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Why is Die Hard $8 on Blu Ray but $15 on AppleTV? [Unfair Media Pricing]

r4dr3zr4dr3z Registered User regular
A Blu Ray disc is harder to manufacture. And ship. It gives me the option to watch it even if I switch TV products. I can resell or give it away. But the digital copy costs more. Why?

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Posts

  • DivideByZeroDivideByZero Social Justice Blackguard Registered User regular
    Probably because the studio has a contract with Apple that won't let them discount it on any competing digital service. And a cut & paste contract with Amazon. etc.

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  • RMS OceanicRMS Oceanic Registered User regular
    Other example: I got the South Park game on PS3 Disc for £17. I go to the PSN Store and it's £50.

    It's an interesting note that for non-audio media attaining it digitally seems to have quite the markup for Reasons™. Though for games I think it's a dogged attempt to resist the price drops that can affect all but the biggest blockbusters.

  • useless4useless4 Registered User regular
    Also people can renegotiate for new services. a dvd of die hard isn't going to move but an impulse digital buy? Instant sell at higher prices. These guys make money professionally

  • JusticeforPlutoJusticeforPluto Registered User regular
    Physical copies take up physical space. As new stuff comes in, the old must go. A store only had so much floor space to put products on. So, stuff goes on sale or down in price to move it so newer stuff can come it.

    Digital markets don't have this problem. They don't need sales to make way for new items, they can sell everything at once.

  • AntoshkaAntoshka Miauen Oil Change LazarusRegistered User regular
    Digital markets don't have this problem. They don't need sales to make way for new items, they can sell everything at once.

    And yet, in one of the interesting issues to come out of fragmented rightholders, digital distribution is frequently much more fragmented in terms of what can be sold, and from where.

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  • KarsaKarsa Registered User regular
    The steam store is really interesting because it demonstrates that temporary markdowns can work incredibly well for all digital distribution. I wish other markets would adopt that model. As much as I love my Apple TV for streaming, I have only ever bought one movie on iTunes because Blu Rays and DVDs are so much cheaper.

  • redxredx I(x)=2(x)+1 whole numbersRegistered User regular
    Physical copies take up physical space. As new stuff comes in, the old must go. A store only had so much floor space to put products on. So, stuff goes on sale or down in price to move it so newer stuff can come it.

    Digital markets don't have this problem. They don't need sales to make way for new items, they can sell everything at once.

    Also, I assume, less overhead.

    A store selling a DVD has spent $x already, and if something is a dog just using up shelf space they are motivated to recover that money.

    They pay the royalties for digital copies more or less as they are sold.

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  • SpaffySpaffy Fuck the Zero Registered User regular
    Also, a Blu-Ray can be scratched or worn out. a purely digital purchase never needs to be replaced.

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  • Doctor DetroitDoctor Detroit Registered User regular
    Look at books. I picked up the Kindle versions first 7 Dresden Files books on sale. But at $9.99 (or more) each, I'm not buying more.

  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    Spaffy wrote: »
    Also, a Blu-Ray can be scratched or worn out. a purely digital purchase never needs to be replaced.

    There's a lot of personal preference that comes up regarding digital vs physical media. In the end though a digital copy is always cheaper to distribute than a physical copy. The sole reason digital media ever costs more than their physical counterparts is "because the vendor can charge that much".

    Which is fair. Sellers can charge whatever they want. But when I have to pay more for an e-book than the hard cover I'm not going to believe it's for any reason beyond business.

  • KarsaKarsa Registered User regular
    Ebooks are shockingly expensive, especially relative to paperbacks. But part of what you pay for is the convenience of not needing to find a place to put bulky books.

  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    edited December 2015
    Karsa wrote: »
    Ebooks are shockingly expensive, especially relative to paperbacks. But part of what you pay for is the convenience of not needing to find a place to put bulky books.

    Nah. It's just that they can. Years ago publishers would claim the book prices being what they were because of materials and shipping. Not shockingly, once the barrier of actually printing books was removed they didn't lower prices. Small Gods on Amazon costs nine dollars paperback and ten dollars for a digital copy. There's zero reason for that to be the case beyond someone along the line just wanting more money.

    Edit: After all the convenience goes both ways here. I don't have to worry about storing a book on a shelf somewhere but neither do they. And now that they don't have to keep warehouses full of books or pay to distribute them they charge more.

    Quid on
  • SnicketysnickSnicketysnick The Greatest Hype Man in WesterosRegistered User regular
    Quid wrote: »
    Karsa wrote: »
    Ebooks are shockingly expensive, especially relative to paperbacks. But part of what you pay for is the convenience of not needing to find a place to put bulky books.

    Nah. It's just that they can. Years ago publishers would claim the book prices being what they were because of materials and shipping. Not shockingly, once the barrier of actually printing books was removed they didn't lower prices. Small Gods on Amazon costs nine dollars paperback and ten dollars for a digital copy. There's zero reason for that to be the case beyond someone along the line just wanting more money.

    Edit: After all the convenience goes both ways here. I don't have to worry about storing a book on a shelf somewhere but neither do they. And now that they don't have to keep warehouses full of books or pay to distribute them they charge more.

    At least in the UK part of the reason is that sales tax is charged on ebooks, but not for "analogue" books. But yeah, doing things like artificially holding the ebook price high so it doesn't compete with the new hardback release is some dumb, annoying shit.

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  • DoodmannDoodmann Registered User regular
    Why hasn't someone started a competitive digital book service to drive prices down? Is it the platorm development and software hurdle or that publishers agreement are arcane torture machinations?

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  • iguanacusiguanacus Desert PlanetRegistered User regular
    The publishers own the rights to produce the books. How would you go about getting the rights to digitally distribute them if not from the publisher directly?

  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    Doodmann wrote: »
    publishers agreement are arcane torture machinations?

    I'd guess this one. At the end of the day the top publishers are going to be holding the keys to most of the best authors out there. Amazon's been trying to break in to the publishing game but have done a pretty awful job of it. I've tried a couple of their popular direct published books and they were atrocious.

    Which overall sucks for us the consumers. But at the end of the day people can choose who they want to publish their books and those publishers can charge what they want.

  • useless4useless4 Registered User regular
    Yes, in the digital age the trade off is "either you directly sell your wares with the least amount of profit takers in between you and the customers" or "you utilize the profit makers audience and reach to sell copies" - there are minimal options in between.

  • JuliusJulius Captain of Serenity on my shipRegistered User regular
    Doodmann wrote: »
    Why hasn't someone started a competitive digital book service to drive prices down? Is it the platorm development and software hurdle or that publishers agreement are arcane torture machinations?

    Probably the latter. Though it's probably also because the market isn't big enough to be competitive yet. Publishers are only going to go with a reduced price per digital copy if the potential lost sales are large enough.

  • syndalissyndalis Getting Classy On the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Products regular
    Doodmann wrote: »
    Why hasn't someone started a competitive digital book service to drive prices down? Is it the platorm development and software hurdle or that publishers agreement are arcane torture machinations?

    This is going to sound funny, but Apple tried.

    And they tried wrangling all the publishers to agree to a fair price per ebook, and require that they do not sell bulk to vendors who can afford to buy bulk and therefore get a lower price than everyone else.

    Amazon argued it was monopolistic and collusion, despite them owning the ebook market (80% or more), they won the court case, and now Amazon is pretty much the only game in town for ebooks and they got to look like David ala David vs. Goliath in the process.

    So publishers charge more, sell to amazon at a lower price because amazon bulk buys licenses, amazon undercuts MSRP, and they cornered a market with the support of the courts.

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  • Nova_CNova_C I have the need The need for speedRegistered User regular
    Doodmann wrote: »
    Why hasn't someone started a competitive digital book service to drive prices down? Is it the platorm development and software hurdle or that publishers agreement are arcane torture machinations?

    This was a super interesting read regarding pricing shenanigans:
    http://www.engadget.com/2014/08/25/amazon-hachette-explainer/

  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    Quid wrote: »
    Spaffy wrote: »
    Also, a Blu-Ray can be scratched or worn out. a purely digital purchase never needs to be replaced.

    There's a lot of personal preference that comes up regarding digital vs physical media. In the end though a digital copy is always cheaper to distribute than a physical copy. The sole reason digital media ever costs more than their physical counterparts is "because the vendor can charge that much".

    Which is fair. Sellers can charge whatever they want. But when I have to pay more for an e-book than the hard cover I'm not going to believe it's for any reason beyond business.

    That's the reason anything costs what it does though. A physical book or BluRay costs what iy does solely because they can charge that much.

  • MadicanMadican No face Registered User regular
    edited December 2015
    Also keep in mind that not all media is equal. An author is akin to a musician in the sense that they do not get the lion's share of the money, but their contracts and relations with the publishers do seem to be better as a whole. Whereas a movie's revenue goes to the studio who funded it, where their contracts are more equal in position and power with one another.

    Madican on
  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    shryke wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    Spaffy wrote: »
    Also, a Blu-Ray can be scratched or worn out. a purely digital purchase never needs to be replaced.

    There's a lot of personal preference that comes up regarding digital vs physical media. In the end though a digital copy is always cheaper to distribute than a physical copy. The sole reason digital media ever costs more than their physical counterparts is "because the vendor can charge that much".

    Which is fair. Sellers can charge whatever they want. But when I have to pay more for an e-book than the hard cover I'm not going to believe it's for any reason beyond business.

    That's the reason anything costs what it does though. A physical book or BluRay costs what iy does solely because they can charge that much.

    Not solely. There's costs to be taken in to consideration such as the author, editor, and publisher's time, printing the book, storing it, shipping it, having a building it can be sold in, etc. Having knocked out those latter parts you'd think publishers might pass at least some of the savings on to the consumer. Instead they've increased them on the cheaper to produce product while selling the more expensive to make one at a cheaper price. Which is currently a perfectly sound if dickish business move.

  • AiouaAioua Ora Occidens Ora OptimaRegistered User regular
    edited December 2015
    Quid wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    Spaffy wrote: »
    Also, a Blu-Ray can be scratched or worn out. a purely digital purchase never needs to be replaced.

    There's a lot of personal preference that comes up regarding digital vs physical media. In the end though a digital copy is always cheaper to distribute than a physical copy. The sole reason digital media ever costs more than their physical counterparts is "because the vendor can charge that much".

    Which is fair. Sellers can charge whatever they want. But when I have to pay more for an e-book than the hard cover I'm not going to believe it's for any reason beyond business.

    That's the reason anything costs what it does though. A physical book or BluRay costs what iy does solely because they can charge that much.

    Not solely. There's costs to be taken in to consideration such as the author, editor, and publisher's time, printing the book, storing it, shipping it, having a building it can be sold in, etc. Having knocked out those latter parts you'd think publishers might pass at least some of the savings on to the consumer. Instead they've increased them on the cheaper to produce product while selling the more expensive to make one at a cheaper price. Which is currently a perfectly sound if dickish business move.

    Well, to some extent this has to happen every once in a while, what with inflation being real but prices being incredibly sticky in consumers minds.

    EDIT: I mean, hell movies were like $20 new basically my whole life, $10 or $15 after they'd been out for a while. The prices are still holding steady and the inflation slack is being taking up by the better margins offered by digital.

    Aioua on
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  • ForarForar #432 Toronto, Ontario, CanadaRegistered User regular
    Speaking only for myself, iTunes having a reasonable(ish) price per song and a convenience factor was a big part of what drew me to the platform. However, when I compare books and ebooks, getting the same material in 'dead tree format' being cheaper, I keep to those. It's a big part of what has kept me from adopting ebooks in general; why pay $50 or $100 or more for a reader/tablet/whatever, and then more per book, when most times I'm traveling (in town or abroad) I generally only bring a couple of books with me anyway.

    What I'm getting at is that with the elimination of so many expenses, you'd think there'd be an interest in pricing aggressively to 'hook' more people on the platforms. Steam and iTunes have become ubiquitous within my customer buying patterns, to the point that going to another platform is usually a dealbreaker. Exceptions are made for things I'm truly frothing for (example; Diablo/Starcraft games on battle.net, Mass Effect 3 on Origin), but where possible I keep to Steam because they've treated me well and I like the convenience of (almost) everything under a single banner, usually for a good to great price (steam sales being where most of my purchases come from, again barring the rare exception I won't wait for, X-Com 2 I'm looking at you).

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  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    Aioua wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    Spaffy wrote: »
    Also, a Blu-Ray can be scratched or worn out. a purely digital purchase never needs to be replaced.

    There's a lot of personal preference that comes up regarding digital vs physical media. In the end though a digital copy is always cheaper to distribute than a physical copy. The sole reason digital media ever costs more than their physical counterparts is "because the vendor can charge that much".

    Which is fair. Sellers can charge whatever they want. But when I have to pay more for an e-book than the hard cover I'm not going to believe it's for any reason beyond business.

    That's the reason anything costs what it does though. A physical book or BluRay costs what iy does solely because they can charge that much.

    Not solely. There's costs to be taken in to consideration such as the author, editor, and publisher's time, printing the book, storing it, shipping it, having a building it can be sold in, etc. Having knocked out those latter parts you'd think publishers might pass at least some of the savings on to the consumer. Instead they've increased them on the cheaper to produce product while selling the more expensive to make one at a cheaper price. Which is currently a perfectly sound if dickish business move.

    Well, to some extent this has to happen every once in a while, what with inflation being real but prices being incredibly sticky in consumers minds.

    Oh absolutely. But right now there's no reason for a paperback to cost less than the digital copy. No good one for consumers anyway.

  • AiouaAioua Ora Occidens Ora OptimaRegistered User regular
    Quid wrote: »
    Aioua wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    Spaffy wrote: »
    Also, a Blu-Ray can be scratched or worn out. a purely digital purchase never needs to be replaced.

    There's a lot of personal preference that comes up regarding digital vs physical media. In the end though a digital copy is always cheaper to distribute than a physical copy. The sole reason digital media ever costs more than their physical counterparts is "because the vendor can charge that much".

    Which is fair. Sellers can charge whatever they want. But when I have to pay more for an e-book than the hard cover I'm not going to believe it's for any reason beyond business.

    That's the reason anything costs what it does though. A physical book or BluRay costs what iy does solely because they can charge that much.

    Not solely. There's costs to be taken in to consideration such as the author, editor, and publisher's time, printing the book, storing it, shipping it, having a building it can be sold in, etc. Having knocked out those latter parts you'd think publishers might pass at least some of the savings on to the consumer. Instead they've increased them on the cheaper to produce product while selling the more expensive to make one at a cheaper price. Which is currently a perfectly sound if dickish business move.

    Well, to some extent this has to happen every once in a while, what with inflation being real but prices being incredibly sticky in consumers minds.

    Oh absolutely. But right now there's no reason for a paperback to cost less than the digital copy. No good one for consumers anyway.

    I guess, all things being equal yeah.

    Isn't the unit cost on a mass-produced paperback also absurdly low? Not surprising that differences in the sales models is the main contributor to prices.

    life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
    fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
    that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
    bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
  • Jam WarriorJam Warrior Registered User regular
    edited December 2015
    There's probably a perception (rightly or wrongly) that digital purchases are mostly impulse purchases. The consumer wants [thing] right now and is willing to pay to avoid the shipping time/trip to the shops.

    If that were the case then there's no point trying to undercut physical media because it won't actually drive sales, just lower your profits

    If the people who will price compare are less than the people who will pick it up in their preferred format whatever, then both are going to charge the highest market rate they can rather than seeing themselves as competing at all.

    Jam Warrior on
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  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular
    edited December 2015
    Quid wrote: »
    shryke wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    Spaffy wrote: »
    Also, a Blu-Ray can be scratched or worn out. a purely digital purchase never needs to be replaced.

    There's a lot of personal preference that comes up regarding digital vs physical media. In the end though a digital copy is always cheaper to distribute than a physical copy. The sole reason digital media ever costs more than their physical counterparts is "because the vendor can charge that much".

    Which is fair. Sellers can charge whatever they want. But when I have to pay more for an e-book than the hard cover I'm not going to believe it's for any reason beyond business.

    That's the reason anything costs what it does though. A physical book or BluRay costs what iy does solely because they can charge that much.

    Not solely. There's costs to be taken in to consideration such as the author, editor, and publisher's time, printing the book, storing it, shipping it, having a building it can be sold in, etc. Having knocked out those latter parts you'd think publishers might pass at least some of the savings on to the consumer. Instead they've increased them on the cheaper to produce product while selling the more expensive to make one at a cheaper price. Which is currently a perfectly sound if dickish business move.

    The cost of physically producing a paperback or a bluray is pretty minimal. The rest of the costs except for distribution are pretty much the same.

    But that's all besides the point. There's no reason you should expect them to pass the savings on to the consumer because that assumes the pricing is based on what it costs them rather then based on what they believe the market will bear. It's not dickish it's just the way everything is priced.

    And of course, there are a myriad of other business considerations at work. You've got loss leader strategies on one side (see - Amazon or Walmart) and attempts to not undermine the price of other equivalent goods they produce (see - Publishers and Production companies).

    And you've got the whole idea of IP itself, whose whole purpose is to inflate the price of goods that are expensive to create the original of but cheap to reproduce.

    Basically there's no direct connection between what it costs to make a good and what it sells for. And yet many arguments for why X is "too expensive" rest on the idea that they are.

    shryke on
  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    It is indeed true that I have no reason to expect most large companies to care about anything than their own profit yes.

  • mcdermottmcdermott Registered User regular
    As somebody who enjoys being able to take a large number of books on travel (never know which I'll want next), and enjoys the convenience of switching between tablet, phone, and ereader seamlessly, I can say that ebooks are actually worth more to me.

    They provide a greater benefit to me as a customer.

    So yeah, I'm willing to pay more, and they price accordingly.

    But it can be silly, yeah.

  • LostNinjaLostNinja Registered User regular
    edited December 2015
    Spaffy wrote: »
    Also, a Blu-Ray can be scratched or worn out. a purely digital purchase never needs to be replaced.

    Unless your chosen platform chooses to close down or revoke your license for whatever reason...

    LostNinja on
  • mcdermottmcdermott Registered User regular
    LostNinja wrote: »
    Spaffy wrote: »
    Also, a Blu-Ray can be scratched or worn out. a purely digital purchase never needs to be replaced.

    Unless your chosen platform chooses to close down or revoke your license for whatever reason.

    Which honestly is more likely in many cases than my damaging my own disc beyond play.

  • KarsaKarsa Registered User regular
    Preference is so important too. I will always buy digital books despite the extra cost because I prefer reading on an errader over paper, and don't like needing to find space for my books. It doesn't really matter what they do on pricing. I'm only buying e books. By contrast, for games, music and movies, I'm pretty much indifferent and will but what is cheapest. PC games are the most interesting, since so many physical games can be activated on steam, so I have literally bought boxed games on good sales just to type the codes into steam, and then never touched the boxes again.

  • mcdermottmcdermott Registered User regular
    Console games annoy me. I will buy digital pretty much exclusively, I'm over having to swap discs. At the same time, it's definitely more expensive. But once again, for somebody (like me) who rarely considers reselling games? It's arguably the better value.

  • EchoEcho ski-bap ba-dapModerator mod
    Karsa wrote: »
    Ebooks are shockingly expensive, especially relative to paperbacks. But part of what you pay for is the convenience of not needing to find a place to put bulky books.

    One extremely annoying thing is that in the EU, e-books aren't a product. They're a service. So that's 25% VAT instead of the 6% a dead tree book gets.

    There are big slapfights about this.

  • Inkstain82Inkstain82 Registered User regular
    Quid wrote: »
    Not solely. There's costs to be taken in to consideration such as the author, editor, and publisher's time, printing the book, storing it, shipping it, having a building it can be sold in, etc. Having knocked out those latter parts you'd think publishers might pass at least some of the savings on to the consumer.

    Why would you think that? This is simply not how a market economy works.

    The price of the inputs to a product do not directly influence the price of the product. They have an indirect effect by influencing the willingness of suppliers, but that's it. Price is set where supply and demand meets, no more or less.

  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    edited December 2015
    Inkstain82 wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    Not solely. There's costs to be taken in to consideration such as the author, editor, and publisher's time, printing the book, storing it, shipping it, having a building it can be sold in, etc. Having knocked out those latter parts you'd think publishers might pass at least some of the savings on to the consumer.

    Why would you think that? This is simply not how a market economy works.

    The price of the inputs to a product do not directly influence the price of the product. They have an indirect effect by influencing the willingness of suppliers, but that's it. Price is set where supply and demand meets, no more or less.

    Except the actual supply here is virtually infinite. Cause it sure as hell doesn't take more resources or effort to put a book on my kindle than it does to ship and store it somewhere. At this point the only reason there's an increase in customer expense is the publishers wanting more money.

    This isn't, like, an especially harsh indictment of them either. Ten bucks for a book is a perfectly acceptable price to me. But the only reason the digital one costs that much and the physical one doesn't is publishers wanting more money. Not because it's a dollar more in expenses to download a book.

    Quid on
  • Al_watAl_wat Registered User regular
    mcdermott wrote: »
    Console games annoy me. I will buy digital pretty much exclusively, I'm over having to swap discs. At the same time, it's definitely more expensive. But once again, for somebody (like me) who rarely considers reselling games? It's arguably the better value.

    yes, digital only for games, please.

    My PS4 has this annoying habit of just deciding to spit out whatever disc I have in it. And then not letting me put it back in right away.... and then spitting it out again and again and again and why the fuck does this system even need discs what is this the fucking stoneage

    /rant over

  • spool32spool32 Contrary Library Registered User regular
    *head asplode from effort not to derail into a copyright thread*

    Some combination of needing to keep a retail channel running, popularity / newness, and straight-up price gouging.

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