Rent iTunes TV Shows for 99 Cents? Want
Now one could quibble about the price or all the other equally valid options for television show viewing – Hulu that streams for free, renting DVDs from Netflix or RedBox, Netflix Watch Instantly, setting up TiVo to record your show, or firing up the torrent machine…
That said, I feel 99 cents is a very fair, particularly when it comes down to the details of what you’d get:
- Great quality video.
- No ads. Free streaming on Hulu is pretty cool, but removal of repeated ads for the same ridiculous thing or non-existent products, I’d gladly pay for.
- Save time. This would be an impulse buy. No planning in advance to rent the DVD or record a show before it airs. This gets very close to the ultimate dream of: I want to watch a show right now, press a button, and watch.
- Netflix Watch Instantly’s selection is improving constantly, but there is a notable lack of current shows running right now. In that department Hulu and iTunes still shine, with most episodes becoming available the day after they air on regular broadcast television.
All in all, worth 99 cents to me. Particularly when I consider how 99 cents is blown on ephemeral things constantly, on a daily basis. Just the other day, I bought a soda, a bag of chips, and a Mexican egg nog popsicle, each around that 99 cent price. Heck a decent coffee these days is at least 2 to 5 bucks.
If I’m dropping that amount on all kinds of random crap that doesn’t even last five minutes, I really can’t complain about 99 cents for a twenty-minute television show, even if I only watch it once and don’t ever own the file. Here’s hoping Apple makes it happen.