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A Third of Americans Still Buy and Rent Videos (qz.com)
An anonymous reader writes: One-third of Americans still buy and rent videos, in addition to using streaming services like Netflix and YouTube, NPD Group found in its annual Entertainment Trends in America report. The research firm surveyed more than 7,000 members of its US online panel about their entertainment consumption during August 2017. Family films are still popular buys because kids will watch them over and over again. Spotty broadband service in rural America makes buying and renting more reliable than streaming for some. And some people just like to own and collect movies. Overall, 54% of people surveyed said they still buy or rent video.
Blu-ray video quality is still superior to most streamed video, in my experience.
Netflix has both streaming and physical movies. But the catalogues are not identical, so there are many movies that you can get on disc that you can't stream.
In addition movies on Netflix come and go with their streaming service. Thus it is possible that a movie you watched previously is no longer available for streaming.
And that doesn't consider that I have had my Netflix streaming service seemingly disappear for days at a time, only to mysteriously re-appear for no reason at all.
So in reality the Netflix situation is just another example of a cloud service ebeing "someone else's computer".
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I still prefer "owning" movies I really like rather than streaming. You aren't subject to the whims of the streaming companies that have libraries that are constantly shrinking ( Netflix ) or rights holders that pull their movies to stream on a competing service (Disney).
Like streaming music, the rights holders are slowly moving in the direct of a model where you'll pay every time you watch or listen to their product.
Exactly. Rent on Amazon for $3.99 or buy for $5.
And for me, the secondhand market is fine. If it's not too scratched, I'll buy a movie for $1 at a yard sale. That same movie is not available for rental/subscription streaming and would be $6.99+ to buy a perpetual streaming copy. And minor scratches only matter until I rip the disc and or it in a binder. There condition of the physical artwork is irrelevant, because I use a pristine version on my media server.