GOOGLE VIDEO LAUNCHED... $3.95 FOR AN NBA GAME??

Last night I saw that Google's new video service was launched. I was even more psyched when I saw the NBA video page, and so I clicked and then saw that the games were $3.95 each to view. Hello?? $3.95??? Who priced these videos? I assume the NBA did, which is retarded.

Who's going to buy an NBA game at $3.95? I'm a huge NBA fan and a frequent online buyer of micro-services, but I wouldn't pay $3.95. Do they want people to actually download these videos or do they really believe NBA games fetch such a premium? What would be the tipping point where there would be a mass download of NBA games? $3.00? $2.00? I'd say $1.00.

Music videos for $1.99? TV shows for $1.99? I thought Google would blow out the video distribution model on the web, and not follow Apple. If they have influence over pricing, tell the content providers to charge $1.00 or less. How's 50 cents?

I'm a bit biased since I lived in Korea from 2000-2004, which had an active online video distribution market where most TV shows were 50 cents to $1.00 to download. I almost compare these pricing models to the SMS market that the U.S. wireless carriers screwed up on. They initially priced it too high (and it's still too high) so they actually lost a huge amount of potential revenue and created a barrier to usage unlike in Asia where lower pricing created widespread usage and integration into people's lifestyles.

Anyway, here are some more reviews of Google Video from John Battelle, Techdirt, Traffick, and Google Blogoscoped.