That's too much work for me, so I know it's too much work for people not as invested in their media consumption.

Remember a time when all you needed was Netflix and Hulu? Netflix for movies and old shows, Hulu for new shows. What a great time.

And the price was cheap with no ads!

Hulu was free in the beginning. It was where NBC, ABC and Fox had their shows after broadcast.

Remember when you didn't have to subscribe to streaming to 'rent' a chance to view something and you could actually purchase it on DVD and watch it whenever you got to it without worrying about whether the streamer might lose the rights or arbitrarily decide it wasn't worth taking up space on their server anymore?

For me, those were the good old days!

OR, borrow the media from the local library. I currently have season 18 of Murdoch Mysteries I'm grinding through.

The real good old days were when you just had three channels, and you watched what was on because that was what was on, and you liked it!

Then you would have to get up in the middle of the night and lick the road clean with your tongue. You lived in a shoe-box and worked 20 hours a day at the mill for pennies.

Luxury!

You can use Hoopla with your library card and not even leave the house.

I know what site this is but was it really the "good old days?" TV series, especially old ones, were often treated as second class citizens and had shoddy releases, really really expensive releases, or incomplete ones (if they came out at all). And you had to rely on the print run for the physical media. For the most part, even if you don't technically "own" it, having so much video on demand like itunes and vudu (especially with something like movies anywhere) is a much better option, with more availability (if something is currently licensed).

At least just for purely watching things, I'm with you completely if we're talking the quality of the home releases particularly Blu-rays or 4k compared to streaming, but it seems like most people don't care that much about that anyway since they're watching on tiny devices or whatever.

Hell yes. Id rather own what I spend money on instead of renting anyway. If I want to turn it into a stream to watch on a tiny device, it's my option. If I want to host movie night with friends to watch on my 85" screen with six speaker Dolby Atmos, my option. Once the last of the physical media is gone to the sands of time your choices will be much more limited if you have any at all. Unfortunately each generation born farther away from the 90s less and less people even realize what they lost because all they have ever known is streaming through a phone.

I get that, what I'm saying is that even in the heyday of physical media, and even if you had all the money in the world, there are some things that just weren't available. Then there's the distinct possibility that a ton of the media we enjoy today wouldn't have been made without the funding from some of these streaming services. Again, I love my physical media (and hope it lasts, and that I can still buy a player that lasts as long as the media does), but if you just want to ingest content, it's for the most part easier than ever.