There’s been a lot of talk about how Google is dropping the ball with Google Video in major ways. They failed to properly promote their most popular TV shows, and even if they had, a LARGE segment of the market could not have purchased them any way.
I’m a big far of the iTunes Music Store, and the optimist in me says that when the DRM wars play out, Apple will be at the forefront of providing DRM-less content. Okay, so some would call me delusional, I really believe it. It will take a year or two, but eventually consumers will get what we want. We are in a consumeristic society, after all.
What surprised me today about Google Video was that they let Mac users see the previews, but then a nice little, “Sorry, purchasing this video requires Windows 2000 or Windows XP.” notice appears buy where it should have a button to buy the video.
Mac users are at the front-line of purchasing the latest and greatest digital products. While the percentage of Mac users may be under ten percent, I’d estimate the market share Google Video is losing to be around 15% at the low end to as much as 25%. If old shows like The Brady Bunch could be sold in a DRM-less or at least Mac-compatible format, maybe they could make headway. But even their shows which have been out of production for decades use their terrible Google Video Player.
So I can’t even buy crappy DRM content from Google. The good news: They only have terrible shows, and there weren’t any I wanted to buy any way. I’m afraid they are somehow going to win over a network or two, and then shows I would buy won’t be available to me because I choose a computer that crashes twenty times or more less frequently than Windows, looks better (screen and exterior), has superior protection against viruses, and gets faster which each new OS instead of slower on the same hardware.
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