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This topic comprises 7 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
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Author
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Topic: Torrent Sites still going strong
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Marcel Birgelen
Film God
Posts: 3357
From: Maastricht, Limburg, Netherlands
Registered: Feb 2012
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posted 04-17-2017 07:35 PM
While the sales tax situation in the U.S. is certainly complicating stuff for brick and mortar stores, I can tell you that the problem isn't uniquely isolated to the United States.
Many retailers in "Western Economies", most of which don't have state-specific sales taxes, suffer from the same pandemic, where whole chains go up in smokes, one after another. The only concepts seemingly still going strong are those focusing on absolute bargains (cheaper than on-line) or luxury and "experience".
If I look at my own situation, we do most of our shopping on-line nowadays, for exactly the reasons Mike listed.
There are just a few compelling reasons why I would still go out to an actual brick & mortar store, the ones I can come up with now are:
- I want to see it before I buy it, maybe I want to compare it visually with the alternatives.
- I really need it NOW and same-day shipping isn't available, too expensive or still not sufficiently "NOW".
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Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted 04-19-2017 01:12 PM
I agree that, in concept, there should be some sort of Federal Sales Tax to level the playing field with retailers that must charge local sales tax, but that issue must be significantly smaller today than it was even a couple of years ago.
I'm one of those who actually pays my state's Use Tax each year, so I have to keep track of online purchases and whether or not sales tax has been charged. Very little this year fell into that category (much much less than in past years). Amazon is the single biggest online retailer and it charges sales tax in Wisconsin. A quick search resulted in a 2/1/17 CNBC article that says that Amazon now collects sales tax in 39 states, leaving just 6 that have a sales tax but Amazon does not collect it for them. That makes the online vs. local issue in regards to sales tax more insignificant with every passing agreement.
As a small business owner, I am sensitive to the issue of supporting local businesses. However, there is a limit.
For example, if one looks at a TV in a local Best Buy and it is priced at $1,200, and the same TV is $900 on Amazon, people are naturally going to lean toward Amazon because of the price difference. Best Buy now price-matches, which is a very good thing, as I would much rather buy the TV locally and avoid the possibility of shipping damage and the hassle of replacement if the TV is damaged or faulty in some way.
I'm even willing to pay a little more than what's available online for the convenience and desire to buy locally, but that has its limits. For a $1,000 TV, would I pay $100 more? Not at Best Buy, because they are a large chain and their level of support both pre- and post-sale is low. However, I have done that at a local specialty retailer because I know that they offer more of a service.
Retailers hurt themselves by not being any better than online competitors. I can't tell how many times I've gone into a Best Buy and asked a question, only to have the blue-shirt read off the label on the shelf, as if I was unable to read it myself. Now I do it more for the entertainment factor than anything else.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 04-19-2017 03:29 PM
quote: Scott Jentsch
I agree that, in concept, there should be some sort of Federal Sales Tax to level the playing field with retailers that must charge local sales tax, but that issue must be significantly smaller today than it was even a couple of years ago.
Online merchants just need to collect the right amount of sales tax at the time of purchase for each customer depending on where that customer lives. That's easier said than done since there are thousands of cities and towns across the United States with different sales tax rates. However, every online merchant of significance is already doing far more complicated things regarding their customers. They're maintaining account info and ordering history on many thousands or even many millions of individual customers. And they're constantly advertising products to customers through email and targeted web banner ads. Operating a sales tax database would be child's play compared to that.
If individual states and/or cities are throwing up any road blocks due to outdated, analog tax revenue collection systems then they need to modernize ASAP since it's costing them and local businesses money.
quote: Scott Jentsch
As a small business owner, I am sensitive to the issue of supporting local businesses. However, there is a limit.
What I've personally observed, especially in the last few months, is most people truly don't care the slightest about supporting their local economy. They'll spout flag-waving fake patriotism, like shouting, "I support the troops!" But when it actually comes down to paying for our way of life, they don't want to contribute anything at all. They selfishly want everybody else to pay for it and get a free ride themselves.
I saw that play out very clearly when Oklahoma's governor, Mary Fallin, announced the state government made a deal with Amazon to begin collecting sales taxes March 1. People were bitching about it to no end on local Facebook forums.
That kind of gets back to this issue with movie watching free-loaders buying modded media players and visiting torrent sites. The freeloaders figure institutions like movie theaters, retail businesses, government services, etc. can all survive just fine without their money. When confronted about the accumulating harm free-loading does when enough people are doing it, they just vomit out some political sounding bull crap to rationalize the activity.
quote: Scott Jentsch
I'm even willing to pay a little more than what's available online for the convenience and desire to buy locally, but that has its limits. For a $1,000 TV, would I pay $100 more? Not at Best Buy, because they are a large chain and their level of support both pre- and post-sale is low. However, I have done that at a local specialty retailer because I know that they offer more of a service.
Every retail operation has a much higher overhead than an online merchant. Some of that overhead has to be built into the product prices. Certain manufacturers enforce the use of Minimum Advertized Prices as a means to protect retailers. Online merchants absolutely do take advantage on pricing when they don't have to use MAP. I thought music CD and DVD prices were absolutely ridiculous at mall stores like fye and Sam Goody. But then I found out what they were paying for mall rent and then the super high prices made sense. Nevertheless, those stores went bye bye fast. Hastings tried to compete on pricing but still went out of business anyway. Why buy a CD or DVD when you can just stream it for nothing or next to nothing on Spotify, YouTube or Netflix?
In the end one big fact remains: online merchants hurt local economies far more than they help. They're constantly working to find new "efficiencies" (read: run effectively with fewer and fewer employees). They don't do shit to support a local economy. It takes people with jobs earning money, buying stuff and paying their taxes for our way of life to even be possible. If online business is really the future of retail in the United States then our economy will be in the toilet. At some point the blood-sucking online merchants will eventually see their business go to shit as well. They're not immune from a severe economic recession or depression. I know if I lose my job I sure as hell won't be buying anything from Amazon much less anyone else!
quote: Scott Jentsch
Retailers hurt themselves by not being any better than online competitors. I can't tell how many times I've gone into a Best Buy and asked a question, only to have the blue-shirt read off the label on the shelf, as if I was unable to read it myself. Now I do it more for the entertainment factor than anything else.
I don't think customer service is any better online. If anything, the person web browsing is pretty much on his own to figure out everything for himself. The customer has to read lots of different things in different places if he wants to even bother trying to do any research. More often they'll just blind-buy the cheapest version of the product they want. Online reviews and Q&A forums can be every bit as misleading and uninformative as anything blabbed by a customer service rep in Best Buy.
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Dave Bird
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 777
From: Perth, Ontario, Canada
Registered: Jun 2000
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posted 04-20-2017 10:42 AM
Bobby, the part about most people not caring about supporting their local economy is bang-on. As a guy who sold a generational (60 year) family grocery business, but also someone who remembers a time when people bought their tv, appliances, hardware, building supplies, feed, food, car, tractor, whatever from a local family who quite often employed full-time staff who earned a real living as a "clerk" or salesman, and all of this in a town of less than 2,000 souls, I can remember when they did support their own.
Now, I really can't be sure it's because they had a desire to do so, it's just how things were set-up. If you drove down to the "city" (40,000), most of those places were also family-owned businesses too. They hadn't had their buildings, infrastructure or indeed, their taxes heavily subsidized to such an extent that they could undercut the family businesses much. On volume? Sure, but as you say, a slight difference was worth it for the service.
Eventually, as the Wal-Marts and online took over, it sure hurt when they'd ask you to sponsor the local little league team, but when you sat down for dinner, you were eating food they'd paid the people in Bentonville, Ark. for.
Not too many truly "protected" sectors for the "brick and mortar" little guy anymore. Consumer goods and food is gone. Little guys did a great job seizing the home video and music market for a good long while, but that's gone. The car dealers have done a good job in adapting to a model that protects them fairly well, they make little to no money selling you the car but cars need service and Amazon can't do that.
So if you're still a little guy, and despite all that goes on in the movie biz, if your glass is still half-full, you realize that it's these "experience" type things where you might still find a niche to operate. A little theatre, our drive-in, restaurants.....all facing very tough challenges for sure, but also just outside the box of what the big box and online entities can do.
If there was a time machine, would we choose to go back? I guess I would, but I'm biased. I'd like to think we would at least make the choice NOT to massively subsidize the large entities that killed the locals. Let 'em compete on even ground. That initial bump in jobs was always offset when construction was over and the many local businesses closed later, leaving a lower-paid workforce and the profits sucked away from the community.
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Frank Cox
Film God
Posts: 2234
From: Melville Saskatchewan Canada
Registered: Apr 2011
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posted 04-20-2017 12:28 PM
People didn't travel like they do today, either. When I was a kid, we lived in a town of 2000 people and it was exactly 60 miles to a city of about 110,000 people at the time. I think we went there maybe once in two years, at the most, and it was a huge adventure for everyone.
Everything that you needed, you bought in the town where you were because how else would you do it? The Eatons and Sears catalogues were well used by everyone, though.
Now, driving from a town to "the city" is something that many families seem to do routinely, even daily, and online ordering for just about anything is just a click away. I can easily find out if something is on sale for $10 cheaper somewhere else and even if I have to phone for information that's effectively free to do as well. Remember when a long distance call to ask a question or make an appointment would cost you a day's wages for five minutes?
The world is smaller today than it used to be.
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Scott Jentsch
Phenomenal Film Handler
Posts: 1061
From: New Berlin, WI, USA
Registered: Apr 2003
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posted 04-20-2017 02:29 PM
Whether it's TV's, appliances, or movies, I think it really comes down to value. People need to see value in what they're purchasing in order to go through with the purchase.
There are times when something becomes a commodity and the only differentiation is price. A brick and mortar operation will lose that battle nearly every time, but so will any online retailer or streaming provider if that item can be had for free. I don't think anything can be done about piracy-minded people aside from an education campaign so that people realize that these services are illegal. That won't convince everyone, as there has always been a percentage of the population that are very willing to steal cable, hack a cable box, or download movies/music, and there is not much that will change their behavior short of them getting stung by a virus or owned by a malware-infested box.
Putting a bug in the local news outlets' ears about a potential story wouldn't be a bad idea. Local TV news operations would eat that kind of stuff up if you can hold their hands through the process of understanding it.
How can a theater add value to attract more people, especially in the face of pirate services on the low end and cheap streaming services like Netflix?
You can't compete on price, that's for sure. A movie ticket costs more than an entire month of a Netflix subscription. They can buy a 24-pack case of soda for less than the price of a 32 oz soft drink at most theaters. Same goes for the 12-pack of microwave popcorn.
Find the places where those competitors can't compete with you. Hire people who love what they do and love what they're selling. Make sure they know about the product they are selling and can answer questions without looking it up. Make sure they look happy, like they want to be there.
Going to the movies is an experience. If I go to a theater and the staff is surly and the workers look like they would rather be home, then their customers are going to think that they should have stayed home too.
Far too much emphasis is being placed on reclining chairs and in-theater dining options, IMO. I guess chairs are easy, because they're something that someone can buy, and it has a tangible result that can be seen. Measuring true customer satisfaction is much harder. But people can stay home and sit in a recliner.
Serve them with a smile. Make it easier to see a movie in the theater than it is to watch it at home. Someone wanting to see The Fate of the Furious right now at home would have jump through some hoops to do so, but many local theaters have showtimes starting every hour. Introduce the movie in person and provide some interesting trivia, a la Robert Osborne on Turner Classic Movies.
Make sure the presentation is perfect in a clean auditorium. When people have a soundbar under their 65" TV, that can't compare to a 65-foot wide screen with a kick-ass Atmos sound system.
Make sure that misbehaving people don't ruin the experience with their disruptions. Then, thank them when they leave. A Kodi box can't do all those things. Neither can Netflix. Neither can Redbox.
My guess is that you'd spend much less than the cost of converting just one auditorium to powered reclining seating, and you'll be providing much more value and creating much more customer satisfaction.
But what do I know? I don't own a theater and have never worked in a theater. But I have been going to movies for more than four decades, and running a web site that caters to the moviegoing public for more than 20 years.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 04-20-2017 04:40 PM
quote: Dave Bird
Not too many truly "protected" sectors for the "brick and mortar" little guy anymore. Consumer goods and food is gone. Little guys did a great job seizing the home video and music market for a good long while, but that's gone. The car dealers have done a good job in adapting to a model that protects them fairly well, they make little to no money selling you the car but cars need service and Amazon can't do that.
More Americans work in businesses with brick and mortar store fronts than anything else. The trades span across retail, leisure & hospitality, professional & business services, financial services and other kinds of services. Over 80% of America's 150 million jobs base is in "services-providing" occupations. Over 15 million jobs are just in retail alone. That's more than the 12 million in manufacturing and 6 million in construction.
Many millions of service industry jobs are vulnerable to elimination by growth of automated, online-based businesses. Every one of those jobs that are eliminated equals a customer & taxpayer that is taken out of the economy as well. With enough job losses any business will see its customer base shrink to painful or even fatal levels.
It's clear a lot of people are enamored with the "modern" approach of buying things online. Far more than that people love saving money on a purchase (or getting it free if possible). It's also clear most Americans are taking our economy and way of life for granted, as if things will stay hunky-dory no matter what. Our economy, investment base and tax base are all in a balance that is more delicate than most people realize.
quote: Scott Jentsch
Far too much emphasis is being placed on reclining chairs and in-theater dining options, IMO. I guess chairs are easy, because they're something that someone can buy, and it has a tangible result that can be seen. Measuring true customer satisfaction is much harder. But people can stay home and sit in a recliner.
I don't mind the recliners other than wonder what kind of negative hit they inflict on the bottom line. The seats are more expensive than regular theater seats, take up more space and probably have higher maintenance costs from normal use and vandalism.
Theater chains should probably limit their use of the dine-in theater format. Running a restaurant effectively is really difficult. Customers are very picky and bad word of mouth can spread and kill a restaurant's business pretty quickly. Theater operators should probably concentrate more on putting on high quality presentations rather than be distracted by all sorts of optional business ventures in the lobby. Many theaters are located in or near shopping centers and restaurant rows. So if they're going to bother with a dine-in theater concept the food had better be pretty damned good and priced to compete with nearby dining options.
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Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
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posted 04-20-2017 05:16 PM
quote: Dennis Benjamin
Don't get me wrong, I am not condoning people doing illegal things. But if someone choses to watch "Guardian's of the Galaxy Vol 2" on thier tablet rather than see it in a movie theatre or at a Drive-In, then they don't sound like someone that I'd get along with anyway. They are completely missing the point of the Hollywod movie experience.
OK, I get that, but it's not about who we get along with or if we personally wouldn't be caught dead watching a movie on a cellphone or tablet or even on a computer monitor; it's about how many people decide NOT to pay for a theatre ticket. If more and more of them don't buy that $12 ticket in lieu of all the other devalued presentation platforms available to them and they think watching it anyplace BUT a theatre is just a fine and dandy way to experience a movie, then I am afraid your position in the theatre industry, at least if it's on the exhibition side will be at serious risk.
Then even if you were able to stamp out the many new ways people can choose to see cheapened versions of movies, that wouldn't stop the erosion of box office sales -- not cash sales, but asses-in-the-seats sales. A significant cause of that errosion, is the fact that the theatre experience itself has been slowly eroded over decades by the big chains doing everything to save a buck and making that "strangers gathered in a dark room to communally experience a movie" not the great come-on experience it used to be.
For a long time now, that supposedly powerful incentive to see a movie in a theatre is what has actually driven people these days to wait (you know...that shorter and shorter wait) to watch it at home and create an experience much more to their liking.
For half my life I never ever heard anyone say what I began hearing once single screens began to be sawed in half and twined and then triplexed, i.e., the birth of the utilitarian, soul-less, cookie-cutter, assembly-line, characterless multiplex -- before that cinema evolution, I never heard anyone say, "I HATE going to the movies." Never heard my parents say it...never heard any of my friends say it. You said, let's go see this or that film and everyone jumped at the chance. You can lay the "I HATE going to the movies" phenomenon right at the feet of exhibition; it's not just the studios' penchant for day&date. It's all about exhibitors trying to save a buck. "Who needs ushers to make sure those strangers that everyone raves about as why you should sit in that dark theatre, behave like decent, civilized human beings?" asks the penny pinching bean-counter at corporate.
Fact is, when I see a movie in my own house, I rarely see it alone; I've got family...I've got plenty of friends and I can invite as many as I want and they ARE decent, civilized human beings and I know that in ADVANCE, plus, they are wise enough that they don't dare take out a cellfone or talk during the film. Quite frankly, I get all the "communal experience" I need. Not to mention, I know my comfortable couch and recliners are bed-bug free...I know there are no varmints running under foot and I know my popcorn and snacks are fresh and won't require that I take out a second mortage to pay for them.
Point being, there are many factors that are constantly pushing the general public to not feel the need to see movies only in theatres -- it's not just bootleg copies available in this or that format. You can still easily find guys roaming around with rows of bootleg DVDs pinned inside big trench coats. And they will happily tell you which titles are pristine copies (7 bucks each, 2 for $10) and which are off-the-screen cam copies (2 bucks a pop).
Amazon can put tons of all that jailbreak hardware in a car compactor and it won't stop people from NOT going to the multiplex; that has long been the handwriting on the theatre wall.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 04-20-2017 08:08 PM
70% of the economy in the US is driven by consumer spending. Consumers need to have jobs good enough to give them some spending power in order for them to spend. I think lots of investors and executives at companies whose stock is traded publicly either forget that fact or don't care about it.
Plenty of retail companies have down-graded many positions in their work force to part time and no benefits positions. Lots of other sectors in our economy are guilty of price gouging, making people who are already struggling struggle even worse. College tuition inflation is just about as bad as health care cost inflation. New car prices have grown ridiculous. Housing prices are ridiculously high in many markets. Even in my town, which has an arguably flat to worsening real estate picture, has a pretty bad shortage of decent yet affordable housing.
All of this crap is going on, and meanwhile online businesses are gaining momentum at cannibalizing lots of brick and mortar retail jobs. The retail sector is taking a beating. Even higher end stores like Neiman Marcus are in trouble.
quote: Frank Angel
For half my life I never ever heard anyone say what I began hearing once single screens began to be sawed in half and twined and then triplexed, i.e., the birth of the utilitarian, soul-less, cookie-cutter, assembly-line, characterless multiplex -- before that cinema evolution, I never heard anyone say, "I HATE going to the movies." Never heard my parents say it...never heard any of my friends say it. You said, let's go see this or that film and everyone jumped at the chance. You can lay the "I HATE going to the movies" phenomenon right at the feet of exhibition; it's not just the studios' penchant for day&date. It's all about exhibitors trying to save a buck. "Who needs ushers to make sure those strangers that everyone raves about as why you should sit in that dark theatre, behave like decent, civilized human beings?" asks the penny pinching bean-counter at corporate.
To be fair, movie theater companies are having to spend quite a bit more on their facilities than they did in the past. D-cinema projectors cost a lot more than film projectors did. The prices of laser projectors can be pretty extreme. It's standard to at least have 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound in every auditorium. New "immersive" formats like Atmos cost a fortune to configure and install properly. Many theaters in the past had no surround sound. Stadium seating is standard now. That costs more than building a standard sloped auditorium. Expensive recliners are replacing the smaller standard seats in many theaters. The theater screens have at least been getting taller, if not bigger in every dimension.
Meanwhile the window of theatrical release is getting shorter and shorter, which kind of devalues the investment in all that theater hardware.
One area where theaters are being cheap is their staff. They have many employed part time with no benefits. Salaried managers aren't paid all that great either, but since they're on salary they get to work crazy marathon schedules basically doing their job and the jobs one or more employees could be doing. It's cheaper to make the salary guy work much longer than hire more people. In this environment customer service has the potential to go to hell. If the theater company turns its theater jobs into shit jobs why would the employees care if the customers are having a good theatrical movie viewing experience?
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