Comment by pmjordan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pmjordan | Hacker News Reader

They really don't get it, do they:

I'm not fussed about whether it's free or not, it's convenience that matters.

When my girlfriend and I would like to watch a movie that's no longer in cinemas, I don't care if it'll cost me a couple of euros if it only takes a few clicks to start the download, and the connection is good enough that we can watch it a few hours later. Just the fact that I don't have to look at porn ads on some torrent site ghetto would be worth money to me.

Right now, it depends on what country I happen to be in whether I can download a movie from, say, iTunes, at all. (I can't at home, certainly) But wait, I don't even want to "buy" a movie off iTunes, as that would force me to watch it within 24 hours. If I wanted to have my life scheduled by the entertainment industry, I'd watch TV.

We're finally at a point where I can buy non-DRM music if I jump through a few hoops and lie about where I live. Except of course it's easier and inexplicably costs almost the same amount of money to just order the CD from amazon. Okay, it takes 2 days to arrive, but music usually isn't as spur-of-the-moment as "let's watch a movie!" Plus, I get a nice booklet (if the artist cares enough to persuade the label to spend a few cents on presentation) and I don't have to worry about backups once the CD has fulfilled its original purpose of facilitating a rip to FLAC and moves into the CD rack, rarely to be touched again.

I don't see how they wouldn't make a killing if they sold downloadable, DRM-free movies for about €3-4, albums for, say, €4, and TV series episodes for 50 cents to 1 euro. Sure, it would destroy the industry of shops that sell DVDs, but amazon and play.com are doing that already.

Unfortunately, paying online is also quite an inconvenience if you live in an area where credit cards are an exception, not the norm.

The Dutch banking sector solved it quite nicely by creating an online payment system (supported by almost all banks) that's well integrated into their online banking systems[1]. It works for the national market, but when your browsing crosses the border, you're back into the territory of the infernal credit card.

In this country, the credit card is often seen as a road to debt and as insecure. The banks' system is seen as much more trustworthy. Even if it doesn't support chargebacks, where the CC does...

I suppose that moving from no-risk piracy to risky paying is a hurdle in and of itself, even if the risk is just perceived.

[1] It's called iDEAL. It even has a Wikipedia page in English: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDEAL It never ceases to amaze me how often my countrymen translate their national quirks into English...

Credit cards are pretty rare in Austria, too. (I blame the banks in part; getting a CC here has been a nightmare for me and has taken over half a year!) Amazon seems to do fine regardless, as they've just adapted to the local idiosyncracies. iTunes seems to solve it with gift vouchers. (the latter presumably being especially useful for kids)

Come to think of it, there must be a substantial market for painless pan-European payment processing. Hmm! Or has this been tried and failed many times before?

In any case, to address the micropayment angle, you could optionally pre-charge your account with a certain amount of credit and slowly use that up. I'm sure this sort of thing could be solved, given enough demand. The problem seem to be the copyright holders, though, so I have little hope.

> Credit cards are pretty rare in Austria, too. (I blame the banks in part; getting a CC here has been a nightmare for me and has taken over half a year!)

There's also a fee associated with having a credit card here, so unless you use it a lot, it's generally hardly worth your while.

Amazon either completely ignores the Dutch market or it doesn't get a foot in the door. amazon.nl redirects to amazon.co.uk. There is a Dutch competitor[1] that's pretty big here. Before iDEAL they just worked around the whole credit card mess by sending bills[2].

> Come to think of it, there must be a substantial market for painless pan-European payment processing. Hmm! Or has this been tried and failed many times before?

There has been a very small scare here that a system like that (in the context of the Single Euro Payments Area[3]) might supersede the local iDEAL system by an inferior system. I'm not aware of any previous attempts on pan-European payment systems. There have been some attempts on the Dutch national market before iDEAL, but most of them failed (presumably because if it doesn't have the support of all major banks, the market will end up fragmented).

[1] Bol.com

[2] The Dutch "acceptgiro", you just fill in your account number (if that hasn't been done already), sign it and send it to your bank. Surprisingly, there isn't an English Wikipedia page for it :-)

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area

I don't see how they wouldn't make a killing if they sold downloadable, DRM-free movies for about €3-4, albums for, say, €4, and TV series episodes for 50 cents to 1 euro. Sure, it would destroy the industry of shops that sell DVDs, but amazon and play.com are doing that already.

Agreed. I'd pay those prices. Those are reasonable prices, and for the convenience, they would be worthwhile.

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