One minor consideration in favor of streaming is that some recent movies and TV shows are only available via one of the streaming services. Primarily, of course, these are movies and TV shows produced or owned by those services. (The movie Bird Box, for instance, is only available on Netflix. The drama series Bodyguard aired on the BBC in the UK, but outside there is only available on Netflix.)
Obviously, there’s a hundred years worth of movies and decades of television available on physical media, so you’ll always have something to watch but a lot of new content isn’t going to ever be released on DVD or Blu-ray.
I have thought about that, and it does concern me. Right now, it’s not a problem. The amount of “new content” I watch is…minuscule. I tend to wait until something gets good word of mouth and then pick it up at my leisure. 99% of TV shows I have no interest in watching. However, some do rise above. I’ve DVD’d through Breaking Bad, Mad Men, The Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood, The Americans, and a few others that way. Am currently waiting for the last season of Game of Thrones to be released. I’m fine to wait. Even Netflix original content, like Stranger Things, I’ve been able to get the DVDs.
If somehow that changes (i.e., Netflix shutters its DVD rental business) and I run out of “foreign, cult, classic, and esoteric fare” to watch, and my shelves of DVDs are all stale from re-watches, THEN I might stream something. But at what cost? Can I really stream Delinquent Girl Boss: Worthless to Confess, or Tokyo Drifter, or Samurai Trilogy 2: Duel at Ichijoji Temple or The Testament of Dr. Mabuse, or Sukiyaki Western Django or Broken Blossoms on a whim? Right now, I can have these DVDs delivered to my door in 2 days.
Or, to pick a more mass-market example–how about Cars? I’m a huge fan of Pixar movies and I probably own most of them on DVD. But I have not seen Cars. It’s in my Netflix queue and if I so choose I can have it Monday. But from what I understand (and I could be wrong about this), if I wanted to stream it, I’d have to sign up for some other service.
Stream it for $3.99 here. Yes, you would have to establish an amazon.com account (no charge), but you don’t have to sign up for Prime and you don’t have to pay any kind of monthly, annual, or other recurring fee.
That is very heartening to know in case Netflix DVDs go away. I’ve been quite worried that my viewing interests will take a hit if (when) that comes to pass. Right now, there’s no point in signing up for these other sources, or paying $3.99 for something I can already get via my current Netflix subscription.
Oh, and I just checked the Amazon version for The Testament of Dr. Mabuse. It’s a cut/edited 75 minute version, with (I imagine) dodgy quality. (Sinister Cinema?) The version I watched was the full 2 hour uncut version from Criterion, with restored audio/video.
But your point is well-taken. I’m sure if Amazon has the dodgy version, I could click around and find the Criterion version for streaming somewhere. But until I HAVE to do that, I’ll just keep on trucking with the DVDs.
But I need to come back to…
For example, The Testament of Dr. Mabuse has a whole separate DVD dedicated to bonus features. Are those available on streaming? Honest question.
This story was in my regional newspaper today, and I thought of this thread. While this place does not do rentals (not any more), they have branched out into board games, and have obtained permission from Lego to purchase and re-sell used Legos.
You don’t need Lego’s permission to trade in used Legos. The article itself just says they “entered into a partnership with Lego” for selling new and “pre-used” sets. Presumably the “new” component is the partnership aspect. You can get wholesale deals and such if you go with their marketing campaigns.
Yeah, everytime you see some article touting vinyl’s comeback you should ask to see the actual numbers and not the percent. That’s an easy way to make a trend look more authoritative that it is.
A quick search turns up that vinyl record sales did grow in 2013-14. By about 20%. Good for them. But it was from about $9MM to about $12MM. Meanwhile, streaming music sales gain 54% that same year-over-year to 1.26B streams. I don’t know what the represents in $$$ but it’s a lot.
I got the impression that they did. Anyway, it would be a great way for people of all ages to get them at cut rates, because they can be very expensive.