Would this site be considered [a monopoly]?

[The Non-Professional]

This subject is just for shear questions sake, I was going over this in class and It just kinda pop'ed up in my head.

Would this site and its contents be considered a monopoly unto the entire AMV community? Its really the only place with such a large selection of free downloadable AMVs, it has reviews for those AMVs guide to make, guides to perfect techniques, forums to cover all things AMV and the ablility to have people do various other things. If this were to ever be a pay site (for arguments sake I know it would never) there really wouldnt be any alternative for anyone that compares to the services produced hear, new about contests and projects would more or less be cut off and no one would know if a new video came out unless you visited the creators site or went to a convention and saw it. Really though I just thought Id discuse this, I dont mean anything by it at all.

[JaddziaDax]

no, animemusicvideos.com exists too, just this place seems to offer more than there so more people are attracted here.

[celibi87]

this site doesnt try to monopolize the amv market. its just that more people decide to come here instead of anywhere else.

[DeinReich]

I dont think so, it's just that this was the first major AMV community, and it's just kept growing, and theres no sign of stopping.

[Kalium]

Would this site and its contents be considered a monopoly unto the entire AMV community?

Not really. It's the hub of the community. There is no 'market', so there is no 'monopoly'.

[Orwell]

Would this site and its contents be considered a monopoly unto the entire AMV community?

Not really. It's the hub of the community. There is no 'market', so there is no 'monopoly'.

But he mentioned hypothetically if it became a pay site. Then yes, because I don't believe that Phade's circumstances, or even the type of person it takes to create a site like this, would come about again. But, since it isn't a pay site, I agree with kalium that it is the hub of the online/all of AMV community.

[Arigatomina]

If this were a paysite, that would mean either the law changed or amv-fans/makers became more bold. If that happened, then I'm sure some money-hungry businessmen could recreate the site under a slightly different layout, with extra space for hosting videos and more options. The cost wouldn't be astronomical compared to other paysites that are guaranteed to bring in good money. Once this market *became* a market, competition would rear up to get in on the chance to nab lots of money from teenagers. And since it's going on the idea of the org being a paysite, all the competition has to do is offer the same (or better) services for a slightly reduced price. Everyone flocks here because it's free. If it cost money anyone could start up a mirror site to steal customers away. Just look at what yahoo is trying to do to Google's search monopoly, or the attempts to replace the playstation with the xbox. Sure, it takes a while to lose your dedicated customers and fanbase (org members would probably be loyal for a while), but it all comes down to the services you get and how much you pay for them. Once it became legal to charge for the services, the org would have to evovle to remain competitive because competition would definitely try to hone in on this opportunity to make easy money from a bunch of hobbyists - game station wars have proven this.

[Scintilla]

Just look at what yahoo is trying to do to Google's search monopoly...

Hasn't Yahoo's search engine been around for longer than Google's?

But anyway, the thing about trying to start up a competitor site in such a hypothetical situation would be that the competitors would have to somehow overcome the convenience involved with staying on the Org, convenience that comes in large part from the Org's effective "monopoly" situation and huge size.

The way I see it, creators put their videos here and socialize here partially because they know they can find plenty of like-minded creators here, partially because they know that their videos will be exposed to a huge audience here, and partially (if applicable) because they've already put the rest of them here and it's convenient to have them all in one place. It's less convenient to offer copies of videos on other sites as well (that is, when you're the one doing it; I'm not counting situations like someone else uploading your video to YouTube.com), so any site trying to convince a creator to add his/her videos to that site (especially if they have to pay to do it) must have a good incentive for that creator to do so.

For people who put up copies of their videos on their own personal or studio websites, it seems to me that the incentive is usually to add value to their own websites, which is fine by me. But of course that wouldn't apply to the kind of competitor websites we're hypothesizing about here.
Lower price is a possibility; that's fairly straightforward. There's also the fairly obvious incentive of reaching a wider audience...

... but the competitor is faced with the challenge of convincing the creator that the wider audience thereby reached is worth the creator's money, however much it may be. But in order to do that, the competitor must actually be able to provide access to a wider audience.
Therefore, the competitor has the task of finding AMV fans who <i>don't </i>already know about the Org <i>and getting them to join</i> their website (or offering a better deal to the ones that ARE already on the Org, but more on that in the next section) -- because as far as I can see, where AMVs are concerned, there's no point in paying to reach the same people twice ("reach" in the context of offering videos and info on an AMV-devoted website).

On the audience side of things, the viewers come here because they know they can find tens of thousands of videos here, almost certainly including the one(s) they're looking for, and because they can find plenty of like-minded viewers here.
Aside from lower prices, how is a competitor to lure such viewers to his/her site? A low price is worthless without actual content, so the competitor would have to find ways to get creators to submit their videos. And again, s/he could do this by somehow successfully advertising to the AMV editors who don't already know about the Org (so many of us would have once been in this category), or by offering a better deal to those who do.

But to convince the creators of a better deal... you can see we're going in circles.
And at each step, the Org is helped by its own sheer size; the large membership provides creators with a fair guarantee that they'll be able to reach a good audience, and the large video database provides viewers with the knowledge that they'll usually be able to find the video they seek in some way.
It also makes it harder for any competitor to come up with a significant fraction of that.

Competitors always have to be able to offer <a href="http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members ... >something better</a>, but in this case they also have to worry about offering something different. And the way I see it, that may be the more difficult task in such a situation.

Anyway, there's the argument; feel free to shoot holes in it. I'm sure there's something I'm not thinking of, and I've got homework and stuff.
And to think this whole essay started from a desire not to have this post be a useless one-liner.

[Mr Pilkington]

If this were to ever be a pay site (for arguments sake I know it would never) there really wouldnt be any alternative for anyone that......

Why are you bitching?
This is a free site. Don't over analyze things; take what has been given to you and be glad that you have the .org at all, let alone the Donut. Christ people get a grip! If you cant be happy with a potentially free upload to your acceptable videos, then go buy hosting and stop being a drain on the amv society.

Your hypothetical situation is ridicules at best. We did just fine on DC(++) for many years before most of use discovered the .org, its a nice tool and surly a welcomed aid in the solicitation and availability of AMVs, but this kind of thinking will do no positive for the site. Just let it go.

[requiett]

I like how after 6 years, people still have no fucking clue what this site is.