Yes, you'd need to put a lot of work into marketing the film and possibly spending some money on marketing services. Would also help if it becomes one of the films that Vimeo features.

Another option would be to sell a film in places such as Netflix.

I think for entertaining it's what Vitaliy said. It may be different if you have a special interest audience e.g. a follower group with the interest to support you or special interest doku topic.

Honestly Distribution options look all bad to me. Is there even an independent box office circuit now? According to the lady here, Sundance gets 8000 submissions... I'm sure the numbers are higher, or the entry difficulty is higher, anyway-

UPloading to youtube or vimeo can be free, I guess, but the viewers of the video will be free also. All of the views would be hard earned, because you would have limited ability to market the movie on platforms other than maybe reddit. I suppose you can e-beg them to donate so that you can do more, and perhaps you can make your way into paid-for tv/streaming distribution, but I wouldn't expect the money to be that good.

You can order runs of physical copies and sell them also...

The ultimate success would be gaining the awareness and confidence of a producer/studio to attach you to a Hollywood or Television production.

I think about how things are, and see little point in bothering. Acquiring actors, then convincing them to act for free; putting themselves out in public as they pretend (usually poorly performed pretending) to be other characters seems like a crazy and difficult proposal now.

@Vitaliy_Kiselev "I think this sum is equal or close to zero.

Until it is really good film with marketing budget."

This sentiment x 1 million percent. Buying something off iTunes, Vimeo, Amazon etc. is what's called DTO (not trying to be patronizing to anyone), for Download To Own. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu is SVOD, Streaming Video On Demand.

Whether it's music or video, DTO numbers have fallen dramatically, while SVOD keeps rising and rising. People just don't want to "buy" anything anymore, especially since they now know that "buying" is more like leasing, and you have to basically be all-in for one company to reap the benefits. The fact that you can download movies on Amazon Prime or Netflix is INSANE but just shows how devalued it is to sell something.

Everything is becoming subscription based, even editing software (cough Adobe), it is fucking crazy. Now you have even MORE middle-men involved, lol.

Sorry if I'm ranting. To @apefos, I am guessing nobody would buy or rent. Only hope is for "Indie" subscription service, but don't know if that's possible.

It is quite the double-think. People have usually when given a choice have almost ALWAYS elected for a physical good that they can hold over an electronic/cloud-based system or at least have been slow to adopt to it. And I totally agree that this is driven by the industry and not by consumers.

But regardless of motive and intent, the numbers are the numbers. An actual purchasable good for media is becoming increasingly unattractive: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/01/buying-music-is-so-over/384790/''

In the end people will have signed up for so many subscription services (but think they are getting a bargain) while spending more money on entertainment than they ever have before.

To address the original question: if you're trying for a general audience, you have no chance. The average viewer who doesn't have Netflix or Amazon goes to Red Box at McDonalds. For a general audience, you must compete with Hollywood. That can only be done at a very high business level. You and I are not at that level.

If you identify a niche audience that has a Roku or Apple TV, they will pay any reasonable small amount, say $5, to stream the film if they know about it and want it. That's over and above what they pay for Netflix or Amazon. Vimeo is available by default on most devices, so that is not a problem. The trick is to identify your audience before you make the film, and keep the budget at a fraction of projected revenue. My first feature film will be marketed to people who play bridge. There are probably about 300K players in the U.S., and, I'm guessing, about 10 million world wide. At a conservative estimate, let's call it 1 million solid prospects. At $5 per stream, that means if I can make the film (including dubbing or subtitles to non-English speakers) for 500K, I have a winning proposition. Not only will bridge players be the audience – they are all old and affluent, so I will go to them for funding as well. And if the film happened to cross over to a general audience, (doubtful, but possible) there's nothing but financial blue sky.

To address streaming versus download: remember, at one time you could only see a film by going to the theater. The only advantage to download or media over streaming is that the viewer can see it over and over at will. If your film is so iconic (think Disney) that people will want to repeat the experience, then you could certainly supplement the stream with an offer to download or purchase media. I know women who recorded VHS tapes of Star Trek Voyager when it first aired. 20 years ago that was a not unreasonable thing to do. Not so today, when any series is available via generic subscription.