2011.03.13 Please Let Me Give You My Money

First, let me be absolutely clear about what I'm not interested in handing over my money for:
In no way, shape, or form am I interested in paying a pile of money for access to hundreds of channels of televisions shows that I don't want to watch. Nor am I particularly interested in paying for all those mostly-crap-stuffed channels PLUS a digital crap-watching device to seine out the minuscule portion I'm genuinely interested in.

No, I watch shows that I can stream over the internet, or wait for them to come out on DVD and get them via Netflix. Considering that the streaming shows include both a per-watch fee and advertising, and that the DVDs can be watched ad-infinitum by thousands of Netflix subscribers, it seems like the streaming option would be the one studios would gravitate towards.

Except, you know, they don't. They're busily stuck with this business model where their audience is a bunch of retarded herd animals waiting for money to be milked out of us. While that was sufficiently correct in the past, times have changed somewhat. Television simply isn't the cultural axis it once was, and now must compete for our attention with things that actually matter, and do so in a manner that conforms more to our convenience.

Take the example of "Big Bang Theory". I love this show, and would happily give CBS money to let me watch it in a manner and form convenient to me: streaming internetness of whole episodes. Instead they only offer isolated clips, and drag their feet even releasing DVDs after a season has finished airing. This seems especially odd to me, because the core demographic of people who would be drawn to this show are nerds like myself - nerds who enjoy technology, like streaming internet. And, let's face it, that particular demographic are the ones who are most likely to pirate the show - especially if there appears to be no other available option.

Then there's "Spartacus". Which I happily streamed on Netflix shortly after the episodes aired (ported to my iPhone in bed, to spare sensitive eyes), and lavished praise on Starz for working with a business model I could happily pay for. Then they pulled the idiotic stunt of not streaming the final episode, making it only available on the DVD release. Yeah, like modern technology-savvy viewers are going to be that patient. The faulty reasoning being that their streaming audience would then be driven to buy their own copies of the discs. Yeah... no. If we goodie-goodie non-pirates have to wait for the DVD, we're just going to wait for the Netflix version - because after being slighted like that there's no fucking way we're going to gift you with money in order to add your show to our disc collections.

Maybe the television studios are still all butt-hurt about not being able to produce cheap, poorly-written shows and have a captive audience lap it up. Sorry guys. Try to keep up. And stop screwing yourself out of money you've earned for producing good shows by your lame misunderstandings about how technology works for your audience. The likes of Pirate Bay know exactly what your audiences want (mostly because they are your already-alienated audiences), and I'm getting sick to death of defending being a goodie-goodie who tries to pay for content I like - without being screwed by the Old Ways.