, but all those DIVX disks, whether they had been converted to indefinite playback or not, became useless. More money thrown away.
#4 - "Bottled Water Syndrome". This is a variation of #3, but it helps in the effort to make people pay for things that they can get for nothing. Less than 20 years ago if you told someone that they would be buying bottles of plain water at a price in many cases higher than soft drinks, you would have been told to go pound sand. Now look around you. Hey, unless the water in your particular city is laced with dysentary, you are not benefitting one bit by paying for a bottle of water.
#5 - Curbing Piracy. This is SO fucking rich. These disks are being marketed as a means to curb piracy by virtue of their low cost, easy availability and breadth of product line. Never mind the fact that none of these three facts have been put into practice yet. By making these disks so ubiquitous there should be no reason for going after pirated disks or downloading from the internet. Dont these companies realize that the first thing a lot of people are going to do is plop these disks into their computers and MAKE BACKUPS? Or from there, even SHARE THEM ON THE NET? Hell, you are BEGGING for this to happen with this fucking scheme. Get real!
If a stoopid idea like this becomes popular, you can rest assured that more insidious forms of sleazeball marketing will follow. Common sense be damned.
Am I truly missing something here? All I see this shit good for are promotional giveaways at best. Never mind the fact the trash would still pile up. Look at all the AOL disks you find everywhere throughout the years overselling their shitty service. The subscibers are paying high rates to put this crap everywhere, and we are all going to pay the price for it in the long run. How many endless TONS of that shit is out there?
I am fucking sick of behemoth corporations crying because they are not making ENOUGH profit. "We only made 1.5 billion in profit last year, we were expecting to make 2 billion." Where is this goddam greed gonna stop?
Hopeless, hopeless, hopeless. It's to the point where I giggle and titter when I hear about some big company falling apart under the weight of it's own greed. I am considering making up a kind of "Corporate Dead Pool" where people make little bets on which big company implodes next due to greed/scandal/lawsuits/bad management, etc. And dont for one moment call this 'un-American' of me.
Sheesh. I thought today would be all sunshine and lollipops but it didnt work out that way. You people are gonna hate me for raining on your parades!
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no subject
Date: 2003-09-15 11:26 am (UTC)BTW - I am always properly impressed by the proper use of the word "ubiquitous". ;)