I grew up with physical media–LP’s, tape cassettes, CDs, videotape, DVD, then Bluray.
I, like a lot of other people, was amazed by the library a simple streaming subscription could bring. First with Netflix, then with Spotify.
I slowly lost track of my physical media and eventually became 100% dependent on streaming services.
I was happy. Netflix had a huge library, almost everything I’d want to watch was there. Spotify had almost every artist I wanted to listen to (except for Joanna Newsome, god bless her harp playing soul).
Then the cracks started to show: A movie I planned to watch was no longer available, a seven-season TV series moved to a different service while I was season five. A show produced by the company that owned the service moved that show to another service it also owned to encourage me to have multiple subscription.
Then the pattern emerged: low prices combined with a big library, and once you subscribed, things would slowly disappear, and prices would slowly rise. In short: enshittification.
I started noticing that DVDs at the thrift store were $2-3 bucks. What if instead of spending $15-$20/month for temporary access to a mercurial and mutating library, I bought DVDs that I could keep forever (?) and re-watch and share with friends.
That was about 3 years ago. I currently have 425 movies, 65 TV series of 819 episodes with a total run time of 54 days, 2 hours and 55 minutes.
Along the way, I’ve found DVDs that sell for as little as 2 for $1! That’s 40 movies a month for the price of Netflix standard ad-free tier!
I’ve told myself to stop buying them, because, though I usually buy things I’ve seen already, I have a massive backlog of things I haven’t seen at all.
It’s kind of funny to me how upset people get when a popular show like The Office or Friends gets moved to a different streaming service. It’s hilarious to me that people will spend $15 a month for years just to have access to a show they could buy outright for $39!
It’s also nice to sit down with a friend and watch a movie with a curated selection of things instantly available without having to see what service its on.
And after a while, I realized that without streaming video, I didn’t need a home internet connection–about $30-$40/month. Instead I could get buy with a 15-gigabyte mobile hotspot, which is about $15 extra to my cell phone plan.
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I’m buying a number of DVD/Blu-ray/UHD discs these days, but I don’t see physical media a complete replacement for streaming. There is lots AND LOTS of stuff I watch once on streaming and have zero desire to watch again. Example: Marvel movies can be an entertaining diversion, but I have zero need to own any of them permanently. The relatively small fee for monthly streaming service (subscribing to only one at a time) gives me plenty of watch-once content while occasional physical media purchases cement my ability to watch the content that is worth multiple rewatches.
Yes, this is definitely not cost effective for anything you can’t by used. It helps I was paying attention during the days DVDs were being sold, so I have old movies I’ve heard about that I want to watch.
But there isn’t “plenty I want to watch” on streaming because I honestly don’t whats out there, and I have stuff to watch, so I’m letting the cultural moment intentionally go by.
If you’re younger, yeah, you might go to the thrift store and see a bunch of movies and have no idea what they’re about or if they’re likely to be good.
There’s also a bit of “patient gamer” philosophy going on with me. A good movie is usually always good.
But there isn’t “plenty I want to watch” on streaming because I honestly don’t whats out there, and I have stuff to watch, so I’m letting the cultural moment intentionally go by.
Thats a unique choice that not many are making. You’ve chosen to limit your movie/TV consumption to a span of time when cheap media existed and was ubiquitous. If that is your goal, your solution works well. I don’t know others that are going for that same approach.
There’s also a bit of “patient gamer” philosophy going on with me. A good movie is usually always good.
The new Dune movies are fantastic in my opinion, but will be years if ever you might find those on the clearance rack or in a discount bin at a thrift store.
Yes, I did buy Dune 1 when Best Buy was liquidating it’s inventory. If you’re patient and keep an eye on sales, you can usually pick up stuff for less. Also got 2049 the same day.
Modern special effects can be uniquely amazing, but they can be uniquely bad. Rewatching LoTR and appreciating the miniature work and compositing and set design that today would be all done in CG or The Volume. Seems there was a sweet spot when CG was accessible but to still too expensive to use for everything.
I have to add that obviously you can’t cost-effectively keep up with the culture this way, exactly, but if you’re just looking to pass the time enjoyably, this is a much better bang for your buck.
I also find TV series are amazing value per hour, especially used but even new.
It also becomes a bit of a hobby–going to thrift stores and being surprised at what you find.
While 480p—particularly at high bitrates—is acceptable for some use cases, I’d much rather use a debrid service with Stremio to access anything at their typically highest resolutions than look for affordable sub-par or expensive top-tier disc-based versions of my library.
If high resolution, high bitrate, downloadable digital releases could be purchased at affordable rates (most digital releases are designed with streaming in mind, and thus have low bitrates compared to Blu-Ray releases), that would be a different story.
I find I can adapt to anything provided I stick with it consistently. I remember plugging in Buffy and finding dark scenes blocky and almost unwatchable, but I did get used to it. Re-playing the original Thief is rough going at first, but eventually you settle into it.
I also find that DVD upscaling is doing a lot of work and they seem standard with players these days.
I’m planning a streaming server in the future, but for now I’m managing video with physical media.
For music, I have a hybrid system of CDs for the car, my hard drive for my computer/living room–shared with an LP player–and a digital music player for when I’m out.