Well, Disney’s new attempt at disrupting the entire market in its favour is here – And it lasts 48 hours a piece.
The idea is this: You pay 5 – 7 bucks (US) – or roughly 10 Canadian – and you get a DVD that after 48 hours, the readable side goes black and unusable. Thus requiring you to chuck it. Convenient, right? Yes, but potentially stupid.
I’m sure they are trying to bring in a market that directly competes with the renting industry, but here’s my earth-stopping question that no one paid me 4 million dollars to figure out:
– If I can rent a movie for 48 hours for 4 bucks, why would I buy one that only lasts 48 hours for ten?
– Second, If I’m spending 10 bucks on a 2-day movie, why not spend ten more, get the real DVD and keep it for a zillion days?
On top of that, I’m not going to say I’m an environmentalist, but after 48 hours, every last fibre of the entire product is total garbage. So really, Disney is making tens of thousands heaps of trash with a 2 day break before it becomes trash. Now, I realize there are already disposable products, but I really don’t think we need anymore, especailly billion-dollar funded ones.
Granted, I’ll give you this, I don’t have to return it, but it’s six bucks cheaper if I do. Call me cheap, but that’s 4 Christmas gifts right there.
But I digress, I’m sure the zillion dollar suit wearing CEOs with the puckered buttholes have already thought of all this.
I really hope this idea flops.
Sorry. Here is the link.
http://www.fightdivx.com/ez-d_dvds.htm
Check out this info page on why EZ-D DVDs are no good. Yes, this has been done before with DIVX a few years ago with horrible results. Circuit City lost a few hundred million dollers and many consumers got stuck with expensive discs they can never use again.
Yeah, pretty close…
This is how Divx worked. Slightly more complicated, but equally stupid:
You “Buy” a movie for like 4 dollars.. maybe five.. then.. get this: You pay to watch it. “But wait”, you say, “Didn’t I just pay for it?” Yes you did, you buyer into stupid ideas person you. Not only did you have to pay to watch it, but EVERY TIME you watched it. And it could only be used on YOUR particular machine at home. (Thanks to some funky dialing server the divx player had to be plugged into.) In short, divx was exactly this:
– You were buying your own rental store that you brought into your living room. Wacky, huh? So yes, this idea flopped like an old man.
Disposable DVDS are just as stupid, although you CAN watch it anywhere, you can only watch it anywhere for a day and a half. Then it’s trash.
The only place I could see this being useful is if I was on vacation in the middle of nowhere and wanted to watch a movie, and the hick store at the edge of the cliff had a couple of dvds — then I might buy one, just for the convenience of watching a movie in the middle of nowhere. — But that’s a lot of “ifs”.
Basically, 10 bucks is too much to watch a movie just once if you’re watching it outside of a theatre.
Gimme the real DVD deal – a real movie theatre – or a 3 for 5 day rental anyday.
Wasn’t this done as “Divx” a couple of years ago with terrible results?