YouTube looking to charge to view content – Get Real!

The tide is turning. You can hear it in the creaking sound of the New York Times building its paywall, for the second time, and Murdoch has said no more freebies from News Corp. The freetards are probably sitting in a medical marijuana coffeehouse somewhere wonder what went wrong.

The freenomics model of Web bliss is under attack and the rise of subscriptinomics is all but assured.

Now we hear that YouTube is testing the paid content waters by teaming up with the Sundance Film Festival and filmmakers to charge somewhere around $5.00 to be able to view an assortment of movies online. According to Jodie O’Dell over at ReadWriteWeb the movies currently slated to be available are:

The films include The Cove, an underwater adventure about dolphin capturing in Japan; Bass Ackwards, which chronicles an improvised road trip; Children of Invention, about two Bostonian orphans; One Too Many Mornings, a “coming of age comedy about two guys who are too old to be coming of age”; and Homewrecker, a comedy about a locksmith. The filmmakers will determine the exact asking price for viewing each movie, but all will be in the range of $5.

$5.00

To watch a movie in a browser on a computer monitor, or even dumber in a 3.5″ smartphone screen.

So for a little less than a real theater ticket you can watch a movie in a YouTube viewer, in a browser, on a computer monitor and this is supposed to be a good value for your dollar.

I am sure that there will be lots of people who will think this is a great idea and I have no problem with that. I just don’t think that any video geared to be watched in a small viewing screen inside of a browser is worth $5.00. Maybe a $1.00 but that would be pushing it.