Why did they feel to make this story into 3 movies?

The Hobbit is only 300 pages compared to the Lord of the Rings which is over a 1000 pages. By this logic the LOTR movies should have been 6 movies in total including all the story content axed. A talented film maker would easily be able to tell this story in one movie, like the clever film makers of old did.

Either the quality of film making is surely declining with film makers not being able to put together a story within 3 hours or is it the studios determined to squeeze ever bit of cash out of us for a franchise which has been successful. We see this disturbing trend with the Harry Potter series and others.

The Hobbit doesn't need to be three movies. It is not a big story, it should have been a small treat after the LOTR movies, not a series in itself, you'll find yourself wishing it to end by the second movie most likely. But hey the company mentality is why have us pay for 1 ticket for a story in a popular franchise when we can pay 3.

One can reach two possible conclusions from this:

1) Peter Jackson is not as clever as we thought he was as a film maker.

or

2) Film making has turned into into an assembly line mass production cash grabbing scheme milking every drop of a franchise until its ruined.