Amazon video downloads + TiVo: where's the value?

I was working at Amazon when they first released the Unbox video service a few months ago. It ended up being one of the reasons I left. To me, it showed that Amazon had forgotten that it's the customer they work for, not the distributors.

To be clear, I don't hate Amazon. Quite the opposite. I worked with lots of smart people there, and for a long time I really felt that the company cared a lot about the customer. No matter who you were, you could win an argument if your idea was the best for the customers. It made me feel proud of working there and I'm still proud of saying so. But I can't understand and explain why Amazon would even offer the Unbox service under the stupid terms of their license. Cory Doctorow was right on cue when he wrote about this subject.

The extremely flawed service, with it's incredibly unfair license and high prices was less than compelling, to say the least. And I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised if they aren't selling many movies that way.

But when Amazon announced the availability of Unbox downloads directly to your TiVo, my curiosity got the best of me. Plus, they were giving a $15 allowance, so I thought I could try it without cost.

The first thing I decided was that I was going to rent a couple of movies (since buying one would basically drain that $15 allowance).

So I rented the movies one night and the next morning the two movies where there, ready for me to watch them. So far so good, but they came with a huge caveat: once you start watching the movie, it will become unavailable in 24 hours.

That's right. If you start watching a rented Unbox movie on a week night, you better sit there and finish it, because you won't be able to come back to it the following night.

This sucks, and it completely destroys the little value I could possibly see in a service like Unbox. Most rentals cost between $3 and $4, and you know what? Netflix is looking like a better deal every day.

Let's compare: for $15/month, I usually rent 8 movies from Netflix, and I usually keep a movie for at least a couple of nights or for the whole weekend.

For the same $15, I can rent maybe 4 or 5 movies at Amazon, and each of them will vanish in 24 hours.

So what does Amazon need to do if they want to go back to being customer-centric? First of all, lower the prices. Then relax that 24 hours expiration date for rentals. Another idea: allow people to buy 24-hour extensions to their downloads for a lower price. Say, an extra dollar for every 24 hours. Makes sense, since it wouldn't require any extra bandwidth.

I still have $6 to spend, but after that I doubt I will use the service again. Let's see if they decide to improve the rules and provide more value to the customer...