[TomsToyChest]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ludovicotek

No more physical media anymore. The future is all digital. Downloads/Cloud. I actually don't like that. This is getting a little off topic, but companies are trying to move towards an all download/streaming model for their content. So, instead of buying a physical copy of the movie, you have to download or stream it to whatever device you want to view it on. What makes it worse is that some of the major companies are pushing to an all streaming model, where you can never outright buy a movie; you can only stream it. So, let's say you pay $5.00 to rent the movie. You can watch it as many times as you want within a certain time frame (let's say a week) and then the next time you want to watch that movie you have to rent it again. They're trying to get away from allowing consumers to straight up buy it so they can watch it for the rest of their lives without ever having to pay again. Of course, there's always gonna be ways to get around this, but that's the direction they're trying to go in.

When I upgraded to Blu-Ray earlier this year there was a plethora of various services you could get via an Internet stream piped through the player. I was curious about it, hence my asking my friend at Best Buy about it. It could be one of the reasons why Blu-Ray players have dropped in price lately.

In addition to what you mentioned, there's also the monthly membership fees one has to pay for services like Netflix. I don't know what it currently is as I don't subscribe to a rental service but I imagine it's going to go up as printed media circulation slows down.

I'm not crazy about this movement to go to streaming movies either. But it appears that's where it's going to wind up ultimately.