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Wal-Mart Offers Up Downloadable Movies
An anonymous reader slipped us the link to a C|Net article on another downloadable movie offering, this time from retail giant Wal-mart. Stinging from their loss to Netflix in the online DVD rental business two years ago, they are coming out swinging with this service. They've made arrangements with all six major Hollywood studios, and (the article theorizes) will likely have highly competitive prices. With Apple's dominance of this particular market, there is still no guarantee whether Wal-mart will have any success with this program. The biggest problem, commentators note, is that there is no guarantee Wal-mart's service will draw customers into their stores: the issue that ultimately caused them to scuttle the DVD rental service. What do you think of a major retailer getting into movie download business? Will the company be able to outmaneuver Apple and Netflix the same way it has done with other retailers in the past?
Not if Wal-Mart takes the same attitude with online movie downloads as they do with their stores.
Wal-Mart has always been about one thing and one thing only: Dirt cheap stuff. They might as well make it their slogan: "Wal-Mart, where you get Dirt Cheap Stuff(TM)." You can see this attitude in their stores with cluttered aisles, severe lack of cashiers, poor treatment of employees, etc. People have unfortunately been willing to put with this this because, well, they want dirt cheap stuff.
The online movie download business isn't about dirt cheap, it's about customer service. The people who use it aren't poor; they're at least middle-incomers with computers and high-speed access to the Internet. If Wal-Mart tries to go dirt cheap on this service, they're going to get eaten alive in this space.
I don't think that Walmart has a chance - Netflix and Blockbuster have the long tail. If WalMart is banking on only the 'major studios' they're missing the point - selection, selection, selection.
But how Wal-Mart treats employees can and does affect the tax payer. Case in point, Wal Mart got into a lot of trouble over stating that many of their workers in Maryland would be better off on the state's(tax payer funded) insurance than on Wal-Marts(Walton funded) insurance. Another even more reckless point is that Wal-Mart stated that inclimate weather is no longer an excuse for being late for work. How many white collar employees that weren't in critical(and thus usually better compensated compared to their peers) roles would accept this? It also puts everyone else in danger. While obviously there are exceptions, I would wager that more often than not Wal Mart employees tend to drive less reliable cars that are less likely to have snow tires and they are less likely to have (good) car insurance. So what happens if they are rushing to work after dropping the kids off in bad weather and they wreck because they were trying to satisfy Wal Mart's unreasonable demands. They may cause loss of life to themselves or others, they are more likely to cause significant property damage that they cannot pay to recompensate, traffic may get snarled, the police may have to spend money getting them out of there. Everyone BUT Wal-Mart loses, and yet it is Wal-Marts policy. They would rather see this happen than give someone an hour or two of overtime while they are covering a shift for someone who cannot make it into work. That is how Wal-Mart's policies towards employees hurt everyone.
Monstar L
Wal*Mart is unlikely to make this work, because (whatever you think of them) their excellences are not in innovative use of technology. What they are good at is business deals that look good to their suppliers but turn out to benefit Wal*Mart in the long run... and in ratcheting down their suppliers' prices.
How is Wal*Mart going to make their downloadable movies so much cheaper than the competition that they'll be able to drive the competition out of business? Force their IT department to outsource their movie download servers overseas?
And on the Internet everything is nearby. When a brick-and-mortar Wal*Mart succeeds in killing off the local small-town businesses, the local residents are faced with the choice of shopping at the local Wal*Mart or driving a long distance. On the Internet, even supposing that (say) Wal*Mart drives Amazon UnBox out of business, you're not going to have to drive ten miles to shop at the iTunes store.
The only way I can see Wal*Mart winning is if they use their famous muscle to pressure the MPAA into allowing their products to being delivered without DRM, and with the capability of burning a DVD. At the moment, the Wal*Mart video download website seems to be showing me such badly scrambled pages that I can't read how it works, but I don't think that's the way it works now.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Do you have children? Have you ever tried to take them to day care and/or school an hour, or even half an hour, early?
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
I've always thought the studios were braindead. I think most people would buy 2 or 3 CDs a week if they only cost $5. Instead, they make them cost around $15, so I'm lucky if I buy 1 a month. Most CDs aren't worth that much. It's even worse with downloads. Why would you pay $11 for the downloaded album, when you can get the CD for $15? iTunes don't really cost anything to distribute, so they should make it smart, and charge $.25 for a song. Absolutely nobody would pirate music because it just wouldn't be worth their time. People would be buying them like hotcakes, and the studios would be making even more money. But instead they inflate the price to the highest number they think anybody would pay, and make very few sales compared to the number of people who actually would like to have a copy of the song.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.