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Wal-Mart Pulls the Plug on its Movie Download Service
Author: Jeremy Scott28 Dec
What’s that? You didn’t even know that Wal-Mart had its own movie download service? You never even got a chance to try it out?
Well, too late. It’s dead. Let’s all observe a moment of silence for the death of one of the revenue streams of the world’s largest retailer. (Sniff).
They claim that HP discontinued their software which had powered Wal-Mart’s service. That may be true, but I’m guessing that part of the reason for Wal-Mart’s move is due to the fact that they simply weren’t making enough money on the thing.
iTunes and Amazon have pretty well carved up the marketplace on digital movie downloads, splitting it between them. I’m not sure that tech-savvy audiences were really ever going to turn to a discount big-box merchant for their movie download needs. Look, I like buying things online and not having to leave my house or put on shoes to go buy someething as much as the next guy. But why would I download a movie from a store’s website, when I can probably drive to that store’s physical location and get the same film on DVD from the $5 bin up near the registers? But what do I know?
Wal-Mart’s digital music download service is still alive and kicking. Hooray for them. More money for Wal-Mart! That’s something we can all be happy about, right?
3 Responses for "Wal-Mart Pulls the Plug on its Movie Download Service"
I have a love/hate relationship with Walmart. They do terrible things to small business people everywhere, and yet, when I want a wall clock, that looks cool and costs $7.88 I know where I’m going. I’m my own worst enemy.
Jason
Well, yeah, by nature they put Moms and Pops everywhere out of business. But I don’t necessarily think that’s inherently wrong. It’s just capitalism. They just had a great business model and they can sell for so low a price that Mom and Pop can’t compete.
It’s very sad. And I do feel guilty sometimes contributing to it. But I have friends that think WalMart is evil, and I’m not so sure that’s the case. At least…they’re not evil for these reasons.
I’m much more inclined to think they’re evil for the way they’ve treated their female and minority employees than I am for the fact that they’re making a lot of money, you know?
Hmmm…I guess I know less about that aspect of their business. I’ve heard that the government pressures them to give their employees health benefits, and that’s again one of these double/edged sword things. They should be offering benefits if they can afford to do so, and the government shouldn’t be able to tell them they have too. It’s my liberal sensibilities beating up my capitalistic tendancies.
I do have a friend that feels that Walmart is evil. Truthfully. He got some gift certificates for Walmart for Christmas and was really upset about it. I was kind of shocked.
Jason
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