Making purchases to maintain a movie library is just as valid as making purchases to maintain a book library or paintings for an art collection or anything else of the sort.
Simply scrolling through the options offered by Netflix shows a far less impassioned connection to the content… which is completely fine. I’m not saying that a passion for film makes one more virtuous than someone who has a passion for bowling or for baking or for crochet. But, simply stated, someone who’s content to just scroll through Netflix to pick from what’s offered does not have the same passion as someone who has time honored favorites that must be kept on the shelf to immediately satisfy any sudden urge to reconnect.
That said, these days you also have the option to make purchases digitally through iTunes, Amazon, et al. Some hold-outs for physical media decry trusting their library of purchases to the whims of the content provider. The answer to this seems to be to make a backup of your copy on your own computer so that you don’t have to worry about logging onto Amazon one day with an immediate urge to watch your purchase of Time Cop only to find out that Amazon doesn’t exist anymore and your film library has disappeared with it.
I still buy physical media, more Blu-rays now than DVDs*. Sometimes, a title falls out of circulation and isn’t available from any streaming services and the only option is a used DVD from 10 years ago. If that particular film is something you’re passionate about adding to your library, then you buy the used 10 year old DVD.
Sometimes, for me, it’s a no brainer:
I watch Adventures in Babysitting every year for Columbus Day. It’s currently available to stream on Netflix but Netflix is constantly rotating its content. There’s not guarantee that it will be there for me when we get to Columbus Day next year.
I could rent a stream from Amazon for $3.99 or purchase a digital copy from Amazon for $14.99.
Alternately, I could purchase the DVD for $4.99 or the Blu-ray for $9.96, both of those are new and with free shipping.
Well, of course I’m going to purchase the physical media. It’s a much better deal.
Same with music: I can walk into Amoeba on Sunset, browse the used section, and come out with 60 songs on 4 or 5 CDs for less than $20. Compare that to 99¢ per song on iTunes- no way! Especially when you add the experience of walking around a great big store with lots of other cool people, buying music on CD is a far better option.
I have curbed my purchases though as streaming options have grown. 10 or 15 years ago, I’d be browsing DVDs and if there were a “pretty good” movie for $10 that I thought, “Heh, I’ll probably want to watch this 3 or 4 times over the next 20 years”, then I very well may have purchased it. These days, those “pretty good” movies usually won’t inspire a purchase- that’s the kind of movie I’m looking for when I’m scrolling through Netflix.
*Footnote from three paragraphs back:
I’ve never owned a particularly large T.V. My current T.V. is, I think, 36 inches. On my T.V., I actually don’t see too much difference between DVD and Blu-ray but I still purchase Blu-ray because I imagine that 10 years from now I’ll be happier to have the Blu-ray rather than DVD- who knows what I’ll be watching on at that point.
For people with 60 inch T.V.s: how does a DVD look on that giant screen compared to a Blu-ray?
