This article about Redbox is quaint and suggests some recent trends. First, other stuff I've read about Redbox pretty much indicates that it's a boon for downscale and techphobic consumers who aren't utilizing services like Netflix, and so pay a higher per unit price for rentals than otherwise would be the case. So though Redbox is putting downward pressure on the DVD sales & rental market, this seems a case where the studios want to maintain "cash cows" in the form of consumers who simply aren't making recourse to the internet for various reasons (25% of Americans are not on the internet, and of those who are a minority are still on dial-up for various reasons and so aren't on the VOD market). Then there are the quaint critiques:
Mr. Engen is enlisting lawmakers to attack Redbox for renting R-rated movies to underage viewers -- the machines simply ask customers to confirm that they are 18 or older by pressing a button -- and trying to rally the Screen Actors Guild and other unions.
Come on. This is 2009, not 1991. I know, I was a kid in 1991 who was aware of the allure of R-rated films. Today many young people will turn on porn filters when searching when they have to do research on something serious for school. Imagine that, porn as an irritation. The rating system is useful insofar as if you are a parent who wants to take the family to the movies, you know what to avoid (though I think my parents were not expecting naked breasts in Critters II when they took me to it, because it was rated PG-13, so they're a rather coarse indicator). But if your kid wants to view something nasty it's trivial today to do that via the internet (if you have parent filter on, chances are there is a local library that doesn't, etc.). But another interesting point is the decline in profitability of the DVD industry. This is a technology which has been mainstream for less than a decade, but already it looks to be beyond its peak. The format might live on, but the physical object of a DVD is now getting to be a hassle for people who have already shifted from having CD collections to a having a playlist in iTunes. The video cassette industry was around for 20 years, so this seems a case where technological change is occurring faster today than in the past. VHS tapes were ubiquitous from the early 1980s to the early 2000s.
