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Wal-Mart Threatens Studios Over iTunes Sales
Y-Crate writes "It seems Wal-Mart is threatening retaliation against studios who decide to offer movies on iTunes. The Bentonville, AR retailer seems a bit miffed that someone would dare to undercut their prices. This wouldn't be the first time they've turned on a supplier for dealing with Apple." From the article: "Last year when Disney announced it would begin offering episodes of the hit shows 'Lost' and 'Desperate Housewives' on Apple's iTunes, the reaction of the world's largest retailer sent shockwaves through the entertainment industry. Wal-Mart, worried that offering the shows for viewing on iPods would cut into DVD sales at its stores, sent 'cases and cases' of DVDs back to Disney, according to a source familiar with the matter."
Another business whose primary "value added" is their distribution channel (record labels come to mind) trying to fight technological changes that make their business model obsolete. Methinks we've seen this before, and we'll see it again.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
I can't help feeling that the studios should call the Wal-Mart bluff here.
Wal-Mart may hate the idea and threaten and moan, but if all the studios jump onto the iTMS then Wal-Mart will buckle. They can't drop their entire DVD line unless they want to drop a whole market.
The power rests with the studios here, but they're scared.
Whoever said it was accurate? Reuters has anotherr story. http://today.reuters.com/news/articleinvesting.asp x?view=CN&storyID=2006-09-22T233423Z_01_N22181208_ RTRIDST_0_MEDIA-WALMART-STUDIOS-UPDATE-2.XML&rpc=6 6&type=qcna
Every economic indicator shows that globalism and offshoring has hurt the economy. The proof is in the stats, and we have many years to look at now. And they even have to keep fudging them to make it look better than what it really is, I mean really, having to call burger flipping *manufacturing*? c'mon! that's a clue. We are now the largest debtor nation when before the largest creditor nation. that's a clue. The dollar keeps dropping in international value. that's a clue. We have a huge rate of bankruptcy and people staring at losing their pensions.that's a clue. Largest trade deficit ever and growing, sets new records about every quarter. That's a clue. The numbers of people with better paying jobs with benefits keeps dropping, not rising. That's a clue. Savings rates are the worst for more than a full generation. That's a clue. Ya, it started back then, and a lot of us "back then" warned that this is exactly what would happen, and it has. And that's because some of us really *had a clue*. "Back then" I warned folks-anyone who would listen-that the combination of crap built and being too greedy would bork the auto industry (I was in the UAW then). I got laughed at, ridiculed, got told in person and by proxie in print from all the "economic experts" that "it will never happen, no one will buy them cheap little cars". They were wrong, I was right. Yes, it started back then, listening to the coke addled and drunk economic experts and following the captains of industry advice as a nation. Rubbish, and it was *clear* to see, abundantly clear to anyone who can think more than two steps ahead or some years ahead and run some common sense extrapolation scenarios.. Both management and labor needed several good bashes with the clue stick back then, but they kept dodging, about the only thing they are good at.
You make money by manufacturing wealth, and having it be good quality and fair priced, not over priced ridiculous stupid crap or the cheapest possibly falling apart crap. Wealth is grown, mined, manufactured or a combination of that, everything else is wealth re arrangement or wealth service.
We have swapped making wealth to trying to just manage it and service it. Nuts! Insanity! It will not work for the long run. It can for the short run,then you'll see it starting to crumble in the medium run (now, today) and it will eventually collapse in the long run. They can run their printing presses all they want, it won't matter. It's been tried before, it doesn't matter.
We have forgotten the middle ground, the middle ground which at one time had the strongest middle class with real wealth ownership in the world, now we have the largest class of debtors ever. Only took one generation to pull that off. BUT, we sure do have a lot more billionaires now! Damn funny how that worked out....
Yep, you can show a ton of paper profit by being a tradesman and selling off your tools friday night,and getting a loan on your work truck and handing over the keys and parking it at the lot, but come monday morning you are going to be hurting. Sure, you'll seem "rich" over the weekend,you can go out and buy all sortsa stuff with that flush cash, but it won't last.
That's all we have been doing for a long time now and they are running out of options, and I don't care how much the goons at the Fed try to tweak things, eventually we won't have a dang thing that other folks want and then they'll even stop buying up your grandkids debt. Aren't you just a teeny bit ashamed that little babies not even born yet will be born into debt? Just a little?
And walmartization is a big part of it. When they first started, and I remember it clearly as well, it was buy american there, keep you and your neighbor working, and it was fine. then..well, he passed on and now it is FU america, we are gonna milk this baby out and retire multibillionaires and go pound sand. sure, they got cheap crap now, and people with some money to buy it, but it won't last. It just can't