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Disney's Disposable DVDs Deemed Duds
An anonymous reader writes "It looks like disposable DVD's are headed the way of the dodo bird. Consumers (ahem, customers) in several markets are rejecting the $7 self destructing flexplay discs. Some stores have decided to stop selling. According to the stores, 'Customers aren't interested in paying more than $6 for a limited-play DVD when they can pay $2 at the video store. Even with a $2 late fee, it's cheaper than buying a disposable DVD.' and 'he hasn't seen one customer purchase an EZ-D, though some of them have been shoplifted out of the store.'"
After the DivX fiasco (the DVD-esque player, not the codec) and now this, maybe they'll start to listen. Customers want to buy and own their products, not rent or license them.
That's an easy one for any marketing genius. Just raise (ahem adjust) the prices for rental videos and people will be happy to buy those.
The cause of death on this idea seems rather simple to find... going rate for a movie that you get to watch once/twice then give back is $3-$4, and this came in at more than $6. Between this project and MovieBeam, Disney seems to be testing out every form of rental content distribution possible, but it seems like there's no such thing as one that works any better than the models that already exist. The Circuit City-backed Divx project should have been the first clue...
I feel sorry for the shoplifters, they probably thought they were proper DVDs not coffee mats!
flexpay ;-)
I'm glad. This kind of product simply shows a lack of respect for the consumer. Large corporations should all be putting the money into gaining consumer trust, rather than limiting consumer freedom.
If the MPAA were to combat shoplifting in the same way they combat file-trading, they would demand that consumers (ahem, customers) be made to wear lead helmets that would prevent them from being able to watch or listen to a movie unless they first invoked a key obtained when purchasing one of their products. Only then would you be able to remove this helmet, and then only for as long as they were watching that movie.
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
It was a horrible idea from the beginning. If they were a buck then it might work but as long as titans like Wal-Mart keep DVDs cheap to buy, and Blockbuster keeps them cheap to rent they won't sell. Even my kiddos questions why we would want to buy something that we would just have to throw away! In our (U.S.) society of lazyness I am glad to see the environment won a round even though it was through a left hook (ie price NOT recyclability).
"If you are on fire you can just stop, drop, and roll. If you fall into Lava you are just dead." - my 5yr old daughter
Excellent news. This was just another attempt at impulse marketing by a faceless megacorp. "Hmm.. 'National Enquirer'.. 'Weekly World News'.. oh, 'Peter Pan!'" Now somewhere at Disney someone is getting thumbscrewed over "bad market studies" that suggested this would work.
You can only package shit so many ways before people smarten up and quit buying it.
Trolling is a art,
i thought self-destructing discs were supposed to be cheaper than normal rentals because you wouldn't need the return/inventory system. were they more expensive to make, or were they just out of their minds?
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
I am not sure what the eco nuts were so upset about. There is a recycling plan (according to the article) and even gave people a free disk if they sent in 6 disks. Though, I understand why stores are not selling very many...while the story is an exageration (what rental places rents for 2 bucks a DVD), these disks are a lot more expensive than renting.
They shouldn't be more than 50% above regular rentals if even that much. So, if normal rentals are $2, they should be at most $3. Anyway, most people that want late fees will probably just use a service like Netflix.
Why would users want to pay more than three times as much for something with no actual increase in quality?
Hell, I was initially thinking that I could just copy these things with my DVDR before they turn black, but I can do that with rentals as well! There are some ideas I will never understand.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
One more "It's our property, and we don't trust you, the consumer, with it." from the big organizations has met consumers who are dissatisfied with their garbage and unwilling to pay for it.
Great!
And I hope the next time they try this it fails just as hard as this venture did. And eventually some executive will say, "Hey, wait a minute. Maybe it's not worth alienating all our customers to squeeze an extra million out of our already 100 billion dollar profits."
Of course that executive will be ignored, and possibly fired for lack of vision. But it's a start.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
First off, what video store costs only $2?! Its more like $4-5 here in Boston.
And second, I don't see how any of these models (rental, disposable for $6, etc) can compete with Netflix, other than if you happen to need the movie right away (and how often is that the case?) Right now I average about 12 movies per month on Netflix, all for $20! And the foreign and independent selections is *far* better than at local video stores.
Ok, I'm a fanboy...
my religion lies somewhere between buddhism and super monkey ball - pamphlet?
Disposable DVD: $7 Matinee with Friends: $5.25 Renting the Same Movie: $2 Realizing your stock will soon be valued below the cost of one of your disposable DVD's: Priceless.
From the website: How Does it work?
Party?!? What kind of party is this? Where's the damn keg?
Virtus Junxit Mors Non Separabit
Now if we could just convince AOL to stop producing those throw-away CD's. There must be a large landfill somewhere with stacks and stacks of AOL (1000 hours of free access) CD's laying around. I'd rather pay a few bucks for some kind of video on demand service over the internet or cable. I'm not sure why anyone would want to buy a disposable movie.
-
Tech News, Reviews and Tutorials
"Get your limited copy of Beauty and the Beast now! And we do mean limited! This film will expire in two weeks and after that you will have to wait until we rehash this film and sell it again in another two months! Don't even think of renting a copy from Blockbuster, because we own them, too! This film will only last in your memories!"
Seriously, though, here's the amazing truth: people like buying crap that doesn't break. Imagine if your copy of Detective Comics #27 spontaneously combusted after 60 years of age. Who would want to collect and read that?
--Chag
I thought they were a little over priced, but did buy one in october right before heading to the airport to fly back to chicago. I bought Frida and it was a great movie to watch on the plane and when I got home gave it to a neighbor to watch before it died. I wasn't going to return it.
they should sell these things in airports and the $7 wouldn't seem like a big deal at all. I also like some of the test marketing things they were doing down there that allowed pizza and other delivery services provide a dvd with your delivered meal- no worry about a return and it comes to you on demand. I didn't really appreciate the idea of the extra waste factor, but face it- we live in an extremely disposable world and I doubt one product would make a difference.
overall, I like the convenience the one time I tried it and found it to useful and assumed that once they were mass marketed the prices would become more reasonable.
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
If these self-destructing DVD's were priced at, say, $3.00 or so, I'd do it just because I am lazy and I wouldn't have to drive back to the store to return the DVD(s). I often get them on Saturday and have to return them on Monday. Since I am not picking up additional DVD's on Monday, I wouldn't mind avoiding the trip. Is it possible that the cost of creating and distributing these DVD's are too high to price them low enough to compete with rental prices? Happy Trails, Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
I love it when stupid crap like this fails in such a humiliatingly fatalistic fashion. It makes me think maybe we aren't turning into a nation of sissies after all. Since when did renting a movie and returning it to the video store become such a traumatic experience?
They'd probably do well if they were 99 cents instead of $7.
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
Wasn't it just a few years ago some cleaning product advertised "Just use and throw away." And got roasted over the poor attitude concerning the environment?
The "use and throw away" campaign is flawed. I don't think people want the so called convenience of disposeability. They just want convenience.
Its totally opposite the way of most major industries today. Which is only that way because of the pressure of customers.
It's not the exact same as renting. The nice thing about a system like this is that you could buy a bunch of them in advance of a party for your kids. You buy 4 of them, but the kids only watch two. Well, now you have two that you can watch at another time. So it's not a direct comparison to a standard DVD rental. You could also buy a bunch of them and everytime the babysitter is over, she can grab another one for your kid to watch.
Of course, the kids that watch Disney videos tend to watch them over, and over, and over, and....well, you get the idea, so I would think that for that market the parents would just buy them.
-dave
/., where "Apple and Google provide Iran with nukes" will be refuted with "But Microsoft is a convicted monopolist"
"Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions." -- G. K. Chesterton
Whoever led this experiment and set a price of $7 ought to get sacked. Children love to watch Disney films over and over again, and Disney should know that. This whole fiasco suggests they didn't.
The only disposable things that would work for Disney are nappies (diapers).
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
Manny who bitch-gripe about the cost of a CD or renting a DVD are the same people who don't think twice about plunking down $2.50 - $3.50 for a cup of fancy coffee.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Today, the Association of American Publishers announced a revolution in book publishing. A spokeman said "The book sector has been suffering for years from consumers abusing our products. Some of them read their books more than once. Many lend out books indiscriminately, sell them or even give them away for free to charity. This type of criminal behaviour must be stopped."
"Fortunately, we have come up with a solution. Our publishers will start to offer books which have been written in special ink sealed and are sold in vaccuum packs. Upon exposure to air, the ink gradually fades over the period of one week. We envisage law abiding consumers will love this new format, especially when they realise it is no more expensive than the old, inferior format."
The fact that the disposable DVD was priced higher than conventional rental makes it a tough sell. Once again, the theory that consumers will pay a steep premium for minor convenience is proven wrong. Besides, I suspect the lack of a return means less foot traffic in the video store, and probably lower sales overall.
I wonder if it might have worked in a mail-order scenario. Getting rid of the turn process would be a big plus for companies like NetFlix. Any increase in the cost of media would be offset by a 50% reduction in the cost of postage.
Before you only mod me funny (or worse), consider the importance of this issue as regards the new DRM protected CD's that have you register your disc in order to play it a limited number of times. Since there is no indicator on the CD itself showing how many plays it has accumulated, it this becomes common it will do much to destroy the secondhand/used CD market.
Not that the record companies will mind.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The next Hollywood playa to repeat the disposable disc fiasco should have to eat the acrylic refuse from DDVD and DivX that's stockpiled in landfills across the country. The rest of us are paying, in taxes and poisoned environment, for their costly mistakes. The next test for this kind of scheme must include a realistic recycling program, to ensure the acrylic makes it back into the petrochemical foodchain within the year, not in the next geological age.
--
make install -not war
they probably got their info from some marketing guy who figured that there was a huge untapped market for people who drive Hummers. If they never had to make the trip back to the rental store, they would save $4 in gas for the roundtrip, so they'd come out ahead!!
yea that worked out well didn't it.
I personaly prefer the other options...my methods are as follows:
1) Wait a 6-12 months...buy it for $10 on discount DVD and own it forever
2) Wait 18 months and buy it for $5.50 on Wal-Marts elcheapo DVD wall...and own it forever
3) If you REALLY must see it right away and dont want to own it for some silly reason just get it on pay-per-view ($4 here)...then you can usualy see it before it even hits DVD!
Seriously, as long as media companies, and I'm including music, try to avoid seeing their product as a commodity, they're going to keep coming up with brain dead ideas like this one. MS is barely getting away with it, what chance did Disney think they had?
If you jack people around on any commodity long enough and boost the price on them, they'll find ways to get by without your product and someone else will offer them better terms and eat into your market share. Movies, music and, increasingly, software are like gasoline, sugar and coffee. Inconvenient to live without, but consumers will adjust their consumption if you dick them enough.
Another classic case of the problem trying to dictate the solution.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I think that what people here are forgetting is that Disney was betting on the convenience factor. With new rentals at Blockbuster, you can end up paying $8 or more if you are late in returning the movie. With the self-destruct DVD's, you don't have to remember to return it, hence no late fee. However, $7 is still too steep for this type of product. If they had priced self-destruct DVD's closer to $4-$5 more consumers might have bought in.
IANAL... But I play one on
Not with my positive-nitrogen-pressure DVD player! Although piping the vent outside so I didn't suffocate was a pain. And it's a bit of a hassle lugging around all those nitrogen gas containers. Ah, I guess there's no free lunch.
"The movie you're about to watch hasn't been pirated, illegally copied, or otherwise acquired in an illegal manner. However, a crime has been committed. You'll notice that your wallet is now approximately $5 lighter than it should be, due to the criminal pricing scheme of the distributor of this movie.
Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to squash this worthless distribution scheme, primarily by ignoring it.
This video will self-destruct in approximately 48 hours (that is, if you don't destroy the disk in frustration sooner)."
Tim
I can't believe that Disney of all companies backed this. I mean, I don't know any household with kids that doesn't have at least a few Disney movies, and they're watched over and over and over again. Nobody in their right mind is going to buy a copy of "The Little Mermaid" and then try to explain to a sobbing five-year-old that they can't watch their movie anymore.
Just junk food for thought...
I wouldn't buy a 'disposable' DVD because it's disposable. We don't need millions of disposable DVDs ending up in landfills like so many AOL promo CDs. It wouldnt matter if they were recyclable, cause nobody bothers, and they definately aren't compostable. (everthing is biodegradable, given the correct environment. even plastic.) Corporations don't make good citezens.
TallGreen CMS hosting
One thing that a lot of people may not realize is how these were set up in the test markets. In Austin, they were in the supermarket, right next to the candy and magazines in the check-out line. When you rent from Blockbuster, netflix, etc., you say "I want to rent a movie, what should I get?" The retailers of the EZ-D were counting on the blind impulsiveness of the american consumer, who says - "ooh, shiny! Whats anther $7 on top of my $200 of corn dogs?" Fortunately, we weren't that stupid.
"What the masochist doesn't know can't hurt him."
It's not just that they priced them way too high, but the movies they chose were neither good nor new. Let me get a decent new release for $5 and I may be interested in your "rental" system.
I was actually rooting for this tech.
However, current pricing is definitely the greatest barrier.
But what I was hoping to see was a DVD vending machine offering DVD's for $2.00 or $3.00 a piece. If they could deliver the tech for a low price, it would definitely be a netflix killer. Why wait 1 day for the dvd to arrive via snail-mail when you could get a movie at your works breakroom, cornerstore etc and no worries about late fees or scratched discs?
Really, this is a superior solution but is being killed by it's very non-competitive cost... can we say Beta-Max anyone?
The new anti-piracy measure on TTT extra features disks render them unreadable in some players. My parents have a player that refuses to play them. They will have to buy a new player to watch them or spend even more to have their old player "fixed".
Lasers Controlled Games!
if I were an exec, it seems fairly reasonable what to do...
1) Don't screw your customers. Yes, everyone wants something for nothing, but not very many of them will take it unless you manage to anger them. How do you ager them? Jacking product prices up for worse product is a prety good stsrt. Trying to take their copyright protections (fair use, etc.) without compensation and advertising the crippled products as containing extra "features" is another. People have told the companies that do this that they don't want it (copy-"protected" CDs, DivX, etc.) - if you ignore it, they will get angry, and won't be your customers anymore.
2) Given that you haven't angered your customers, give them enough to be happy. Returnable rentals, nonreturnable rentals for a little bit more, or purchasable DVDs with as little restriction as possible are probably good (since they seem to be what your customers want).
Trust isn't an issue here unless you anger your customers or try to screw them, at which point they will return the favor. Trust becomes an issue for content providers only when they've screwed their customers - once they've done that, the customers don't feel any need to behave as if they were trusted (because they know they're not) and behave accordingly. There are always people who will take you product by physically stealing it or by copying it, and this segment won't go away - but it requires effort and overcoming conscience and so most people don't do it. Once you anger your customers, anything goes, and for many, anger provides enough motivation to take the time to screw you.
Nonreturnable rental is a choice for customers, but it restricts users activity significantly AND costs significantly more than rental. It isn't real suprising, then, that this is an unpopular choice. Combined with previous attempts to sell a "licensed" product where the user pays full price to buy the product but loses control over its use, it's understandable why people mistrust this method of sale.
The last thing we need is another 'disposable' product. What 'disposable' actually means is planned obselesence which chokes land fills and the tax payer foots the bill, a hidden subsidy to the companies making disposable items.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
At $4 they'd still be more expensive than renting from Blockbuster, but in-line with what people are willing to pay for the no-late-fees-ever rental experience through PPV. They'd have had a shot.
at more than double the 'renting from a store' rate they were guaranteeing failure.
It isn't hindsight whatsoever, it's price-sight. If they'd said '$7' when they were talking about the tech everyone would've told them it would bomb. But they kept saying 'for a little more than the price to rent a movie from blockbuster'. which made everyone assume $3-4.
$7 is certainly not 'a little more' than $3.
Perhaps the rental chains squeezed them to stratify the pricing intentionally, i don't know (Blockbuster may have appreciable pressure now that Disney isn't the only kids-content creator in the game).
I just know that at $7, they shouldn't have even bothered.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
I didn't really appreciate the idea of the extra waste factor, but face it- we live in an extremely disposable world and I doubt one product would make a difference.
overall, I like the convenience the one time I tried it and found it to useful and assumed that once they were mass marketed the prices would become more reasonable.
That's what's wrong with the Americal psyche. Maybe 1 product doesn't make a difference. But what about this one product plus the AOL CDs plus the various other pieces of junk companies give out times the number of people who find no use for said junk. It adds up. Where does it go? Well invariably, you're not going to want it in your back yard. But it's got to go somewhere.
In any event, solutions don't come by people saying, "Oh the problem's too big. So we shouldn't fix it, but we should just add more fuel to the fire."
Why dosen't some Pizza chain offer to sell single use DVD's along with Pizza delivery?? The driver is already making the trip, the guy ordering the Pizza isn't in the mood to drive to Blockbuster, etc. I could see Dominio's offering 4-6 of the latest release for that weekend on this format.
And for the environmental concerns, a 2 liter bottle of Mountain Dew has the same, if not more plastic than the single use DVD.
There's probably some catch I'm missing, but if you purchased one of these disks, then immediately copied it, as long as you retained your original (now unreadable) disk wouldn't your copy be legal? It was always my understanding that it was legal to make a backup copy of DVD's (hence products like DVDXCopy) provided you owned the originals. Since you own the original and it's no longer readable, your backup would be legal, right?
The Count of Monte Cristo
Andy: You'll like that one Heywood, it's about a prison break.
Red: Jailbreak? Maybe we ought a file that one under "Educational" too.
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
You must have excellent taste in movies.
It's well-documented. Frequent renters get throttled back when selecting rarer ("more expensive") discs. Google is your friend.
Da Blog
Just what we would have needed, more small round disks to put in our landfills.
Could you imagine the impact if this had really taken off? It would make the waste that AOL generates (Free AOL CDs) seem like nothing. I already throw out about 2 AOL disks a week. Imagine if the entire US was renting these DVDs instead of the reusable ones.