Still trying to turn lucrative, YouTube is reportedly working on a movie rental service. The online video sharing site has been almost entirely reliant on user-submitted content, but it is in talks with various film studios about securing licenses to host motion pictures. Among the names in the discussion are Sony Pictures, Lions Gate Entertainment Corp., and Warner Bros. Studios.

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Offering new, timely movies for rent could be a great idea for YouTube, but $4 is way too much if they want to make any money. They are competing with RedBox (where you can rent a movie for $1) and Netflix (unlimited online movies with even their basic services) to name a few, where the costs are much lower. Charging that much, when compared to the competition, would guarantee they never get off the ground with it.
Oh, and if the movies use the same lame and sporadic buffering system that YouTube uses now, many will be passing. No problem if a few minute clip lags or needs to buffer, but I don't want pauses and stutters in the middle of my 2 hour flick.

"Offering new, timely movies for rent could be a great idea for YouTube, but $4 is way too much if they want to make any money. They are competing with RedBox (where you can rent a movie for $1) and Netflix (unlimited online movies with even their basic services) to name a few, where the costs are much lower. Charging that much, when compared to the competition, would guarantee they never get off the ground with it.
Oh, and if the movies use the same lame and sporadic buffering system that YouTube uses now, many will be passing. No problem if a few minute clip lags or needs to buffer, but I don't want pauses and stutters in the middle of my 2 hour flick. "

My thoughts exactly.

No there isn't a problem if the surrent system is not affected. However, I don't think internet streaming is on par with 4 dollar rentals. They might be better off with a subscription system that allows people to view a limited number of movies in a day, month etc. Also, I don't think ads should be removed, but you should be able to skip them. I understand Google needs to turn a profit, and I'm reasonable. The entire site is free. As long as paid viewing does not have those popuo ads it is all good. Front loaded ads and back loaded are cool as long as people can skip them. Also, if everything stays the same, the must not down play the user generated content at all.

4 dollars is way to much , especially with the times were in now .

I can rent movies on my ps3 or even ppv for $2.99 and I don't have to deal with all the ads. For $4, I could go to Blockbuster. The analyst that came up with 4 bucks is living in a fantasy world if they think it will be profitable.

$1.00 Redbox FTW!

I agree with pretty much everyone, $4 is too much. I don't think you can really compare redbox though, since you have to physically go get the movie, and return it, and a majority of their rentals are viewed on a stand alone dvd player connected to a TV rather than a computer.

So in the youtube rentals for $4 market segment you have some $0.99 rentals from iTunes and then $2.99-$3.99 for others depending on the release. Then you have netflix where for like $9 a month you can rent 1 movie at a time, and watch as many streaming ones as you want.

1-2 Movies a month, iTunes wins, but leaves out the linux guys.
3+ Movies a month, netflix wins.

For Youtube to compete here they are going to have to price themselves lower, and I doubt the MPAA wants that.