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You’ve heard of disposable cameras!

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You’ve heard of disposable diapers!

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How about, Disposable movies?

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For this video to make any sense, I’m gonna
need you to imagine a world in which Netflix,

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Amazon Prime video, Disney+

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(trying to future
proof here)

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and all those other streaming services

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don’t exist.

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It’s a desolate landscape, I know, but thankfully
video rental stores existed to help you through

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these trying times.

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And, well actually Netflix did exist at this
point but they were still only mailing DVDs to you.

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How quaint.

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But ya know what’s annoying about video
rental stores?

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You have to take the disc back to them.

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Or, mail it back.

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What a hassle!

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I mean, needing to go back to the store?

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And giving them the thing which I borrowed
back?

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How inconvenient!

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I mean, it’s not like I’m gonna just go
back and rent another thing.

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Now I have to go out of my way to return my
copy of Shrek 2.

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Eugh.

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But what if there were a way that I could
rent a movie, and not have to bring it back?

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Don’t you mean buy the movie?

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No!

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I mean, what if I could somehow bring home
a DVD which will only work for 2 days after

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I open it, and then it breaks itself!

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All the savings of renting with the convenience
of buying!

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I’ll take 600!

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This rather bizarre idea did actually happen.

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It wasn’t a huge success, and I’m gonna
argue that’s probably a good thing, but

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in the early 2000’s there was an idea to
put a clever spin [the PUNS] on optical disc technology.

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Some of you might be thinking of DIVX, an
earlier modification of DVD by Circuit City

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which was a more technical solution involving
special players that phoned in to a central

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server to verify whether any specific disc
could be played or not.

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You could then upgrade your disc at an additional
charge to be playable after the rental period,

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or even upgrade it to a so-called DIVX Silver
disc, at which point you effectively owned that title.

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Ain’t that some dystopian DRM right there?

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But we’re not talking about that.

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Instead, we’re talking about something else.

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After DIVX had proven itself a failure, a
little company called Flexplay Technologies

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decided to try that concept again and began
to market what they initially called EZ-Ds.

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These were completely compliant DVDs that
would work in any DVD player, but that were

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made with a chemical component that would
effectively destroy the disc after two days

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of being exposed to oxygen.

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The idea was that you could buy these discs
in a store for about the cost of a rental,

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and since they were sealed in airtight packaging, they
wouldn’t break down until you decided to watch it.

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You could then watch the film an unlimited
amount of times within 48 hours, after which

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point the disc would blacken and become unreadable.

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And of course I have one of these discs right
here.

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It almost certainly does not work but we will
try it just in case!

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That’s right, I haven’t opened this yet.

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We’re gonna do it together!

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I moved you a bit closer so we can do this
toge--

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hmmm.

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What's that doing here?

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Anyway, let’s open the package.

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♫ swanky music begins in background ♫
I’m using a knife like a responsible person

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and cutting towards me.

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So this is just very basic

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[music cuts]

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….

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[music resumes]
So this is just very basic paper packaging

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in shrink wrap.

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[sensational shrink wrap struggles]

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Very user friendly.

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And inside we find a little package with some
information.

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And our disc.

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Mmmmm.

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This might possibly work, but we will see.

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This is really, I will say, you would need
scissors to open this

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.. agh ..

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or some sharp object like a utility knife.

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So it looks like a normal DVD except the back
of it is a very dark red color.

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This may work, which would be surprising but
we’ll find out.

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I can’t see the TV so we’re just gonna
see what happens.

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[strange whirring noise from the DVD player]

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It’s making really weird noises.

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I’m gonna guess it’s not working.

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It’s trying again.

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This is nerve wracking.

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I don’t think it’s working.

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I just noticed this “For best results, open
by April 2009” which is great because that

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was inside the shrinkwrap so there’s no
way you could really…

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well I suppose on the shelf it wouldn’t matter

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but if you took this home you better open at least this far to get a sense of when you need to watch this.

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We appear to be getting nowhere fast.

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This is attempt 2.

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It really sounds like it’s trying its best.

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Wait.

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Did it get somewhere?

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[more disc drive noises]

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I have to…

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I have to actually look at the screen.

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I can’t stand this.

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What’s very interesting to me is that the player
hasn’t given an error.

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It’s just continuously trying to play it.

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So it’s almost like it can see something,
but not enough to matter.

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Well, that was an expected disappointment.

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Since the disc is so old, oxygen has seeped
through its packaging and has already destroyed

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the disc.

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In fact, the discs only had a shelf life of
about a year.

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If we were in 2008 or whenever this disc was
made we would have seen a bright red disc.

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And it would have, you know, worked.

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Now, you might think that the red coloring
is the special compound which turns black.

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But it isn’t.

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Instead it’s a weirdly forward-thinking
countermeasure against them newfangled Blu-Ray

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players they’re talking about.

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See the black color isn’t actually black.

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Light of certain wavelenghts could pass through
it, much like how infrared light passes right

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through the “black” coloring of a PlayStation
disc.

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And one of those wavelengths that could pass
through this is the blue-violet found in the

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laser of a Blu-ray disc player.

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Coloring the disc itself red would block that
blue light, so even if someone could manage

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to read DVD-data using a blue laser (which,
for the record, isn’t very easy at all and

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is why Blu-Ray players have a red laser diode,
too for reading DVDs)

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their attempt would be foiled.

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Are you wondering why I keep calling this
black when it’s clearly a cherry-red?

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Well, to make filming easier I filmed the
written portion before I actually opened the disc.

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Yep, it was movie magic!

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Descriptions and images of these discs show
that they literally turn black like a Playstation

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disc, but this disc clearly hasn’t.

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This is why I thought there was a chance the
disc may have worked when I first opened it.

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Either its packaging was somehow able to prevent
the disc from turning completely black in

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the 11 years between its manufacture and today,
or describing it as “blackening” was simply

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hyperbole and in fact it just got darker.

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If the disc does turn completely black in
the coming days, I’ll let you know and provide

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some pictures in a pinned comment.

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Well, links to pictures but you know what
I mean.

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So let’s talk about what this disc was actually trying
to accomplish.

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When you or I go to a store and buy a DVD
or blu-ray disc, we’re not really buying

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the movie.

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Instead, we’re buying a specific license
to watch that content in a private setting

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for the rest of time.

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Or at least, for the life of the disc, video
tape, or whatever media contains it.

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That’s what the FBI is always warning you
about.

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You didn’t buy a license to show this in
theaters.

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You didn’t buy a license to share this on
YouTube.

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You bought one license to watch this one film
in your home for your own enjoyment.

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But, you can watch it over and over again.

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And once you buy it, you’ll never have to
buy it again.

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Unless of course you get tired of watching
it on VHS and want to upgrade to some newer

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format or whatever.

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The cost of making the packaging and the disc
itself is almost nothing.

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DVDs cost pennies to make, but the movie is
expensive because of the terms of the license

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you’re buying.

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If whoever the content owner is can only make
money from you once and then possibly never

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again, they’re gonna charge a lot for the
option to outright own the rights to private

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viewing indefinitely.

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But, if there’s a set time limit on your
enjoyment of the film, then the movie studio

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doesn’t have to charge nearly as much.

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If they have the opportunity to sell it to
you again down the road, they won’t mind

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if they only make a few bucks.

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So, what Flexplay, and DIVX before it, attempted
to do was to sell only temporary rights to

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a film, and thus movie studios would only
charge FlexPlay a couple bucks per disc,

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rather than 10 or 20.

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And, since DVDs are hilariously cheap to make,
FlexPlay could simply sell you these discs

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for the cost of a rental (about five dollars)
and all parties involved would make their buck.

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The advantage of Flexplay, of course, was
that you needn’t bother returning to the

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place you bought it.

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The disc would simply become unusable and
you could toss it out.

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Now, while this may seem like a pretty stupid idea

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--after all video rental stores already 
 existed

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so what’s the real advantage aside
from enabling even lazier habits--

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it could have been pretty revolutionary.

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Flexplay wasn’t just trying to make a consumer’s
life easier.

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They were trying to enable any business to
easily get into the video rental market.

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Video stores like Blockbuster needed lots
of square footage of retail space to maintain

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their inventories, they needed to track rentals
and charge late fees, and in general their

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business was rather unique.

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A grocery store probably isn’t gonna want
to take on all those hassles just to make

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a few extra bucks.

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But, since Fle--

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it’s back! How did…

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But since Flexplay didn’t require you to
return anything, stores could simply sell

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them like any other product.

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Any retail establishment, from grocery stores,
to gas stations, to office supply stores,

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to hardware stores could easily get into the
video rental market.

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Simply set up a Flexplay display, order some
movies to sell, and watch your profits soar!

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Except, of course, that didn’t really happen,
did it?

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Flexplay discs were first tested in 2003 with
a small handful of Disney titles and the test

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was a resounding failure.

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First of all, let’s be honest, this is a
weird product.

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You’d think that the failure of DIVX would
have been a warning that this ain’t gonna work,

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and even in 2003 Billboard was skeptical
of the product and thought it would create

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a lot of market confusion.

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They were pretty correct, as the test ran
for only a year before the product was pulled.

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A large part of why it failed was due to pressure
from environmental groups.

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Disposable DVDs don’t sound like a great
product to catch on.

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While it is of course possible to recycle
the discs, for the test run Flexplay didn’t

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seem to be that interested in figuring that
part out, and of course needing to return

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to the store where you bought it to recycle
the disc…

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kinda defeats the purpose.

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The convenience aspect sold both to the business
that sells them and the consumer that buys them

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is pretty much lost if the consumer is expected
to return,

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and the business has to handle the recycling.

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So what’s the point?

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Disney is likely who caused the end of the
trial, as environmental groups were pressuring

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them to stop this Flexplay nonsense.

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And they did, for rather obvious PR reasons.

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But, Flexplay would return with a vengeance
in 2008.

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They had somehow managed to get Paramount,
Warner Brothers, Starz, and New Line Cinema

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to agree to licensing deals, and they
also convinced Love’s Travel Centers,

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Hudson News, Travel Centers of America, and notably
Staples to sell their discs.

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Apparently they were trying to go after the
business traveler who wanted to rent a movie,

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but was too busy to return it.

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Or something like that.

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To try and alleviate concerns from the environmentally
minded, they partnered with a company that recycles

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“Technotrash”

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to provide recycling
bins at places that sold the discs

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(which again defeats the purpose)

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and they also would
allow you to print out a free shipping label

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to return the disc for recycling.

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Which again.

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Defeats the point.

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And now you’ve printed something.

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To ship it back.

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To be destroyed.

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00:11:25,580 --> 00:11:30,779
Apparently Flexplay did offer free return
labels during the original trial run, but…

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Really, the whole thing did seem rather stupid.

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00:11:33,600 --> 00:11:36,980
If you’re gonna mail it back, you might
as well use Netflix and the disc can then

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be enjoyed by dozens of people.

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Rather than one.

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If you have to return to the store, you might
as well go to a video store and rent it there.

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00:11:45,800 --> 00:11:50,020
Or, you can just throw it out and be OK with
the waste of plastic.

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00:11:50,020 --> 00:11:52,400
And then of course there’s this little company.

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Ah, yes.

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That one.

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The product that lets retail establishments
get into the video rental business without

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taking on any of the hassle.

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Which allows its customers to return their
rentals to any of the machines, which are

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purposely placed in front of everyday businesses
to maximize convenience.

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The product that costs a small fraction to
use compared to buying a Flexplay disc, with

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only a small convenience penalty, or if you
were of the mind to recycle your Flexplay disc,

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no convenience penalty at all.

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But I’m sure Flexplay will do just fine!

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Well it didn’t.

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At a cost of $4.99 to $5.99, the product didn’t
make sense at all.

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Remember that Netflix discs were only $10
a month at this point, and that was for an

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unlimited number of rentals.

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(well, unlimited
aside for the turnaround time of mailing it back).

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As long as you rented just 2 things in a month,
Netflix comes at the same cost or less of Flexplay.

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And of course, you could keep the disc for a
week and not… ya know

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find that it destroyed itself.

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Redbox rentals were still $1 per day, so if
you wanted to go that route, you could rent

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a movie for one fifth the cost of a Flexplay
title.

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And thanks to their positioning in front of
convenience and grocery stores, you would

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probably have a reason to go back and return
it, anyway.

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Plus, Redbox does give the retail establishment
a commision for letting them use the space

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for a machine.

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So regardless of how icky throw-away polycarbonate
frisbees may seem to you from a waste perspective,

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it also frankly just didn’t make sense. At
all.

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Flexplay was pretty much the worst possible
way to rent a movie at the time.

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If, perhaps, things went to their plans and
loads of bored business travelers stuck in

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airports decided to pop for a movie from Hudson
News, then maybe this would have worked.

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But, I just don’t think that was really
a viable market to begin with.

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If it was, you’d think Redbox would be in
airports, since you could just return the

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disc when you get home.

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But maybe they didn’t want to deal with
the logistics of discs routinely going cross

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country or something, I don’t know.

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Pretty much the one sole advantage that you
could say Flexplay legitimately had was that

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the discs would be brand new every time.

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You’d never have to worry about a scratched
rental disc refusing to play, and then the

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hassle of returning it and getting a refund.

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But, this concept was already tried with DIVX
and people didn’t like it at all.

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Yes, DIVX was a weird product that wasn’t
even compatible with DVD players so at least

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Flexplay had that going for it.

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But the resounding failure of DIVX was somehow
brushed off by those pushing Flexplay, and

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honestly they shoulda seen this coming.

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I’ll grant it’s clever, and I remembering
hearing about it and thinking it was pretty neat.

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But for a commodity like video rental, a neat
gimmick means a lot less than a practical,

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inexpensive rental.

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And that’s before we even get into the waste
aspect.

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Sure, the production and disposal of an individual
DVD probably has a teeny tiny environmental

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impact, but the Tragedy of the Commons means
that as more people do it, the worse it gets

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and possibly without realizing it.

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If Flexplay had become mainstream, then imagine
a world in which 70 million households were

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renting one movie per month.

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That’s over 800 million DVDs produced each
year in the US alone, all of which will be

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intentionally wasted if made by Flexplay.

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In 2010 Redbox rented over 500 million discs.

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According to this website I found, the average
disc is rented 15 times.

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So, those 500 million rentals were only made
of about 33 million discs.

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Redbox accounted for nearly half the rental
market around this time, so assuming similar

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numbers across the board, conventional DVD
rental would require about 66 million discs

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per year, vs. 1 billion Flexplay discs.

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Yikes.

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So I think it’s safe to say it’s a good
thing Flexplay kinda fizzled.

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Yes there are probably a few billion blank
DVD-Rs floating around that will never be used,

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but they weren’t meant to just be
tossed.

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Producing a DVD with a deliberately limited
lifespan seems pretty… well of poor taste.

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And I think that while we seem to live in
a convenience-driven economy, there is a line

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that seems rather crass.

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And I think Flexplay crossed it.

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Interestingly, a thought experiment has been
floating around wondering if the environmental

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impact of streaming services, with their vast
amount of hard drives and servers running

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24/7 sucking up that sweet sweet electricity
might actually be worse for the Earth’s

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health than physical media.

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In many ways streaming services are the perfect
candidate for a Tragedy of the Commons scenario,

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because we can’t see the backbones that
make them work.

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But regardless, I think we can agree that
producing tons of single-use DVDs is definitely

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worse than simply renting them out the old
fashioned way.

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Before I close this video out, I’d like
to discuss the patent.

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The patent that I believe is the principle
one owned by Flexplay is incredible.

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Their patent was so broad that it covered basically any potential way to create a self-destructing disc.

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Here are just a few samplings:

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"In one embodiment...

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Another aspect of the invention...

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00:17:02,740 --> 00:17:04,960
Alternatively, a timed destruction of the
data...

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They basically thought up as many ways to
achieve a self-destructing disc as they could,

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and wrapped them all up into an over-arching
patent.

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Pretty smart, actually.

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In fact, it can best be summed up in this
one paragraph:

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Another aspect of the invention is a composition...

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They even described a disc that would be chemically
altered from the light of the laser reading

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the disc, which could in theory limit the
disc to a certain number of plays, and not

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a specific timeframe.

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They really did cover all their bases, here.

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Too bad it was a product nobody asked for.

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00:18:13,770 --> 00:18:17,509
As always, thank you to everyone who supports
this channel on Patreon, especially the fine

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00:18:17,509 --> 00:18:19,869
folks you see scrolling up your screen.

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00:18:19,869 --> 00:18:24,090
Contributions from individuals like you are
what make Technology Connections possible.

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00:18:24,090 --> 00:18:27,549
If you’d like to make a pledge of your own
and get perks like early video access, occasional

324
00:18:27,549 --> 00:18:31,450
behind the scenes footage, and the inside
scoop on the latest projects, please check

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00:18:31,450 --> 00:18:33,150
out my Patreon page.

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00:18:33,150 --> 00:18:35,500
Thanks for your consideration, and I’ll
see you next time!

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00:18:36,160 --> 00:18:39,460
♫ temporarily smooth jazz ♫

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I will be amazed if this works.

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00:18:44,019 --> 00:18:48,399
And I hope it doesn’t because I already
recorded what I did earlier, so let’s…

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00:18:48,399 --> 00:18:49,480
let’s try.

331
00:18:49,480 --> 00:18:51,909
...was to sell only temporary rights to a

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00:18:51,909 --> 00:18:53,980
film, and the… no.

333
00:18:53,980 --> 00:18:56,980
...is pretty much lost if the consumer is respected to...

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00:18:56,980 --> 00:18:57,540
Respected?

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00:18:57,540 --> 00:18:59,280
Expected!

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00:18:59,280 --> 00:19:01,420
...is pretty much lost if the consumer is res….

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00:19:02,420 --> 00:19:04,040
(disappointed silence)

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00:19:04,380 --> 00:19:05,220
Is expected.

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00:19:05,220 --> 00:19:07,420
...is very hard because.

340
00:19:07,740 --> 00:19:08,440
Ahh!!

341
00:19:08,440 --> 00:19:09,380
No!!

342
00:19:09,390 --> 00:19:11,330
That’s not the line.

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00:19:11,330 --> 00:19:12,840
The…. dibbiybede

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00:19:12,840 --> 00:19:14,990
And loads of bored business travelers stuck

345
00:19:14,990 --> 00:19:16,710
in… eugh.

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00:19:16,710 --> 00:19:19,480
I’ve completely forgot how I wrote this
line.

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00:19:19,480 --> 00:19:21,030
We appear to be getting nowhere fast...