The reduced shelf life part of it - you need to make money from the theatrical release, not after - certainly seems to be what he is saying, but it's not clear why that is the case.
If the studio makes more money from ticket sale revenue sharing, than from streaming (or previously DVD rental), then why are they now rushing to streaming so quickly?
To speculate:
Blockbuster used to be utterly dominant in the VHS/DVD rental era, and there would be prominently displayed in-store advertising of what in-theatre movies were coming to DVD/Rental soon, as well as the new releases getting their own section in the store. Perhaps in-store DVD rental therefore created it's own marketing and extended shelf life, as opposed to online streaming rental where the customer likely already knows what they are looking for a opposed to being influenced by "coming-soon and newly-released" in-store marketing.
The lack of variety of movies in the US, to which Damon is responding, is also at least in part because there is, for whatever reason, no culture of arts cinemas here. The whole industry is geared up for the economics of large budget movies and the de-risking that involves.
With streaming you need no marketing because network effects do it for you. You take advantage of the power of the platform. You only pay to market the really big ones, everything else gets the same kind of promotion which already is too strong because you have an established user base in the millions. Before streaming you had no user base, it was open season for everyone.
If the studio makes more money from ticket sale revenue sharing, than from streaming (or previously DVD rental), then why are they now rushing to streaming so quickly?
To speculate:
Blockbuster used to be utterly dominant in the VHS/DVD rental era, and there would be prominently displayed in-store advertising of what in-theatre movies were coming to DVD/Rental soon, as well as the new releases getting their own section in the store. Perhaps in-store DVD rental therefore created it's own marketing and extended shelf life, as opposed to online streaming rental where the customer likely already knows what they are looking for a opposed to being influenced by "coming-soon and newly-released" in-store marketing.
The lack of variety of movies in the US, to which Damon is responding, is also at least in part because there is, for whatever reason, no culture of arts cinemas here. The whole industry is geared up for the economics of large budget movies and the de-risking that involves.