Consumer Confidence

My wife and I bought our first DVD this past weekend -- that is, the first for us. We already own "Mary Poppins," "Beauty and the Beast 2," "Strawberry Shortcake's Adventures on Ice Cream Island," and a couple more gems... but nothing for us. In fact, the only VHS tape we ever bought for ourselves was "Valley Girl," which I bought on clearance for $7 (though , again, we have drawers full of kids' videos).

The thing is, I'm not a buyer -- we rent, we watch cable... but there's hasn't been much I felt was worth buying, because how many times would you really watch something? For instance, I can see "Point Break" on KTLA at least three times a year!) But Zach Braff's "Garden State" changed that.



This isn't a review of the movie, though it certainly was great. We loved it when we saw it in the theater, we love its plot and character arcs, and appreciate the deeper themes at play (OK -- I will plug it: buy it on DVD). It is a great movie; so much so that we will be watching it with the various commentaries, and without, and with friends, and by ourselves... it was just that good, and the DVD extras make it more than worth the sticker price.

That's what I'm writing about today: value for your buck. Content providers (such as movie studios and music companies) complain about piracy (and even legal downloading) -- they say it hurts the industry, and it hurts the artists. The truth is, there isn't much that's even worth the annoyance of "freeloading" (illegal downloading) these days.But give us something worth buying, something we can't get elsewhere, and we consumers will march up to the checkout lanes.

Example: you can hear music on the radio. But you can't hear any song whenever you want; to do that, you need to buy the album. Maybe you just copied a few of an album's songs from friend -- liner notes, lyrics, maybe an enhanced CD with videos would still get you to the store. And DVDs are an even better example, since there's no other way to get access to a lot of the extras you can acquire through purchase. It's not even about combatting piracy, since I won't bother to copy or download a movie I can see on cable sometimes (see "Point Break" reference above) -- I just want a reason to buy.

This is what those content giants need to focus on: better product. If they do that, they'll get our business.