This can only end badly…for the customers.

First Fox wanted to put a hold of 30 days on their dvds before you could rent them from Redbox

 So Redbox decided to sue

Then WB decided that this all sounded like fun and upped the ante with a dick move to Netflix

Basically, the studios think that Redbox and Netflix are destroying DVD sales. Apparently they haven’t heard of that whole ‘recession thing’ that people keep blathering on about.

It seems to me that DVD prices have risen sneakily since I bought them on a regular basis. The standard used to be $20 for a new disc, regardless of whether it was a single disc edition or deluxe 2 disc edition packed with extras, and it would always be cheaper on the week it came out. Now it’s $20 for the single disc edition while the extra special 2 disc editions are $25 dollars. There’s also a huge drop off in prices if you just wait a couple months. The other problem I had with the ‘buy it the day it comes out’ mentality is that you amass a huge collection, most of the discs being watched only once. When I had a disposable income this wasn’t a problem, but now it’s ridiculous to think that I’d end up buying something that I would only watch once every couple of years when I could just as easily add it to my Netflix queue numerous times.

Here’s the other, big thing that could contribute to the lower dvd sales. DVDs are now the inferior product, with Blu-Ray being the new standard of excellence. Blu-Ray discs have gone down significantly in price since they came out, and you’d expect DVD prices to lower accordingly, but they haven’t. Even though I don’t yet own a Blu-Ray player, I sometimes find it ridiculous to think of buying a new movie on DVD because I imagine myself just replacing it down the road with a Blu-Ray. It makes more sense to rent it, and wait than to buy it twice.

Anyway, I hope Netflix and Redbox win, because this just seems like a way for the studios to screw over the consumers.