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Moreover, I think you will be hard-pressed to find someone who will argue that VHS or DVD provided better quality than Netflix et al. Obviously, Blu-Ray provid

Moreover, I think you will be hard-pressed to find someone who will argue that VHS or DVD provided better quality than Netflix et al. Obviously, Blu-Ray provides better quality than today's streaming services, but the format never really took off in a big way among the general population. It's a bit of a shame, since with Blu-Ray, you at least own something. It'll still work when somebody pulls the plug on some service.

Asbostos 11y ago
I have a feeling that the idea of owning things is going to become a crazy old-people's complaint. Perhaps younger generations will be happy with their remote-wipeable phone apps, viewed-then-gone movies, hired rides in someone else's car, etc. Maybe these things are becoming so numerous and cheap compared to our income and other costs (housing) that people won't care anymore.
- danieldk 11y ago
  I agree that it will probably become a old-people's complaint. The latter part (numerous and cheap) does assume a perfect market though. In reality, many of the resources may end up in the hands of a monopoly or oligopoly and then they change the rules or charges at any time.
- madeofpalk 11y ago
  There's no sense of ownership when I flick through and partially watch a dozen movies before settling on The Hunger Games on a boring Monday night.
tracker1 11y ago
I think h.265/HEVC may change that as devices come to support the codec... I've been really impressed at some of the sizes that can be acheived with the newer format.
ryandrake 11y ago
Actually, if you have a DVD or Blu-Ray disk, you only own a piece of plastic. As for the movie encoded upon it, you have no ownership rights--only an extremely limited license to do a single thing with it (decrypt and read it for the purpose of immediate viewing) using one of a limited number of industry-approved reading devices. That doesn't really satisfy any reasonable definition of ownership.

Asbostos 11y ago

I have a feeling that the idea of owning things is going to become a crazy old-people's complaint. Perhaps younger generations will be happy with their remote-wipeable phone apps, viewed-then-gone movies, hired rides in someone else's car, etc. Maybe these things are becoming so numerous and cheap compared to our income and other costs (housing) that people won't care anymore.

danieldk 11y ago
I agree that it will probably become a old-people's complaint. The latter part (numerous and cheap) does assume a perfect market though. In reality, many of the resources may end up in the hands of a monopoly or oligopoly and then they change the rules or charges at any time.
madeofpalk 11y ago
There's no sense of ownership when I flick through and partially watch a dozen movies before settling on The Hunger Games on a boring Monday night.

tracker1 11y ago

I think h.265/HEVC may change that as devices come to support the codec... I've been really impressed at some of the sizes that can be acheived with the newer format.

ryandrake 11y ago

Actually, if you have a DVD or Blu-Ray disk, you only own a piece of plastic. As for the movie encoded upon it, you have no ownership rights--only an extremely limited license to do a single thing with it (decrypt and read it for the purpose of immediate viewing) using one of a limited number of industry-approved reading devices. That doesn't really satisfy any reasonable definition of ownership.