But what if you want to watch specific movies? Streaming is great if you just want to have something entertaining to watch. As it is, if you want to watch whatever movie you want, some of which are obscure, foreign, or otherwise not popular, you have to pay for 7-8 services to get maybe 50% of what you want.
I'm old fashioned with regards streaming in that I'd rather pay for something once and own something rather than pay again and again and never own anything at all.
I own most things I like on DVD or Bluray. I do have Amazon, Netflix and Disney for shows I can't get, but to be honest I resent it and if it wasn't for Marvel/Star Wars content I'd dump them all without hesitation. I watch almost nothing else on them - they're a complete waste. For me at least - my wife and son like them. I've not paid for a download and I very much doubt that I ever will.
I prefer to buy blu-ray when I can, but it's often impossible where I live as importing anything is difficult and expensive. So mostly I have to rely on Netflix and hope that they have what I'm interested in. Fortunately, they have most of Star Trek so I can watch the ones I don't own there.
You can buy/rent individual movies and shows on a one off basis on various streaming apps without having a subscription. Youtube, vudu, iTunes and Rakuten are just 4 examples, but there are at least a dozen. Amazon also do this separate from their subscription service
On Netflix DVD I can still get nearly all the movies I would ever want for the same monthly fee as one streaming service. Why would I want those spread out across seven separate services and still have a smaller selection? I'm trying to eventually see all the top 1000 movies on They Shoot Pictures Don't They, whether it's an American blockbuster from last decade or an obscure Czech film from 1958. If my selection of those shrinks *at all*, I am not interested.
Game sizes. An optical disk can be coated four times. Each coat multiplies their storage capacity. So a dvd can hold 16 gb of information, and a bluray can hold 100 gb of information. Although I'm going to make four assumptions. 1. An optical disk with four coats is fricken fragile. 2. An Optical disk with four coats has a fricken short life expectancy. 3. An Optical disk with four coats is maybe 4 fricking times as expensive to make than an optical disk with one coat. 4. An Optical disk with four coats can't read so well, so the gameplay is fricking clunky.
The majority of my viewing is on streaming, either purchased or through a service. In a 1900 square foot house with two adults and a child, we are limited on space. I once had a sprawling DVD collection, which dwindled over time as I realized there were many movies I didn't watch. I upgraded to Blu-Ray and then in recent years to 4K UHD. But I only buy physical titles for movies that really benefit from the extra oomph of physical media (for instance, I am now again, for the umpteenth time purchasing the Star Wars movies on UHD). My physical media is now in a little closet on three shelves. I currently own 11 titles on DVD, 94 titles on Blu-Ray, 12 titles on UHD and between iTunes and Vudu 355 titles. (There is a little overlap in the digital titles and physical media, but maybe 20 titles at most.) Samsung discontinued both their Blu-Ray and 4K players back in 2019. While other companies continue to make players, that will likely drop off as Samsung was the market leader for players. Still, titles will likely continue to be released for 5-10 years, Samsung's exit in itself is pretty much the death knell for physical media.
I use my Xbox for a blueray player, and so far, the new systems still have them (for now). Didn't think about company's discontinuing players. There will probably be some cheap chinese brands for awhile longer. For my books and movies that i download, I usually try to get a format that isn't attached to a particular service, like kindle or itunes. One that I can play or read, and don't have to worry about it being "changed" by a licenses expiration or a whim.
I'm 52, so I go back to before home video. And, to me, streaming is where it's at. I have no desire to ever purchase media ever again. The only time I've used my BD player in over a year is to watch the directors cut of Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World, and only because I can't buy it streaming. It was probably the first disc I've bought in 4 years and will probably be the last. I'm also a cord-cutter and am very close now to ditching ATT tv for Apple TV apps only and an antenna. I'm crossing my fingers that, if there's ever a cleaned up 4K ST:TMP DE, it'll be available streaming. Goodbye to storing media for me. A screen on the wall and the world's film libraries at my fingertips, that's what I want.
Not to mention you can never be sure that what you want to watch will still be there when you want to watch it. We're all at the whim of the streaming services deciding what is available. I've already seen a lot of commercials for movies over the years, that for some reason or another have never played locally and then end up disappearing and don't know where or when I'll ever get to see them.
When the entire world's film library actually is at my fingertips in a manner that can't be arbitrarily revoked, I'll agree. Can you watch the original theatrical cut of the Star Wars original trilogy right now? I can. On my DVD. I also have the episode of Community with the drow elf cosplay that looks like blackface and the South Park episode with Mohammed, and the studio can never take them away from me. They are 100% censorship proof. VHS was all snowy and fuzzy even on high quality SP tapes.
That's great for you, but that has zero relevance to me and many others as Netflix DVD isn't available outside the US. However I can stream almost any movie or show any time I want without paying anything if I was that way inclined. Enjoy your Netflix DVD.
Found all of them online in 7 minutes. Wouldn't have to pay to watch them and could easily download and save them to a hard drive.
I have so many Blu-ray players in my house, I doubt I will ever have to buy one again. PS3, PS4, Xbox One, Xbox One S, Xbox Series X, Magnavox Profile 1.1 player from 2009 (still chugging along) and a LG UHD player. I was just watching Star Blazers 2199 on Blu-ray earlier today. I get a fair amount of entertainment via streaming, but still have the physical hardware and plenty of discs to keep me busy should the Apocalypse come.
I have precisely the opposite attitude. I'd actually consider it a good day if I could get every movie - hell, every DVD, in a perfect world - in my collection, replaced with iTunes versions, but unfortunately that's unlikely to ever be possible. That said: I only stream 4K movies - everyone who's ever bought any movie from iTunes automatically gets the 4K version for free, if one should ever become available. For movies that aren't available in 4K, I'll watch the downloaded version. (Downloading isn't streaming, of course. )
While I wouldn't say "fuck streaming" I do feel physical media should still be an option, but then I could be a dinosaur. Although, I'm kind of surprised there aren't physical media releases for more streaming TV shows, particularly the first seasons of the shows. I know they want to make the shows exclusive to drive up the subscription numbers. but I would think they could use the physical media releases of prior seasons, or at least the first as a marketing aid. "Like what you see? Subscribe to our service and see the new season NOW"