I want to be able to pay $0.10 to watch something once on a specific screen much more than I want to be able to play more expensive downloads on any device.
($0.10 is just a for discussion purposes number estimating the ballpark per view revenue from ad supported stuff; of course they will resist doing this, ads also make the experience worse and don't undermine purchasing the way a price near cost on demand service would)
Some parent might chime in that this would be terrible for kids videos, I'm not trying to say it should be the only way to pay.
Let's say your average HBO subscriber watches 5 shows/weeks, so 20 shows @ $15/month - the cost would have to be closer to $1.00/show to cover it ala carte, particularly as they won't have you locked into a guaranteed $15/month.
I'm not proposing to replace HBO. I think if they did offer ala carte they would have to look at their costs and then choose a revenue maximizing price. Guessing at what their subscribers would do might be a place to start with that, but I think it probably isn't very informative.
(Say the cost of delivery is $0.05. If they have 4x the customers at $0.50 as they do at $1.00, $0.50 should make lots more money. If the cost of delivery is $0.55, then obviously $1.00 makes more money than any number of users at $0.50.)
($0.10 is just a for discussion purposes number estimating the ballpark per view revenue from ad supported stuff; of course they will resist doing this, ads also make the experience worse and don't undermine purchasing the way a price near cost on demand service would)
Some parent might chime in that this would be terrible for kids videos, I'm not trying to say it should be the only way to pay.