PhantomStranger

The worrisome problem will be when the physical market is almost entirely gone and the studios own the only distribution channel and have complete control of the rental market. Why Hollywood wants an all-digital future is so they can lock down movies to a pay-per-view scheme, at ever-increasing prices. Digital content is reasonably priced now only because physical alternatives exist that keep the digital prices down.

Nebiroth

Sadly, the modern consumer regards entertainment as a use-once-throw-away product and they value convenience and instant gratification over everything else. Today's viewer is more someone who wants an evening's entertainment, which starts the moment they click on it, and it is often in the form of something crammed down a narrow internet pipe - which doesn't matter that much because quality is mostly irrelevent when it's on a rubbish little screen on a tablet or even a phone anyway.

They're also secure in the (false) belief that "everything" will "always" be available from "the internet" because we haven't yet started on the inevitable cycles of rights losses and permanently pulled items...yet.

Streaming is the perfect model for delivery to that type of consumer.

And the studios love it too. They never liked the idea of the viewer owning content. It offended their sensibilities. With streaming they do away with all the costly business of making and distributing actual discs, with no risk of a title being a flop and having tens of thousands of copies ending up as a loss in bargain bins. They regain control of what is out there and what isn't, and when, and how much the consumer pays every time they want to see it. There's also none of that nasty business of people selling stuff secondhand either.

For the collector it's a disaster. Part of the joy of a collection is the product as a whole, the artwork, the extras. That will all be gone. So will the movie or TV series you love once a streaming service loses the rights or decides to just pull it for being unpopular and no-one else picks it up. There will be an end to the secondhand market.

Once physical media are done away with you can expect the prices to go up since there's no place else left to go anymore, the services will also become more fragmented as they all do exlusive deals with the studios as hooks to get you to subscribe to them rather than someone else.

The irony is that everyone buying into the great streaming revolution is really just driving us all to a return to the restrictive confines of pay-per-view and subscription television.

It's actually a rental model, people just don;t realise it. Not yet anyway.

I'm very glad that I own almost everything I'm interested in on DVD already. I expect in the future there will be new movies that are only out on streaming; given the state of so many modern releases, I don;t regard that as a loss since I wouldn't own them in any format anyway.

I would certainly not even contemplate dumping my discs for the dubious privilege of turning into a digital suppliant, subject to a capricious internet genie who can decide on a whim to pull content or triple their price when they like; or even to go broke.

You can always have the last laugh with someone who boasts of all that space they gained by going over to MOG and throwing out all their CD's, how old fashioned to even have such things.

Just say "So, what will you do when MOG loses the rights to your favourite band and you can't listen to them any more?"

The smug grin usually disappears as they sputter about "someone else will always have it"

The streaming model isn't new - it's as ancient as going to a movie theatre or getting a VHS tape from Blockbuster. It just does away with the trip, that's all.

Just like "the cloud" is, underneath all the emperor's new clothes, no different to what we called back in the good old days "mainframes and terminals"

dvdshonna

I'm not losing any sleep over it. I watch more movies than most people I know, but there's only about 2 or 3 movies per year that I'm "just dying" to see.

I can live without 99% of the new releases. I usually see them 1 to 3 years after they are released and can live without them. There are so many titles already available on disc, I doubt if I ever have any need for cable, hi-speed internet, digital rentals, or subscription services.

I don't believe overpriced digital purchases/rentals will do any better than overpriced bluray discs. Jack up the price and consumers will start watching whatever is on TV.

Years ago, I thought cable TV was a bargain. Replaced the fuzzy pictures received on my rabbit ears, movies without commercials, HBO, Starz, Showtime, Cinemax. Now they've jacked up the prices $100+/mo and charge extra for HD broadcasts you can pick up for free with your rabbit ears.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

This will never happen. It's been brought up before but books are still around and being published. There still hasn't been that one super popular book that's been written but only sold digitally, with the author/publisher mocking physical media, and saying that this is the future.

It's like how robots would eliminate assembly line workers. Sure they do some things but assembly line workers are still in existence and not some rare species.

MScottM

But there are fewer books being published and there are fewer DVDs/BLUs being pressed and there are fewer assembly line workers. What you seem to fail to realise is that no one thinks it will happen over night but it will happen in gradual stages. Once everyone starts to think of this as the norm, then there will be a further lessening and so forth until for all intent and purposes, there will be none.

How many blacksmiths do you know? There used to be AT LEAST one in every city/town and manyof them in larger cities. Not much need for them now so there are a handful in the world.

A couple of hundred years from now, do you think scholars will look at the end of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century and be able to clearly see the historical line of the end printed text vs the start of digital text. I do. Ask yourself this, when was the last time you wrote a letter and sent it thru the mail to a loved one? Who 40 years ago would have imagined a day when there would be no physical letters being written? Its so bad now that the Post Offices cant afford to stay open. And schools are actually questioning the need to teach cursive writing to students that will NEVER need to write. And yes, there will ALWAYS be a few that will write letters for delivery, but the amount of them will be so miniscule that they will be the exception and not the rule.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

It's one thing to talk about things going away after so long a period of time compared to something with the thread title of "Subscription Services Destroying DVD/Bluray Market", which simply isn't true. If that were the case, Blockbuster would have simply vanished and Redbox wouldn't have helped to make that happen.

I also think you might be surprised at how many people use the skills of a blacksmith for a living. There's quite a market for that sort of stuff and it makes good money.

GoldenWheels

True of TGG and Mill Creek but it's the exact opposite for Shout! and Olive who put lots of love into their releases. And the big studios also have their history of gaffes when delivering a movie properly too, after all.

The other part of this (the Mill Creek and Echo/TGG end of it) is also an evolution of the format IMO....becoming a bargain medium as opposed to a premium delivery format. Frankly that suits this cheap bastard to a tee.

MScottM

We aren't talking about a "long period of time" here. This is all about demand and the black smith analogy is a good example for this. Yes there are black smiths left. There will always be black smiths or at least people that do some of the things that black smiths do but it is about demand. 100 years ago there where tens of thousands of black smith isn the US alone and millions world wide (my own estimations). When the services they provided were in demand by hundreds of millions around the world. Now I would estimate that there are a couple thousand black smiths in the US. There are people that ride horses and so long as that is true there will always have to be people that shoe the horses which is just one of the things black smiths do. So as I said they will always be around but not in anywhere near the numbers they used to be. The demand for them is just so much lighter today than in the past.

As is the demand for physical media. So long as there are alternatives that people "believe" are just as good or better than the physical media, then the demand will go down. And with demand lessened, the supply will dry up too. And then there will be fewer suppliers with will also lessen the supply until one day they decide that it is not worth making the DVD/BLU because they cannot make a living doing it.

Will this happen tomorrow? Or next Week? NO. But it is enevitable unless and until people realise that the digital services are not as good or better than owning the physical media. But really, when do you think that will happen?

One last thought on the matter, when was the last time you bought a VHS tape? How long did it take those to be replaced by a new "method"?

In my opinion, the end of physical media is closer than you think. But by that, I mean the vast choices you have now. Not the fact that there will always be niche suppliers. When you are able to choose from only a couple of hunder titles a year as opposed to the thousands you can choose from now, then physical media will be for all intents and purposes, dead.

Ash Ketchum

Thousands of years from now (or maybe only hundreds--or maybe only dozens), when our descendants are combing through the ruins of our civilization, they won't be able to find anything that will help them figure out the 21st century. They can look at film prints from the 20th century and figure out how to reverse-engineer a projector to enable them to look at it and from the soundtrack squiggles on the side figure out a way to use light to play the sound. They'll look at an LP and figure out how to put a needle on it to get the sound of it. There'll be plenty of hardcover books with pictures and photos printed on durable paper. But when it comes to the 21st century, they won't be able to reverse-engineer a DVD or CD ("These must be coasters used for beer mugs") or figure out how to decode hard drives or graphic cards or digital files. They won't even be able to tell what they are. This will be the "lost century."

Regulus

I read somewhere that there are almost as many Blacksmiths now as there were 150 years ago. Every Horse Racing Track has a Blacksmith Shop that makes (What Else?) Horseshoes for the Horses.

Alan Smithee

Those were replaced by new media that delivered better picture and sound, but they were still media. If streaming ever delivers quality better than Blu-Ray, then I'll start taking it a little more seriously.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

There's horror companies that are still releasing them and people are buying them. Recently in fact. Full Moon started doing it this year and I recall some other one last year.

Last time I bought one was a couple years ago.

It's not just for horses. I've run across a lot of folks that make and sell furniture out of iron.

That would mean I could watch around 3 movies a month and then hit my monthly usage cap.

dvdshonna

"Subscription Services Destroying DVD/Bluray Market".

Destroying might be too strong a term. Maybe I should have said "putting a serious hurt" on DVD sales and rentals. And I was referring to the mainstream market (not total elimination of the DVD/Bluray formats.

It sounds strange when I hear people refer to bluray as a "niche market". Laser discs were "niche". Most of the people I knew had never heard of laserdiscs. I didn't know anyone else personally, who actually owned a laser disc player.

If it was profitable to release titles on laser discs, you can be sure dvd/bluray will continure to be profitable.

I'm not overly concerned about the mainstream population. Do you know why cable cost $70 to $100+/month? Because the lemmings are mindless enough to pay it.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

No.

1. People are too stupid to call in when the promotion they signed up for ends and get changed to the current promotion.

2. If they keep internet but cancel cable, you usually end up losing some combined discount. Then you end up paying closer to what you would have if you had both.

3. Most people, even if they just let their promotion lapse, still don't pay $70-$100. Average price is around $50.

Ash Ketchum

There's a VHS rack still up in my local Book Off. I bought three VHS tapes this year including two Japanese pop music concerts that I already had on other formats. One of them is really long and I never managed to finish it on DVD. But I finally finished watching it on VHS. The third was an anime tape that's never come out in English. (It's in Japanese with no subs.)

Spottedfeather

Never.

Spottedfeather

And there are the specialty blacksmiths that make reproduction eating utensils for reenactors and movies and tv shows. And those that perform at living history exibits.

davidh777

I think streaming services are now the new "watch whatever is on TV." Scrolling through a queue feels a lot like channel-flipping, with a lot more (and better) choices.

dvdshonna

I'm sure it differs by area and service. Different promotions. Different hoops to jump through for the privilege of giving them your money.

In my area Charter charges $89.85 for the "bundle". Over $100+ with taxes.
You pay $100+ for basic cable (which includes nothing, no movie channels, no ESPN, no cable "news", no HD channels), one phone line, and internet.

My girlfriend was paying $70.00 for basic cable (no internet, no phone). No movie channels. Just ESPN and CNN. I think she has a thinking disorder. I've decided not to marry her.

We also have AT&T U-Verse, Dish Network, and Cox in my area. When I asked for total cost after their "promotion" expired, I couldn't get a straight answer from any of them (it's a secret).

Most of the people I know live from payday to payday. Their lives are financial disasters. Every one of them has cable, high speed internet, cell phones, Ipods, etc. They really believe they need all of this overpriced sh!t to survive. Mindless lemmings.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

I'm also with Charter. They'll let you jump to another promotion if you go into the office before the current one you're on ends. Charter has a decent usage cap compared to other ISPs but I still have to track my usage on my own since they still have their page up saying you'll be able to do it online soon.

We pay around $130 for 40-ish Mb internet(since they keep changing the speeds and bumping us up, which only lets us hit the cap that much faster), some expanded digital package with HD channels too.

The worst things I've seen over pay on are cell phone plans. For a lot of people, they'd be better off with doing something like the prepaid minute cards from T-Mobile. My wife would get 1,000 minutes for around $90 and it would last her a year. No other costs. $90 for the entire year.

If you're fine without data or just need it once in awhile, a day was something like $2-$3, then it's a whole hell of a lot cheaper than getting one of the regular plans. If you're paying $70 a month, that's $1,470 vs $90 per year.

dvdshonna

I pay $6.00/mo for 56-ish Kb internet and I get free HD with my rabbit ears. Watch DVDs more than anything else.

Cell phones and mobile broadband are more things I have no interest in. Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, and AT&T are supposedly competing for your business. They provide no content (movies, tv, sports). Why are they charging their customers $25 to $50 month?

Geeeshhhh, I see what you mean. I just looked at the walmart site. Samsung Galaxy S4 phone for $168.00 and $59.00/mo for 900 minutes (2yr contract). The lemmings should try to shut up for 900 minutes, instead of flushing their money down the toilet.

Do you know why we don't have FREE WiFi in every U.S. city? The same reason we don't have universal health care. Our politicians are bought and paid for.

--
http://www.zdnet.com/google-fiber-sp...ah-7000014181/

Furthermore, Google is promising to offer basic Internet service (5 Mbps speeds) to every home along the existing Provo network for a $30 activation fee and no monthly charge for at least seven years. The Internet giant has also pledged to provide free Google Fiber gigabit Internet service to 25 local public institutions, such as schools, hospitals and libraries.

big e

Most of that monthly payment is for the data package that allows the user to access the mobile broadband. I do agree that the pricing can be a little nonsensical at times. For as many carriers as this country has, there's not that much competition in the price range.

You say you don't have an interest in cell phones. That's fine; I know people who have no interest in smartphones and use prepaid cell phones. That's their choice and they have the freedom to do that. However, just because you don't like it or it doesn't work out for you doesn't mean there isn't a large market that loves this stuff and is willing to pay for it. Not everyone that has a smartphone and pays for mobile broadband is a mindless lemming. I have an iPhone and I pay around $45 a month for phone service and a data package and I don't consider myself a lemming. I wouldn't give up my iPhone either because I love the fact that I have a device that fits in my pocket and allows me to access the internet (almost) wherever I want.

I had dial-up internet from 2000-2008. In 2008, I switched to Verizon DSl and I will never go back to dial-up. Why? Because it no longer works for me. Dial-up doesn't suit my needs. I rely too heavily on a fast, broadband connection for my web browsing and I have too many devices that I download apps and updates for and a dial-up connection would no longer be realistic for me to use. Dial-up works for you because, biased on what postings I've read, you sound like you aren't as heavily involved in technology as I am. But, I'm a tech nerd at heart and that's never going to change. I'm always going to be surrounded by technology and devices that need apps and updates and for that I need a fast internet connection.

Sorry for the semi-rant. As usual, I talked more than I probably should have.

Like the healthcare debate, you would probably have a slew of people bitching about the government spending money on something "we don't need" or that the service would be shitty because of "government bureaucrats".

There was an article I read on Engadget about Google possibly looking into providing nationwide wi-fi using the wireless spectrum that analog TV broadcasts use to occupy. If Google can get this rolled out, this could be a big disruptor to the stranglehold ISPs have on internet access. Although it's also possible Google will end up being cock-blocked by those same ISPs.

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

Actually they do. Sprint is a sponsor of Nascar and you get their Nascar app. T-Mobile has some other sport but that's about as far as my knowledge goes. Talking with guys that work for those companies, people do actually switch carriers to follow their sport.

dvdshonna

big e; Whatever people spend their money on, is their own business. To each his own. I guess we should be thankful that we still have some options. It's not like we are required to carry a cell phone, (like we are required to purchase health insurance or auto insurance if we want to drive).

I did think it funny when I saw occupy wall street protestors demonstrating against corporations, while they talked on their cell phones. Where do they think these cell phones and bandwidth come from? If you really want to make a difference, quit buying their products and services. Boycott.

I'm really ranting about corporations and special interests owning our government. The game is so rigged, we are becomming a banana republic. The U.S. is heading toward economic collapse. My sympathy for the younger generations. If the U.S. continues on its current path (which is all but guaranteed), $7.98 netflix may be all you can afford.

dvdshonna

I believe you are on the money.

The typical asking price for used DVDs in every city on craigslist is $2. If you follow how many of those titles are relisted for weeks/months with no buyers you will see demand has collapsed for older titles.

If you want to try a "reality check" ...try listing some unwanted DVD titles for $1.00 each on craigs. The lack of response may surprise you.