Worldwide Digital Content Distribution: the Missed Opportunity

When you think of eBooks, the first product that comes up in your mind for a lot of readers around the world would be the Kindle, not the iPad, nor the Nook from Barnes and Noble. I personally want to highlight the one factor that makes the Kindle considerably more appealing to buyers around the world; which is the fact that it’s a true world product. And by this, I mean anyone can get the same experience from using product just like anywhere around the world regardless of their location.

Amazon’s Whispernet, a service which allows anyone to access and purchase eBooks anywhere in the world is fundamental to its success. But the main contributor here is the contents that are made available to all Kindle users. The Kindle eBook store is open to international audience. For example: Non-American residents basically have access to 90% of what’s available in the US.

Now when you look at the entertainment industry, things are still looking gloomy. There isn’t really a choice for anyone who wants to legally obtain contents not marketed in their own country. And you know there’s no national boundary on the Internet, thus no one can really stop people from pirating although they don’t want to. Do you see the massive market failure here? Suppliers and consumers just don’t meet in the market at all!

And it doesn’t mean that these people [me included] aren’t willing to pay for the contents. They are! But please make it easy for them to buy and please charge them the same price you charge your local customers. It’s absurd to charge people from a different market more just because they’re physically out of reach. The cost of delivering digital content isn’t exactly location dependent.

From the Steve Jobs book by Walter Isaacson, it looks like we won’t see any changes coming until someone comes up with a revolutionary ice-breaking solution and makes it work, just like how Apple introduced the iTunes store despite the initial skepticism from the music industry. Sure this is going to create conflicts throughout the supply chain systems, but if you really think about this carefully; there’s no real motive for content distributors to take a step further to market each foreign films, TV shows and music, given the risk and the size of the target market. So why don’t content makers market the content via a qualified online vendor or even by themselves? The Internet has made this quite easy.

Think about it, the foundation of the Internet is that it’s global and this is exactly why the Internet has become so popular and ubiquitous today—because it has no national boundary. Unfortunately, the way digital contents are being delivered to end consumers today doesn’t exactly take the advantage of it; even when it is known there’s the demand (via piracy.) Content makers should really do something before we start pirating some more.