Why not?
When you're talking about the U.S., 90% of U.S. Households have DVD players and in the rental process, you make a trip to the rental store, then return again to drop the movie off. Just the oil and gas alone has a much higher carbon footprint than a limited life DVD. The same goes for Netflix. These things go in the mail stream and go back in the mail stream.
This is a convenience-based product. I think the bigger issue is what happens to all the plastic packaging and the disc itself after use. Consumable Media is another company in the U.S. that has developed limited life DVD technology. Theirs works without all the extra packaging. Rather than being triggered by oxygen, it is affected by the laser in the DVD player. Pretty cool stuff.
Maybe I'm a contrarian here, but I don't think this technology is bad at all. What I do think is that it's a means to gap consumer demand and habits today until we reach the type of digital download adoption that combats these problems tomorrow. Let's remember here, 80 million households rent movies. Until they move to movies-on-demand or digital download, there's no reason why this technology isn't a solution if it prevents them from driving their SUV's around for special trips to the video store.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
