Modern management philosophy depersonalizes employees into interchangeable resources. There is Management, Knowledge Experts and "Cogs".
They don't even care that it's more expensive using cheap programmers to get a job done - it's worth it to them to not have to depend on any individual contributor.

Old programmers can tell you that software has always been a type of art. An esoteric form of art perhaps, but a piece of well written code is a thing of beauty.

is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.

So you're saying New York City isn't safe?

I'm not sure what you can reliably take away from these statistics. Since it is only rentals it excludes the following conditions:

Did they go see it in the theater and now own the DVD? (will probably never rent)
Did they go see it in theaters and didn't care for it? (will probably never rent)

This means that the stats only capture those who
1) Didn't see it in theaters - i.e. it wasn't a big deal to see it / they didn't consider it worth the ticket price
2) Are curious enough about it to rent it later

After renting once, did they buy it for their personal library, or say 'meh' and never watch it again?

Amazon: "We're hemorrhaging money but we're selling LOTS of product!"

Comparing a software product delivered electronically to a physical device that must be assembled, stored, shipped and maintained is an apples-oranges comparison.

"Insightful"? "Funny" perhaps.