Why mobile video will never take off

PetManimal writes: "Even though wireless companies are eagerly marketing mobile video services, it will never be a widespread success, owing to some very obvious factors — notably high prices, small screens, and the inherent contradiction in attempting to pursue a sedentary activity on a mobile device. A survey of European users found that two factors, price and reliability, drove 45% and 24% of European mobile video subscribers away from the services, respectively. According to the original article, greed is at the root of the poor mobile video decisions that U.S. wireless companies have made:

The carriers are desperate to for payback on the expensive 3G systems they've been deploying in the last few years. To do that, they've far overpriced their 3G access. Sixty bucks a month is justified for some users, without doubt, but is far too expensive for mainstream users. And, for those who don't want a full data plan, the cellular operators are offering things like music and video for those willing to pay for it. Or, perhaps, overpay is a better word.

AT&T/Cingular actually has it right — they're using music (and music devices like iPhone) to attract new customers and not generate revenue in its own right. But Sprint's and Verizon's music efforts are flopping because they vastly misunderstand the attractiveness of downloading music over-the-air. Sure, it would be nice if it was easy and cheap, but most people will prefer to download tunes to their PC for a buck than to pay more than twice that amount to download a song to their phone.

The same misunderstanding of customer desires is obvious in the carriers' walled-garden approach to content. They not only want to lure people into their data plans by providing videos and other items, they want a hefty slice of the profits from those items. In fact, they're double-dipping, charging both the content provider and the end user. This same approach, which is so obviously more for the benefit of the cellular operators than their customers, is at work with mobile TV, which is yet another big reason it will fail.

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