Without a doubt Streaming is taking over. I'm still buying TV Series and movies but am finding them less often at stores anymore. In fact, in my area only Walmart has digital media, and is limited to newer titles and the prices are not that great. Amazon and Ebay are where I get most of my videos.

Is DVDs, Blu-Ray, 4K going to become a thing of the past, completely?

I just noticed I've been on this site for 25 years. Wow!

Course not as much as some of you. LOL!

BTW, whyiz iz only got 4 liks? Newbody lik me?

Yes, I believe that's the studio's end game and push everything to streaming.

Best Buy and Target (for the most part) have gotten out of physical media leaving Amazon and Walmart as the major players. Prices have gone up with the lack of competition.

Boutique publishers (Arrow, Shout, etc) will hold on as long as people are buying them.

Yup, Best Buy where I bought my new 4k player was completely void of physical media. Customer Service confirmed, then I reconfirmed, not even selling online. Were sales that bad? Once upon a time I bought regularly from Best Buy.

I do like streaming, but finding what I'm looking for becomes a chore, and I have to juggle streaming services sometimes. Hulu for the past 12 months has me subscribed for 99c per month. Due to expire in about 3 weeks.

The media section had been shrinking for years, even before the pandemic. Less buyers as streaming took over. Finally there was more money to be made in a larger Funko Pop section than still carrying even new release titles.

Just Watch is great for finding where and if something is streaming.

https://www.justwatch.com/

I have been buying disc's ever since they first came out. I have them all over my house. I didn't buy them just for a one time fix. That's their allure, I guess. I always think. I'm going to have this forever. To use, whenever I want. 10-20-30 years down the road hopefully they will still be there. I do pay an upfront cost to buy / own the disc's of course. But after that, They haven't cost me a penny to re watch anytime that I want.As for streaming, it's ok. It works for what you want to do, I guess. As for the physical media / disc's going away. I have no control over that. If they go away tomorrow, hopefully I'll be able to use what I have and just go with that. That's what I bought them for. .

Physical ownership is what DVDs and other digital media is about. I've films on DVD that were purchased back in 1999 or before that I still enjoy. Just the other day I watch 12 Monkeys and Rambo, probably for the ? (I have no idea) time. Still enjoy them and find it convenient to just pull them off the shelf. I do stream, but mostly just free stuff. I cannot imagine buying a streaming film off Amazon. Seems to me more like renting.

Whooohoooo, I'm now up to 6 likes.

50% increase in a day. Is there an award or something???

JOE29 made me think of something else when he said 10/20/30 years. Will there even be players at that point? If we hit a point where little to no new physical media is coming out, what incentive is there to continue manufacturing the players?

Yes, the fear is that when a player breaks, will it be fixable? I guess if not, then you go streaming. After that goes away, movie novelizations ...

In the town close to me is a small general store selling off its VHS tapes. Once upon a time they rented tapes. Anybody even have a VHS player to show these tapes with. I never did get into the VHS thing.

I go to garage sales looking for scrap metal for welding projects but will pick up about anything else of value. Last one was selling off DVDs at 25c each. Surprisingly there were 2 movies I liked and did not own. It's a buyers' market out there, which goes to explain why store sales of DVDs are drying up.

I had to cut myself off from the 50c used DVDs at the place near me long ago ...
I still order a few things a year from boutique labels, but my to be watched (or rewatched) pile is so big now, I could stop buying things completely and be fine for a good long while.

I think that there will be. They may be harder to find at that time. May not be mainstream shops. But I do the best that I can with what I have.

I agree. I do stream but I still do, and would rather buy the physical media disc. Just bought a few more last week. It feels good to know that you can just pick it off of your shelf and put it in the player and watch it. From your own stock.

I stream Tubi quite a bit. Hulu with Ads. IMO the ads are getting more often and longer. Takes away the control that physical media gives, as well as the impulse viewing. I got a Steve McQueen kick a while ago and watch Papillon that I haven't seen in a decade or more. Excellent film and it was nice to have it on the shelf to pull down and play on an impulse.

Players might go away but not for a long while yet. Anybody seen a phone booth anytime in the last 10 years? My mother cannot even get a phone landline anymore -- cellular only in her rural area. Hell I don't even own a cell phone, and much of what I would like to do is blocked without being able to text a response or give a text confirmation. Fudge.... I'm getting old.

What will happen in a few years is players will still be made but there will only be one or two options on the entire market. Expect it to be priced much more expensively than mass consumer electronics are these days. We've already seen this happen in CD players, which is a direct analogue for how the DVD/BD player market will shake out.

DVDs are super cheap to produce, I suspect we'll see them for several more years as it costs their manufacturers almost nothing. Blu-rays and UHDs will hang around as niche items mostly bought by collectors.

This is already the case for computer cd/dvd/bluray drives.

Only LG and LiteOn still manufacture computer cd/dvd drives, while only LG and Pioneer still manufacture cd/dvd/bluray computer drives.

DVD and blu-ray players won't go away anytime soon. Hell, they're still selling VCRs fer' crying out loud. Granted, most of them are DVD/VCR Combo players but still...

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw...Condition=1000

The automated disc pressing machines and assembly lines as well as the offset/silkscreen disc printing machines are getting more and more expensive to fix and maintain. Parts are very specific and probably in short supply. High volume allowed them to produce discs for cheap but I suspect as demand drops considerably, companies will question whether it's worth the expense to keep them going.

All the more reason to buy up what you can.