David Acevedo's Blog

Steam has released its first movie through its digital distribution network. Netflix streams movies directly to your computer. Hulu is the new cable. Is there a place for physical distribution? Is Bluray dead? The short answer is: yes it is. I used to work in the DVD industry and after getting laid-off a few years back I've been looking to re-invent myself as a writer, as a programmer and as a leader. Things easier said than done in this economy. The sad part of this is that this digital transition was inevitable and foreseeable. Yet the studios and the vendors (I worked for a vendor) and even the retail stores all pretended that it wasn't happening, until it did. Blockbuster is no more, Hollywood Video is no more. All preventable 'deaths' if they'd moved their assents correctly. The next thing on the chopping block is film canister delivery to movie theaters. With silver jumping in price (I'm not sure but I think it quadrupled) and silver being a huge compo...

The Hollywood studios created a small storm in a glass of water with this, but by moving the way they did the storm became huge, and has already swallowed up Blockbuster. The decline in DVD that saw me get laid off from my previous job in the DVD post-production chain is due to many factors but all of the factors were foreseen. None were a surprise and none could have been for-stalled. But in a good example of a communal pool where nobody has the incentive to help everybody, (that sounds rather reminiscent of Green Market's theory of the communal fishing pond) the individual incentives ended up hurting everybody. In Green Market's example a pond's fish stock is failing. It would be advantageous to all the boats in the area to reduce their catch for a few years and let the stock rebound less the fish stock could collapse. But lacking rather enlightened fisherman or regulation you don't get that. What you get is that as the individual's boat's catch reduces they m...