Give customers what they want? Are you nuts?!
I was just reading this story on Ars Technica about Google, YouTube and their plan for attack. The fourth paragraph jumped out at me. Referring to the dance that Google/YouTube has to play with copyright owners:
This isn’t a new concern. BusinessWeek pointed out the dilemma that the site faced months ago. “If they cater too much to their users, they risk getting sued for copyright violations and losing the support of content companies. If they’re seen as favoring content companies, however, they could lose their millions of fans.”
If something weird didn’t jump out at you, read it again. “Their users” refers to people watching their videos. Those are the same people that copyright owners like music companies, movie studios and TV network execs are always complaining about not having enough of. Of course, they all like to blame piracy but the fact remains that all of these content distributors are desperate for more eyeballs because they are losing them at a rapid pace.
Yet, here is a product that all of their customers are flocking to. All of their customers are watching their content just like they wanted. It’s a dream come true. They should be down on their knees thanking God, Allah, Buddha, Google, YouTube and whoever else they can think of.
Only, this isn’t the way that they wanted the customers to watch. So instead they may sue. Rather than change their business model, they may take a thriving consumer base and shoo it out the door.
The article says that many analysts believe “YouTube is holding a shotgun to its foot and is just about to pull the trigger.” Personally, I think it’s the content distributors who are holding the shotgun to their own feet. They have the power to work with Google to give people - their customers - what they want. They have the power to claim back millions of lost customers. They have the ability to help create the utopia of any content, any time. And make billions of dollars doing it.
Or they can decide that they want to keep suing. They can decide that they like their dying business model. They can decide that they don’t want to listen to what Google, YouTube, THEIR CUSTOMERS and everyone else is telling them.
And they can pull the trigger.
