Redbox is ending it's rental service. And going out of business completely.
No more block busters. No more Redbox. Best buy is stopping the sale of DVDs.
Discussion
Libraries are still great for dvd/blueray rental
You know what isn't going out of business? Das rite, torrents.
Only for linux isos, yk. 😉
Sadly
This also means torrents go out of business. Blu-rays and 4k blu-rays are the best source material for torrents. The end of physical media means the eventual end of high quality torrents.
Physical media encryption only needs to be broken a couple times a decade.
Streaming content will be a moving target that uploaders will eventually lose.
Not really. You can also buy discs from amazon and, at least here in Bulgaria, you can get them from bookstores which are common. You have to remember that most torrents come from this part of the world. 😉
Also most movies worth watching are already made. The last few years only Top Gun Maverick has caught my eye.
It is true we already have an extensive library of good movies. And movies seem to be getting worse and worse. With the occasional gem here and there.
Amazon and book stores do carry them. I don't think book stores really sell many new movies. It's mostly just decoration now.
Still, if physical movies don't bring in significant profit studios won't spend the time to make them.
It will start with a couple big budget Disney movies only going to streaming.
Then some large entity that wants to push their streaming revenue will buy up physical media companies and just shut them down.
It is less than a dollar per disc, they loose nothing. They are and will continue to sell them without risking any big losses.
Big companies know they can't prevent pirates from ripping them.
Why would they release on a disc if they can trick people to paying to stream it on a computer where they can zap it away from you whenever they like?
They won't do it over night. But I believe it will happen.
True. But unless they control every single bit of the devices you watch the movies on they just cannot do anything. Linux iso makers can do rip an iso even from streaming services. When you look at torrent sites and you see WebRip you know that this was taken from a streaming site
There is multiple layers of encryption. They tend to be able to rip 720p and below. But 4k content is often never decrypted or the exploit is patched within hours if one being found.
That's why you can only watch Netflix in 4k on like windows with Internet explorer.
It locked down android device that isn't rooted.
If something is on the internet then it will stay on the internet. That is the princaple I have in my mind while browsing the internet. Especially in an age where everything is archived by someone somewhere. Nothing is inpenetrable.
You can even record your display output with a capture card. If it gets so intense you can try to record your screen with an actual camera in a dark room somewhere. But there will be other problems that are more important before we need to go this far. As I have said before: nothing is inpenetrable.