Quote:
Originally Posted by sbroome
Doesn't expecting a product to be available immediately qualify as the sense of entitlement mentioned at the jump?
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Yeah, it can be framed that way. To me, the term "entitlement" carries a connotation of the consumer feeling that he or she has done something requiring someone else to behave in a particular way.
My point is that there's another way to frame it, which is that it is not the consumer's sense of entitlement that gives rise the expectation that the product be available immediately. It is that "immediate availablity" is inherent in the nature of the digital environment. You turn on your computer or phone and the internet is immediately available. You want an answer to a question, and the internet makes it immediately available. Etc & etc.
We all know that if a book or movie or cd is created these days, there's a digital version. And most of the time, that digital version is or could be made available right away. So to the digital consumer, that's a normal and reasonable expectation of the way the digital marketplace functions, not a "sense of entitlement."
To the digital consumer, failing to sell a downloadable version of a movie when it's released to the theatres is an attempt by the producers to keep doing things the way they used to be done. It goes against the nature of the digital environment.