Tivo
With Amazon Unbox on TiVo, you’ll be able to purchase or rent movies and TV shows to be delivered through broadband directly to your TiVo Now Playing List, so you can watch them on your big-screen TV. (C’mon people, it’s 2007: Renting movies through the mail is so pass�!)
Renting movies through the mail may be passe, but at one point, Netflix was moving more data per day than the Internet, and certainly more movies than all the online offerings combined. So why aren’t we just downloading our movies in the modern world?
- A monopoly or duopoly for high-speed Internet to the home exists in most areas, and without more competition or innovation, cable and phone companies will be slow to roll it out. That goes double for cable companies, which already have an established and (for the time being) still profitable pipeline for movies.
- The movie studios spend much more money on vicious lawyers and congressional “contributions” than they do on visionary engineers or marketers to take movies online legally and profitably.
When Amazon and Tivo conquer those two problems, then maybe I’ll consider giving up my Netflix subscription. Though maybe not; Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has long hinted at downloadable movies, noting the company is called Netflix, not Mailflix.
