This is a big "what if," but if physical media ceases to be produced at some point in the near future, what will you do?

Personally, I will probably stop buying movies completely and only catch ones I REALLY want to see by streaming or cable. It may even motivate me to go to the theater more often than I do, but a big part of owning films for me is the collecting aspect. A digital library does nothing for me.

Yeah I'm not gonna pay 15-20 bucks for movies stored in the cloud or whatever system they use.

I don't buy that many right now but I'm sure I'd buy even less. One thing they don't take into account is the impulse factor. So many of the titles people like me buy are because we see them sitting there and the price point hits us so we buy it before we really think it through. That won't happen with an intangible. I sell maintenance supplies and one of the basics of selling; you can't sell what you can't show. Get it in their hands and the chance of a sale increases 10 fold. Tell them about it or show the catalog and your odds are slim.

I would buy digital, but only if it's true 4k quality, and less than before because I buy too much already now.

That said, physical media will not be going away for many years if ever, so it's a scenario that one doesn't really have to worry about now, IMO. And if by any chance 4k should come to physical, then that would extend its lifespan even longer.

It won't happen. The compact disc killed vinyl as a mainstream format over 30 years ago. LPs are extremely expensive and difficult to produce, yet they're still being manufactured for the physical media fetishists.

10, 20, 60 years from now CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray Discs are going to cost literally pennies to make. Oh, wait, they literally cost pennies to make TODAY.

As long as nerds like us are buying them they'll still make them.

I agree, there may come a day where physical media is a niche' product but we probably won't see it completely phased out, at least in the next 20 - 30 years.

I'd buy a lot less to be honest. Sorry but paying the same price to have something digital isn't as worth it to me. I like going out and just browsing titles and picking up something that seems interesting and the displaying of my collection at home and stuff. I don't like the idea of my collection just being stored in a cloud server. I'd probably turn to Netflix for a lot more movies.

Well, that's the goal of the content-owners, isn't it? Have all media in exclusively in the cloud, sell the viewing rights to paying customers, prevent resale in a used-movies market, eliminate distribution outside the system, and keep media from being viewed by anyone at all when the license to the distributor runs out. But I won't play that game. It would be like renting an apartment for the same amount of money as a mortgage.

I didn't buy movies on VHS, partly because the picture was too poor. I don't watch Netflix streaming movies for the same reason. So cloud-based movies would have to be at least as clear as a DVD before I was even interested.

I already don't like the quality of streaming media, so no I would not enjoy them getting rid of physical media. Therefore I would probably just stop buying and only rent, and the amount of movies I'd rent would go down too, because I hate paying for something I can't sell when i decide it's time.

Probably buy here and there, and switch to streaming far more.

I'd probably stop buying all together.

What will I do? I will do without.

That, and make sure my pre-Cinavia players continues to work. Will OPPO repair 40 year-old player in 2052?

I'll be renting/streaming instead of buying.

Like many others wedded to physical media, I will almost entirely end my purchasing habit of content. I'm a big music collector and many newer bands currently only have songs and albums available via download. I simply go without for most of those download-only items, even if I would have bought a physical version of those albums.

I will strictly become a streaming and broadcast consumer, for the most part. The market is going to drastically change when the switch to complete streaming eliminates many peoples' desires to go out and hoard movies. The purchasers are currently subsidizing the small amount of renters and streamers at the moment. Hollywood will almost certainly have to raise rental prices since digital purchases are a fraction of physical media purchases for the same item.

I thought about this one months ago and decided that the current Bluray format would be the very last physical media format I'd be buying in terms of collection. Most of my friends who are much tech-savvy (not really film lovers though) think it's already stupid and a waste for me to spending money on Bluray.

If physical format ended. I would never own a movie that I don't literally own. Fuck that. Physical media insures that I own this thing. Online/digital ownership is too iffy for me.

I'll rent. Really don't care about buying many discs now anyway.

Enjoy my UV collection.

Watch what I have in my collection. Will never buy anything to watch online. I not only love movies, but I love collecting them.

I will look at my calendar and say "damn, 2025 really got here in a hurry!"

I'll admit for all the digital copies I've accumulated over the years I've never actually used one. For those who have, does everything on the physical disc download to your digital library including special features or are they movie only downloads?

I guess I should try using some of these digital copies sometime just to see for myself...

I'll never buy a digital movie unless it allows me to immediately burn it to disc.

I may stream more, or very occasionally pay $2 or less to rent a digital file, but in small numbers compared to what I buy on physical media now.

You must not go to physical stores anymore. The space devoted is embarrassing.

$1 for MP3s or Apps is disposable. I'm good with those.

$15-$20 for movies or even $40-$60 for games is ridiculous for a product I can't physically hold or fall back on if a network is down.

No doubt about it... Physical media *will* be with us for the next 20 to 30 years, but the days of cheap physical media prices are rapidly, forever disappearing. It is already becoming a niche product, sometimes $30+ being demanded (hello Twilight time, hello Shout! factory, hello Criterion).

I see it becoming like another LD-age, pricewise. I used to pay $40 for laserdiscs, but now balk at that idea for 4k or 1080p discs! Amazing how spoiled the commodity pricing of the last 10 years has gotten us!

Even then, probably < 5% of the physical product we now have available will remain purchasable in a pysical media format 20 years in the future.

I will refuse to adopt a streaming model because of
1) lower quality
2) DRM
3) licensing issues / rights
4) the content in the "cloud" is not 'mine' but the studios' to dish out at their whims and fancies, ie they're 100% in control.

So, it looks like I'll be adopting to my new life of crime in the near future. Catch me if you can!