Actually, I'm not a minority, I know hardly anyone who behaves differently in my country. I also certainly am not in lower class. I hardly ever watch movies and when I do, I go to the cinema, because I don't like storing use-once junk in my apartment. Try to put it in perspective of 2% of income - in US most people can accept $85 broadband but hardly a $85 DVD, even if they are earning much more than average. I would be considered an idiot with too much money to spend if I bought them for myself. The only DVDs I have seen anywhere were gifts, as they are easy to pick and fit in boxes well.
The only reason why broadband may cost that much is because it's localized and one can't simply buy EU broadband in US. There are actually good reasons for broadband prices to be affected by local economy, since labour and materials may have different cost there. That's not the case with DVDs, which cost the same (pennies) to manufacture.
But maybe I should have put more emphasis on the problems with availability rather than money. Having a choice of spending my $20 on cinema tickets or a DVD, sometimes I would choose latter to watch something at home. But here DVDs are released only when the dubbing is ready, often after a year from the original release. I could get to this content earlier online, but I don't have Netflix here, nor Play Movies, Pandora and many others. There were problems with DVD releases that were solved in two ways: by VOD with reasonable monthly fee or by torrents. Saying torrents are for the greedy is just a good excuse to prosecute piracy instead of improving the market.
The only reason why broadband may cost that much is because it's localized and one can't simply buy EU broadband in US. There are actually good reasons for broadband prices to be affected by local economy, since labour and materials may have different cost there. That's not the case with DVDs, which cost the same (pennies) to manufacture.
But maybe I should have put more emphasis on the problems with availability rather than money. Having a choice of spending my $20 on cinema tickets or a DVD, sometimes I would choose latter to watch something at home. But here DVDs are released only when the dubbing is ready, often after a year from the original release. I could get to this content earlier online, but I don't have Netflix here, nor Play Movies, Pandora and many others. There were problems with DVD releases that were solved in two ways: by VOD with reasonable monthly fee or by torrents. Saying torrents are for the greedy is just a good excuse to prosecute piracy instead of improving the market.