Resolved: Arguments for additional rental time aren't realistic

Another thing that this chick didn't take into account is if you're going to compete with other rental services like Netflix and Blockbuster, you need to do all you can to make sure that you offer a service that CAN and DOES compete with it.

Let's ignore the (ignorant) parent issue for one moment while I illustrate just one legit reason why there should be extended viewing windows on rentals:
1. I rent movie to watch on a plane going to my vacation, business meeting, etc.
2. I am unable to finish the movie, have landed and am now enjoying a margarita in Cabo san Lucas and have NO intention of wasting my vacation time finishing the movie the same day I arrived!
3. A week later I am on the plane on the way home (sadly) and now have to pay $3 to watch the last 30 minutes of the same movie.
4. Bummer. Guess I'll watch re-runs of Tiki Bar instead. Love that Lala!

It's not just kids.... I don't have any, and i'm teed off when I have to rent it again to finish. Come home late from work, want to relax with a movie, have to go to bed, come home late from work next day just in time to see the expiration notice. then itunes store reminds me i've already rented the movie....

48 or 72 hours (or maybe at least to completion) is a better deal. It's not like we have physical media that has to be returned so that other sales can be generated...

yes, this isn't how a regular video rental store operates, but breaking the paradigm and making it more convenient will open new sales. I've rented more movies now than I ever had with physical media, just because it's more convenient.

Second response, on a different tack than the last one:

More than twenty years ago, my Mom was able to get all her work done on an overclocked PC-XT running at 9 MHz. In the early 90s, when System 7 was all the rage, people were able to adjust to crashing programs and floppy disks. I hardly see why Apple (or any company) should have to answer for developers' inability to manage memory in their applications. The idea that there is absolutely no way you can just use one program at a time to avoid crashes seems to be a problem you might want to address, not Apple.


Sarcasm off. We expect things today to be better than they were in the 80s and 90s; if it's merely no worse, than we are right not to get excited about it.

The comparison we're making in which Apple is coming up short is not the comparison to the 90s. It's the comparison to Netflix.

For me, it's not that I *couldn't* take two and a half hours of family time to watch a movie, it's that I would prefer not to, and with Netflix I don't have to. If the only competition had similar restrictions, I'd work around them when I rented movies (but I'd also rent fewer movies).

I'm a single dad; my life with my children is very busy, and this isn't a burden or an excuse, it's a choice I've made; I love my busy life. The 24-hour rental window doesn't fit into the schedule I prefer. Netflix does. 48-hour rental windows would cover the 95% case for me, and make Netflix less appealing (though selection, of course, would have to improve as well).

What I don't understand is why you're angry about this. Apple will fail to gain a little of my business unless they change this feature, but who cares? Why do parents' explanations about their schedules warrant calling us 'breeders' and 'momfia' and implying that we're all a bunch of strung-out slackers with misbehaving brats that don't go to bed?

This is the first TUAW article I've read--in years of following the blog--that, for me, crossed the line from wrong-headed to just outright clueless and nasty.

Blogs may not be traditional media, but when you're running a commercial site with ad-backed revenue, it's fair to expect a modicum of editorial judgment and quality. That wasn't demonstrated here. Warren's article should never have seen the light of day.

Like many folks who have commented before me, I hope that, if Warren happens to become a parent in the future, she'll have an opportunity to look back and reconsider just how off-the-mark her assessment was of parental free time.

And there's no reason to wait for that possibility to reconsider how ignorant and inconsiderate it is to take such a derogatory ("breeder", "momfia") tone about something you have no experience with. By the way, while it was questionable when Rose used the terms, context does matter. There's a difference when it's said, sympathetically, among parents, and in favor of parenting needs, versus in a nasty claim that parents' concerns about time was someone invalid or not worth Apple (or any company) responding to. To help you get it: when I've heard other parents use those terms, it's because we're poking fun at and commiserating over the ignorant twits we find using such language to belittle the amount of work (and its value) that goes into parenting.

Personally, I'd appreciate an apology from either Warren or TUAW for running this.

Wow, just wow. Sounds like a lot of people out there are angry at people who have kids. You all might want to find the source of that. Therapy may help. This author is out of line and insulting us parents by using the language she used. Pure and simple.

As for the rentals, I have 2 kids, 3 dvr's, and one apple tv. I don't use the apple tv to rent, because of the following.

let's say it's 8pm and the kids go to bed. Now me and my wife start watching a movie. But wait. One of the kids wakes up and wants some water. then the next wakes up and is scared of the shadows coming in from the window. next the phone rings and one of our parents has some kind of medical emergency or computer question. now back to the movie, but both kids are up and trying to take their pajamas off. getting everyone back to bed takes an hour. By now the movie is half watched, it's 10:30pm, and we need to wake up at 6am for work the next day.

With a 24 hour window, we can't ever start the movie up again, since we can't even think of starting until 8pm the next night when the kids go to sleep....

as another poster put it, 26,28 hours, maybe would work.

nobody is demanding or expecting this to change.

but

this is why we don't rent from apple. I'd guess it's the reason a lot of people don't.

apple, and the vitriololic child hating posters above can

a) ignore us and let us rent from netflix - which works just fine thank you. and much better quality on our blu-ray player than 720p $5 rentals which aren't even the quality of a 480p upconvert to 720 standard DVD

b) try to make changes that make their product appealing to us

either way is fine by me. If apple wants my money, they will have to change. it's not up to me to change my lifestyle to buy their service. It's not up to you to judge my lifestyle. You don't want my money, fine. Here's why you're not getting it. Hopefully someone at apple is listening. Lots of parents out there.

Not everyone can be refreshingly young and free of responsibility and commitment as our dear just out of college and with the maturity and writing skills to match as Christina is. Apple will take notice. Unless steve wants to start yet another keynote conceding why apple tv is a failure.

If you go to a restaurant and the book you happen to be reading catches on fire, then I'd suggest a) don't order the cherries jubilee , b) try to get a table that's farther away from the kitchen, and c) don't eat at those themed Bradbury's restaurants anymore.

Regarding the debate position I have to agree, as others have stated, making an argument by calling on the conditions of 15 and 20 years ago is simply a non-starter. What's with the "when I was a kid we had to walk 10 miles in the snow to rent a movie and 20 miles back and we had to return it half an hour before we rented it, and . . ." Hell, it's the Four Yorkshiremen of Blockbusters. I mean, why stop at VHS? Why not go back to the Shakespeare and difficulty of seeing a play in an outdoor theatre with the plague, sectarian warfare, witchcraft, and a geocentric universe.
Kids today, they never had it so good. I try and tell them, but do they listen?

TUAW has been in my RSS feed for several years now, but I'll be deleting it and getting all my Apple news from Ars now. Breeders? Seriously? I come here for Apple news not to hear people's petty pot-shots at other people's lifestyle choices. Biting social commentary about parenthood I leave to Judith Warner and the New York Times.

-25, single, without kids

Just wanted to add my objection to the breeder momfia comment -- a low class cheap shot. This isn't rocket science. For those of us with kids, 24 hours is a lame window. 28, or even 26 would solve the problem.