As I recently went to the youtube homepage, I saw something new on the sidebar. There was an add for the youtube store, curious at this new development I clicked on it. It turned out to be an online movie rental store run by youtube. The movies ranged from new releases to popular favorites and even hard to find indies and the prices were from .99 to 5.99. The format seemed normal enough and was pretty much a copy of similar online rental sites such as itunes, blockbuster.com, or netflix. However, the interesting thing was that this store was being run by youtube.
This factor alone made the whole concept of the site utterly and completely ridiculous. I mean how ironic is it for youtube to try and sell movie rentals when you could probably find most of these videos on youtube for free anyway. Further more, if the average Joe is aware of this fact then the execs over at Google should be aware of it too right? They are trying to to tap into the market of users that go on youtube to watch movies, however while it is much harder to find full movies on youtube, it is not impossible which is why it is doubtfull that this store will be especially lucrative. Similarly the quality of these illigally uploaded movies are also getting better and better, which is why I think that the appeal of an HD quality movie rental will not sway the average user to shell out that additional fee. Who knows, in the future this format might prove to be extremely successful, however for now that is not the case.
For those who want to check out the store for themselves, go to this link: