And there is the next step on the road to obscurity for the major distributors. Right now, WB sees it as a way to vet market interest, which is great for them. But in a few years, as the market optimizes around this, the actual people who make the movies will see less and less value from the studios.

It is directly analogous to the writer/publisher world. It's not to say distributors won't exist, but the part they play will be significantly different.