YouTube, one of the grade-A, top-line, and biggest websites on the net today is also one of the web's biggest disasters in terms of the revenues it earns.
Reports says, Google will lose about half a billion dollars running the site this year.
Apart from a few ads, there's really no revenue making stream for the impossibly popular site.
To cope up with this, Google has come up with the very idea of ‘renting movies’.
But the idea of doing all of this in the web browser as opposed to, say, Apple's approach, which lets movie renters watch a film on their computer, their phone, or their television via the Apple TV box puts a question marks on the success of this new proposal.
Also the obvious question arises: Who will pay to watch videos online?
According to the Wall Street Journal, YouTube is eyeing a $3.99 rental price, on par with the competition and other video-on-demand services. Alternately, some movies may be streamed for free, with commercial breaks or other ad sponsorship.
WSJ cites people familiar with the matter who say that while details vary depending on the studio – some will offer streamed rentals for a fee while others will offer them for free but with advertising – the cost of a rental would likely be around $3.99, the price Apple charges for new releases on iTunes.
YouTube is talking to Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., Sony Corp., Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. and Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. about charging for new titles on the existing YouTube site. In some cases, these titles might be available on the site on the same day that they come...
On the other hand, YouTube’s Consumers are always reluctant to pay for something they’d formerly gotten for free -- and even when YouTube began to add embedded advertisements to the service, users staged loud and angry mini-revolts. While YouTube has been working on building links with a few key services and products like TiVo, it’s unclear whether paid rentals would be available on any platform beyond the website (where it would be much easier to arrange for payment).
Would the consumers be willing to pay four bucks to watch a movie on a little screen on their computer? Well... maybe, if they were bored at the office and wanted to pretend like they were working!
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