When reproduction and distribution costs drop to zero
Last night I was watching Film Geek (well worth a look), an indie comedy: "This quirky independent comedy from writer-director James Westby is based in part on Westby’s own experiences working in a video store."
It is definitely a niche comedy, and it struck me that even quirkier and more individualistic movies are coming as we start getting movies made for streaming.
Consider: first we had movies, seen only in theaters. Then TV came along, and it undercut the reproduction and distribution costs of the traditional scheme, and pretty soon we had movies "made for TV": a movie that might not justify the expense of theatrical release, but was okay for the lower costs of TV distribution. Next came movie rentals (cassettes and then DVD), and we started seeing "direct to DVD" movies: movies that couldn’t justify theatrical release costs but could be distributed as rentals.
Now we have streaming movies, and unlike DVD movies, the reproduction and distribution costs are close to zero. This justifies even quirkier and more niche movies than before. As The Wife pointed out, it’s like print-on-demand, that released in inner author of millions: browse through the CreateSpace stores and you’ll see books for which the market is probably just the immediate family or perhaps a specific classroom—but that can be done because POD means the distribution and printings costs are incredibly low compared to the traditional book-run and bookstore distribution model. Indeed, Amazon itself benefits from this "long tail" phenomenon: it can carry very obscure titles because there’s no associated shelf-space or warehousing costs.
So as Roku-like devices proliferate, I would expect some entrepreneur to do a "CreateSpace" for movies that are available only in streaming format. Then we’ll see some truly odd movies.
