I was very excited to watch the new Steven Soderbergh film, The Girlfriend Experience. I wrote a blog post about Sasha Grey being in the film a while back. I thought it was great that Soderbergh and Mark Cuban were innovated enough to release the film on VOD before the theatrical release. But innovative doesn’t always transfer to tech savvy.
The problem with watching The Girlfriend Experience on VOD is that most people won’t have the technology to play this, even (actually, especially) those of us who are early adopters.
As most people know, I’m a Mac user. I loath Windows and all that it stands for. I’m also a DirecTV user. I hate cable companies and all they stand for. Maybe it seems snobby, but it’s the technology I prefer, and I’m not alone. I’m willing to bet that most people who love movies are on DirecTV. I’m also guessing DirecTV has a more affluent customer base than cable.
And as for the Mac, Microsoft brags about the fact that Apple has a more affluent customer base. And everyone knows that Apple users are much earlier adopters of technology, and download media a lot more than your standard PC user.
So you would assume that Cuban and Soderbergh would make sure to get this thing in the hands of us smart, early adopting, movie loving people. Nope. From what I can tell, and I had to do a lot of searching just to find this out, you can only get The Girlfriend Experience through VOD on Amazon or Comcast!
I love Amazon, I really do. Their customer service is second to none, and I love my Kindle. But trying to watch a movie through their service is torture. You either have to have some sort of dedicated device, or spend some time messing with your XBox through Window. Amazon is simply not a Mac friendly VOD provider.
And don’t even get me started on Comcast, the enemy of tech people all over the country. They just suck, and everyone knows that. Everyone except Mark Cuban I guess.
So why would they snub Apple when millions of people can, and do, download right through iTunes? Why snub DirecTV when it clearly has the best HD options, including HDNet? And even more of a mystery, why snub Netflix streaming service (I have that through my DVD player, and it’s fantastic) when it has such a growing user base, and Netflix is so supportive of independent films?
Clearly there is some business politics behind the scenes if they don’t want to let Apple carry this, and that’s a shame. The only thing this does is stop people from seeing the film, and the company from making money. Mark Cuban might want to re-think his VOD ideas if he plans on making money from it.
directv: more affluent customer base? not so much. I see directv in the housing projects in the town where I work. I see it in houses with 20 illegal mexican immigrants.
Andrew – On the other hand, I have DirecTV, and I don't work in housing project. Ha ha. DirecTV kicks cable ass. It may take 20 illegal immigrants working together to afford it, but that just shows it's worth it!
Oh hey..don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of Comcast. I'm holding out for Verizon FiOS,and I will ditch Comcast the very day it becomes available. Really my only beef with Comcast is they are way behind on the number of HD channels they offer compared to the other services. And that's a big deal for me since I have an HDTV and would like to view actual HD content on it. By all accounts, FiOS is the best thing out there, but Verizon's been slow to roll it out in my area.
i guess money can't buy everything. i'll think of you and your affluence while i am enjoying watching this on my comcast cable. oh, and i am sassing you on my mac if you're curious.
Money does buy just about anything. I went ahead and purchased the Roku device on Amazon to watch this. I'm actually really happy with the device, and I thought The Girlfriend Experience was really good, incredibly real.