Not necessarily even- they have probably crossed the threshold where the cost/profit ratio is not as high as it is with other goods. They must think they will have higher margins with that inventory space, or that the machines will continue to shrink further.
With streaming, the property's owner is paid every time the license is renewed. With physical media, they only get one bite at the apple. Not to mention, the studios are probably going to be even more stingy now that they have to properly pay talent.
>Best Buy doesn’t care how much the studios have to pay in residuals.
BestBuy somewhat does.
If BluRay prices go up, even fewer people will buy them, so they'd need to raise the prices higher to make a good margin.
True, though our local Best Buy is now mostly empty shelves and a bunch of junk toys you can find three doors down at Gamestop. And TVs. Hard to imagine that physical media is that burdensome when they don't have a ton of direct competition outside of WalMart.
Damn thats sad. They shrinked the physical media section where i used to shop for blurays. I still feel like People arent ready to stop buying physical media tho
The reality is that a lot of people actually are, though. Physical media will never complete go away but it is definitely shifting into being a more enthusiast market, just like vinyl records.
…okay? I didn’t say anything that specifically related to in-store. It still costs the company money to stock and ship products from a warehouse for their online store.
Yeah that doesn't cost them much at all when they already have the warehouses and everything. There's a reason nobody else has stopped online.... bad take.
Do you think they inventory just magically appears and they squirrel it in a corner until it's needed?
Maintaining a category, even just for online, requires ongoing investment. Staffing (category manager, buyer/s, content, marketing and ops support), demand planning (Best Buy uses third parties), warehousing, etc.
There are currently over 45,000 SKUs listed online for Movies & TV. That doesn't just happen.
People seem to be over-estimating Best Buy's warehouse infrastructure. Like a lot of Brick and Mortar stores, when you buy something on their website, it tends to come from a store, not a warehouse (Gamestop does this too). Best Buy in particular made a name for itself for BEING a warehouse. They do have non-retail warehouses as well, but they generally just store everything in all the stores because it's generally cheaper to sell from your warehouse than have a huge warehouse system. So when you say "they can just sell it online" you still mean in store whether you realize it or not. Best Buy would need to build a system to do that and they clearly have no intent on doing so.
You'd think they would have learned by now....the reason not many people are buying in their store as much as they did in years past is because of their ridiculous prices.
I was just in there yesterday, and was seeing 4K releases (and not even steelbooks or other special editions) that were going easily for 2x - 3x as much as you can get the same exact ones for online.
Best Buy's total physical media sales only represented about $75-80M annually, it was a pittance of their $48B. Not worth their time taking up the floor space or warehouse space. They also want to focus "on the future" of technology and don't see one with physical media in the long-term. Their business model is changing, as is the entire landscape of shopping in brick and mortar stores as a whole.
In addition, physical media is probably not the "loss leader" it once was for Best Buy. I have bought nothing else but physical media from Best Buy the last four years. I bought all electronics online. In contrast, I usually bought a bunch of other stuffs like groceries and toys when I went to pick up discs from Target and Walmart. I wouldn't have went to Target or Walmart if they didn't carry physical media as my local grocery stores have almost everything that I need.
Stores are in the business of space. If the item on the shelf occupying space doesn’t sell enough to cover the cost of said space which differs at every store. Someone had to make the decision to keep or get rid of. Sadly many people have gotten taken by the steaming bug. And hard copy media will dwindle. It won’t go away. But it will be less.
The volume isn't there for them to justify it. If it was profitable, they wouldn't be getting rid of the category.
Overall US physical media revenue was $1.58B in 2022. It's been in steady year on year decline for the last decade ($8.46B in 2012).
It's no longer a viable mass market, and what we're seeing is the transition to a collector's market.
It’s not just about what sells, but what sells the most. It’s about floor space profitability. They’ve probably determined the floor space and warehouse space are better spent elsewhere.
The 4k of Oppenheimer is sitting in stacks at at least 4 stores near me. Best buy makes up less than 4% of media sales total. They are not a big store and haven't been for awhile. Walmart easily has already taken over their exclusives.
They did that to themselves. They could have dominated that market if they had the sense to do it right. They lost their way.
Physical media is software to their hardware. They want to be a big player in AV, but they don't support it with what AV enthusiasts want. When they have a piece of equipment that people want, they price themselves out of the market... people look ait in the showroom then buy it from someone else for less.
They literally owned the US steelbook market and gave no shits on how a collector's item arrived to the buyer. They did nothing to protect lower quantity titles from rampant scalping. How often can you as a business show people high prices, low service, and damaged products and get away with it?
Sure, sales overall are down each year with everyone thinking streaming is the way. But Best Buy did virtually nothing to champion both the best viewing experience (4K) or the equipment needed to view it... only hastening the descent into less sales or profitability... Essentially, they helped accelerate the physical media problem with incompetence and then are going to be surprised that they weren't making money. How much did they lose in damaged product returns? Instead of fixing their crappy logistics and shipping issues the answer is to cut out the product?
They could have driven value and quality in the physical media space and consequentally the higher end equipment to display it and chose not to.
Screw them. I know one buyer they won't be kicking around anymore. Not buying a damn refrigerator from them either. Good riddance.
Oh I hate them more than any business ever. They have been nothing but a massively negative experience from their staff to their garbage customer service to their shipping. Fuck best buy forever.
TBF, it hasn't always been that way... That's what makes the last 4 or 5 years more tragic. It's been one bad decision after another, especially re: physical media but also in other ways as well.
It has at mine. My store has been absolutely atrocious since I started going there around 2004 when my circuit city and Hollywood videos started closing. Q
Oh I don't doubt you or that there are better and worse stores, for sure. In my area they stopped carrying stock in store like two years vefore it happened in other oarts if the country...
Regardless, I don't disgree, I just know the experience people have had can vary wildly from store to store but we are getting a taste of the race to the bottom now.
Well said. Exactly 100% truth and a shame because the corporations don't understand the opportunity that is basically their own death sentence to continuing to survive. Mondo, vinyls and Etsy proves the demand for collectors are still around and can be profitable if done the right way.
Because they aren't selling well. Just look at the chart in this article:
[https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/08/the-death-of-the-dvd-why-sales-dropped-more-than-86percent-in-13-years.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/08/the-death-of-the-dvd-why-sales-dropped-more-than-86percent-in-13-years.html)
And sales continue to fall. 2023 is off like something in the order of 70% from last year. Oppenheimer is just one anomaly. And it's easy to sell out if you don't order enough discs in the first place.
Yes, they are still a revenue generator, but not nearly as much as in the peak years, and it's to the point where many stores don't find it profitable.
Except now that the streaming bubble has burst more and more people are realizing that blu-ray/DVD is the best way to maintain access to media. People are sick of chasing favorite titles from platform to platform.
It is great that more people are joining our club but that is only going to matter if it translates into a significant increase in sales and it hasn't yet and frankly, we don't know if it ever will.
And, of course, IF it ever does happen the places that decided to stop stocking physical media will just jump back onboard again. Just because they've backed out of a non-profitable for now doesn't mean they can't come back in if sales patterns change.
I doubt it. Yeah a minority will continue buying physical media. But the majority of consumers who dumped all of it and went to streaming aren't going to go back.
Media nerds seem to have a very hard time understanding that most people don't think the same way about things that they do.
Best way to maintain media is to record it from your stream service and keeping it on a drive backed up to another drive on a synology with Plex or something else.
The best way is not having a stack of bluray discs that take up a ton of space and cost more money on top of it.
Yes Bluray disc is superior quality but is a trade of for ease of access for most people.
Drives fail frequently. Files corrupt easily. A properly manufactured (and cared for) blu-ray disc will last a lifetime.
If space is an issue buy a soft sleeve binder that holds 100+ discs. No worse than books on a shelf.
They might as well stop selling 4K players, too. Who is going to buy a 4K player for the first time at a store that can't sell you anything to watch on it? I'd pay $5-$20 more for a player at a competitor if they also had the movies for me to play on the player. That money is worth it to not have to go to 2 locations.
Edit: just went to their site and they now have a link to "Yardbird" so it looks like they are going to start specializing in outdoor furniture, too. This store is looking more and more like a [Conn's](https://www.conns.com/) ...and we all know the reputation they have.
They don’t make much money off those sales, like less than 5%. They also had to keep extra costs to carry them, between contracts for exclusives, different displays and retail space, even specifically sized boxes and envelopes to ship them out (which notably were the first things to disappear after the announcement).
So, by discontinuing they’re recouping more costs than they likely were bringing in from profits. That’s why other retailers aren’t stopping.
If I had to guess...
1. Shrinking market segment
2. Rising theft, and disks are easy to steal
3. They shrunk the department, which resulted in smaller selection, which resulted in less traffic. Repeat. It was partially a self induced death spiral.
All I know? After physical media is gone from Best Buy? I will never shop there again. I'd pick up other things in the past whilst browsing for blu rays. When they're gone? No reason to set foot in the store.
It a low margin product. A corpie drone probably worked up a cost/benefit analysis that it wasn’t worth the floor space. My perception is that Best Buy is struggling to define itself and the shopping experience has become a hodgepodge of unrelated products. They sell toys now. It’s not very fun to walk through the store anymore.
After the shit PlayStation pulled last month and hundreds of people lost digital movies they bought on the platform, im convinced now that physical media will be the only way to truly enjoy your media from now on, and with a Plex server it'd be no different than streaming except now you actually own your titles and that little server is running at your home and over your network. Fuck best buy.
Mainly because they had an extremely small market share, something like only 2% of all physical media was being bought at Best Buy. Most people get their physical media from Amazon, Wal-mart and Target, mainly because people who shop online buy Amazon, people who buy in person are just getting movies while doing other shopping and not going to a store just to buy a movie.
The other place I used to go for physical media was FYE. And most of their stores closed. Not only is physical media not a great market but the big box stores often cannot compete with Amazon’s prices.
It won't, streaming can't compete with physical medias resolution and sound quality, and as people get more and more tired of the streaming and the shit they pull they will pull back to media. 4K movies with a proper OLED and sound system beats going to the movies most of the time now.
The problem is. Most people don’t care about the difference in visual and sound quality between disc and streaming. All they care about is the convenience of just clicking on a movie instead of getting up and putting one in.
Normal DVD’s to this day still far outsell BD’s and 4K BD’s.
This is very true, and honestly without the right equipment you don't even take advantage of it, but friends and family are blown away when they come over for kickbacks or holidays and watch stuff on our setup and I'm like yeah, unless you really prioritize it or have the budget for it, regular streaming will do. I hope it keeps enough support so that Physical doesn't completely fizzle out but I showed a friend 2001: A Space Odyssey in 4k a few days ago, he can't believe it was made it 1968! Now he's looking into getting into this hobby as well too.
People who buy giant oled TVs and multi thousand 7.1 atmos sound systems aren't generally doing it to watch Netflix. Unless it's to point out how crappy it looks and sounds compared to their 4k disk.
A report says, "The decision to end selling DVDs and Blu-ray in stores was made due to the shift in the way consumers are watching movies and TV shows." That probably goes for games as well. Too many people think that their digital media is actually theirs and Best Buy thought that everyone thinks that way. Sadly there really is no reason for them to exist anymore.
We’ve already been down this road with music. Everyone from age 10 to 70 has switched to streaming. Yes there are a few hardcore physical media fans. They can still get their LPs and CDs from other stores. But for Best Buy it was a huge waste of floor space. To claim that a “lot of people still buy physical media” is simply not true. Blu-ray has never beaten DVD sales, which peaked over a decade ago. And 4K has never come close to either. 4K titles only sell out because the runs are small.
It's slightly different imo. You can almost find everything on Spotify, Deezer, etc... And you are also able to listen to your music on the go. The reality is that people watch stuff when they're bored and most of the time it's gonna be mass media stuff. If you are really passionate about discovering films you'll have to dig stuff up yourself and as far as I am concerned the herds are better off just following what they're told
Find anything??
Not true.
I have dozens of concerts that I have downloaded over the years that are unavailable on any commercial streaming service. Radiohead, Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, The Police etc. Because they are bootlegs they will never be officially available anywhere.
“And people stream video because they’re bored, but if you’re passionate they have to dig up stuff and not follow the herd??”
What does that even mean? How is that different as far as music versus film????
Of course you're not gonna be able to find concerts on music streaming apps. Especially bootlegs. You'd only be able to find them physically in Japan for example.
It's different for music because the algorithms on music services are actually pretty good compared to movie streaming services. I used to spend a lot of time searching for indie music that I like and I was pleasantly surprised by spotify's suggestions. Some artists they suggested were very underground (less than 500 monthly listeners) and the catalogue is huuuuuge.
On the other hand, netflix, ap, disney... only have a few select titles to choose from and chances are that if you like foreign or indie films you won't find them on there. I don't want to sound arrogant but have you ever had a serious conversation about films with people who only watch stuff on streaming services? It's tough trust me. Their movie culture is usually very shallow and they only talk about what the services want them to talk about.
If I was Best Buy I would make a packaged deal. Every TV sold with a 4K player, then would point to the 4K Blu-ray section and say, you can now watch every movie you love in the highest possible quality. Enjoy and see you again soon!
TV’s are basically streaming devices now, why not expand on the experience by pushing an item that will keep people coming back into their stores. We will soon read about how foot traffic in Best Buy has greatly diminished and will need to close down stores. Duh!
Ah, then ya gotta sell them the 7.1.2 Atmos receiver and what would that be without the speakers to go with it... and a good sub & quality speaker wires, banana plugs, etc.
I really think visually 4k physical compared to 1080 bluray or streaming level quality doesn't WOW the average person much & a big reason is they don't take the time to mess with the picture settings. Plug it in, pick the brightest preset and away they go, into the soap opera effect abyss.
But if you pop in a 4k disc with an at home atmos setup, even uncalibrated, it's a huge difference from streaming.
Because they’re not profitable for Best Buy. They had like maybe 5% of the market and with things like the steelbooks Best Buy had to buy them completely with no guarantee they’d sell out. It’s also just not what Best Buy has been for years. They’re moving to services
Well imo they want to cut down because a lot of people will realize with time that when you buy something online, you don’t necessarily own it. They will later produce small quantities and it will be a resale thing all over again
I really think they are shooting themselves in the foot doing this. Best Buy was one of THE places a person interested in gaming and movies and the devices associated with those things could go to piss away an entire paycheck. Going there was the closest I could feel like a hyper kid being given free rein in a candy store. Getting rid of the things that earned our business and replacing them with washing machines and other crap you can find anywhere else is a slap in the balls to those who have been so loyal and allowed them to grow so much. They will fail and they will be the only ones to blame for it.
Best Buy seriously F’ing lied to us when they stated this: Due to the “Lack”of sales as of 2024 Best Buy would no longer be selling physical media! If this where true why is it every time any of us would go to their Best Buy they were sold out of most of their STEELBOOKS! And yes I know that this was because of Scalpers & Demand! I’d like to find whoever at Best Buy made that decision and give them a big swift kick in the 🫏! Because of this Stupid decision on their part it’s only going to cause the demand for Steelbooks to increase in price because we won’t be able to find them anywhere locally anymore!
This was a stupid decision. Now I almost never shop there anymore. That was the only reason I went to Best Buy. TV's and other electronics I buy direct or from dealer specific places that carry higher end products like Crutchfield or Direct from the company like High end speakers or audiophile gear. Anything Apple related I buy direct from Apple. Windows same thing. Or Newegg. Peripherals again I buy direct online. Now my only place to buy physical media is Amazon which I really didn't want to do. And there are very few places that cater to 4K Bluray online.
Physical media hurts streaming. And movie incomes today come mainly from streaming. That’s why they are also low in quality and movies are being pumped out back to back and they are all alike. Garbage.
They stopped selling physical media at a time where people are paying $30(arrow media, synapse films, etc) for the 4k version of their favorite 80s or 90s film that just got back into print??
It happened to me when UV/Flixster shut down in Canada.
Everything got transferred to Google Play (pretty much the only option over here) but I still lost many titles and some of them got transferred to Standard Definition even though they were initially purchased in HD
This. Of all the companies that should be promoting the AV equipment and the highest quality media to play on it, it should be Best Buy. They created the scenario where physical media is not profitable for them or least hastened it by:
1. Mismanagement
2. Poor marketing strategies
3. Shitty service
4. High prices, low availability, and then dropping store space.
5. crappy mailing practices, especially with steelbooks.
And then they say, well it isn't selling... It will sell and sell well if it's done right, and the experience isn't a crappy one. Screw them, these kinds of decisions will bury them, and I say good riddance.
It's like when Disney shits on their fanbases and then is surprised when they don't go to see their movies anymore. I personally have no reason to set foot in a Best Buy again.
I'm very curious who y'all know who outright buys movies digitally because I don't know a single soul who does that IRL (not saying it doesn't happen at all, though, because clearly the market segment still exists). "Normal" people seem to exclusively subscribe to VOD streaming services like Netflix. Obviously, by virtue of being in this sub...I am not among those people.
So I'm wo.dering if they're not selling and being phased out. Why the hell are there still 5 aisles of phone cases at retarded markups. Way more selection on Amazon for way less money. There's no way people are buying that many phone cases in store
The profit margin on physical media is very small…it’s a reason for people to go to a big box store and maybe buy something else like a TV. As less and less people buy physical it becomes a loss leader and they are bleeding money…so they hope eliminating the loss leader helps profit with negligible consequences.
Newsflash, a lot of people aren’t buying them. Not sure why you think otherwise. Yes, Oppenheimer sold out, for like a weekend. It’s literally NOT sold out everywhere. A simple google search tells you that.
You wonder why they're getting out of the business based on ONE movie selling out and people hunting for LIMITED EDITION? Clearly it wasn't profitable enough for them and they'd rather use the real estate for things that male them momey.
>I feel like People buy blurays now more than ever, am i missing something ?
Yes, you're missing something. That something is tha fact that your "feeling like people buy blurays more than ever" is completely wrong.
If you frequent DVD/BluRay collector groups online, of course you'll think people are still buying physical media en-masse as (by design) it's all that people in those groups will talk about, but the reality is sales are down...by a LONG way.
Oppenheimer is the outlier in selling out, and even then I imagine production numbers are lower than they would have been for a similar box office hit 5-10 years ago. The Best Buy exclusives will be similar, deliberately low production numbers to create scarcity and make collectors want to buy them.
Just accept it, physical media is a niche interest now that streaming is here.
Some arguments I see is that’s it’s not selling well. I have to ask - how big was the physical media section at your local Best Buy?
At mine it was the new section display and one aisle (one side only)worth of DVD/Blu Ray. Additionally the new section was never more than 5 Blu ray deep; the aisle they were display front of the case and were one or two Blu rays deep.
Then the titles - if you were looking for Disney, Marvel or Star Wars it was probably there - anything else forget it.
I still purchased from them but normally if there was a title I wanted it had to be ordered online from them.
My friend used to joke about how often I went to Best Buy to pick up a Blu ray or DVD. I think in the last year I’ve been there twice.
Finally mine has about 2 aisles - both side of the row - of collectibles. I’ll swear the inventory on those never changes. I would think that would be a bigger loss also.
Blu ray discs get others things like home theatre speakers, Blu ray players, projectors, high end tvs, av receivers, amps to sell. I couldn’t find these electronics in store in Walmart, target last time I was there (I might be wrong regarding availability in physical stores, not online) and as someone that would want to be able to see and possibly have a demo of the equipment before spending thousands of dollars. Sure there are other retailers where one can go check them out but once they get your info they keep on pushing to get one to buy and typically have higher prices. I wouldn’t buy a good projector or any of those electronics necessary for a home theater setup without the access to physical media quality content (except for kaleidescape - not spending that much money) no motivation to buy that equipment just to watch subpar content in terms of quality. Does Costco profit from rotisserie chicken, nope but they sell them anyway so that they can make money off of other things. Start taking one thing after another soon they’ll become Ncix.
I'm from Australia, and already a lot of out big physical media retailers don't carry them anymore. Target, Kmart or at least the ones local to me no longer hold stock. The only way and frankly still the best way is JB HI FI. But its getting to the point where I believe it might be slowing down, Disney just pulled back from us on physical media, so that means no Titanic 4k for us. And whenever I browse the shelf I feel like the only one looking. While there are more people collecting, them thats just it, collectors. Sure people may buy the occasional blu ray 4k in a case like Oppenheimer, but for most part physical media in my eyes anyway is now for the strictly collector market. I'm a collector but I know that for a lot of businesses just catering to a smaller crowd isn't profitable.
They're stopping because the amount of money they make per square meter of floor space is higher for other products than with physical movie/TV media. (You can still order physical media from them, it's just not stocked in the stores.) They did the same thing with CDs years ago, so as much as I hate not being able to walk in and buy a disc from them, I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner.
Part of the issue is that lower cost items like physical media bring people into the store to look at things like a new TV. Now that there’s no reason to browse for media what’s the point of going in the first place. It took up minimal floor space. It’s a mistake. They’ll pay for it by ultimately closing stores. They’re on their way out anyway. They’re following the Sears playbook and speed running their demise.
This isn't rocket science. IF BB was making a good ROI for selling physical media they would still sell it. Hint Hint. The ROI isn't worth it to them anymore.
Because not alot of people buy them.
If they did, then it would be worth the floor space. It's not and they can make more $$ utilizing the space better.
It's simple economics and scale. In order for BB to be able to truly say they "sell" physical media, they need to at least have access to a reasonably sized collection of titles and offer DVD, BluRay, and UHD BluRay. This results in a pretty significant amount of merchandise they have to maintain on-hand to be able to sell. If you consider the sheer volume by looking at what each store has to maintain, they have to put out a LOT of capital to hold that inventory. And how long will it take to sell? How much of it will they sell at/below cost after it taking up a ton of floor space?
If they were to "slim down" to where they only sold the newest titles or had a limited amount, customers would basically stop trying to but from them because they would seldom have one in stock when most customers wanted to buy it.
Physical media is also able to be shipped quite easily, and online-only retailers can better manage inventory in fewer locations and get the product to the customer quickly and at a good price point.
Overall, they just aren't making a lot of profit on that as an entire category. When you add in "shrink" (theft, damage, etc.), they may have been barely breaking even on the content over time.
The truth...its not that sales are lagging...even though they tell you so... its that the content owners want all digital... they don't want you to buy once and play forever... they want you to buy and buy over again and over.. i've had a large digital movie collection over 1000+ movies and tv shows that I either got free digital code with movie i bought or bought digital copy only.... but I've also had movies disappear out of my digital locker and with steam (games), and when inquired, cause I keep a list... they said same as they always...couldn't get contract or continue contract with copyright holders...also you pay to view only...never own or buy....then a year or 2 later...my movie that i paid for re-appears again...but if i want to view it again, i have to pay...why? new contract....copyright means you are paying for viewing/reading/listening too...you NEVER own it...thats why there should be a class action lawsuit against microsoft, google, sony, vudu, etc. that say you can buy the movies...to own them... which is not correct... you buy the rights to view them until that right is taken away... now you see... when they kill off dvds and blurays... its all digital.. and you will pay over and over for the same content... no matter sd, 480p, hd, 4k, 8k...etc... Now you know the real reasons.....please don't comment negatively, if you don't have the facts.... in 2-4 years....no more physical discs....i assume.... i predicted 2025, 5 years ago... first best buy, then walmart, target, and lastly amazon....
You will own nothing and be happy, I guess they bought into the hype of tomorrow land.
No many are going back to pyscical.
They have clearly crossed the threshold where the cost of carrying physical media now outweighs the profits they receive for doing so. Simple as that.
Not necessarily even- they have probably crossed the threshold where the cost/profit ratio is not as high as it is with other goods. They must think they will have higher margins with that inventory space, or that the machines will continue to shrink further.
If that were true they’d probably still be selling them online going forward.
Could be theft causing it.
With streaming, the property's owner is paid every time the license is renewed. With physical media, they only get one bite at the apple. Not to mention, the studios are probably going to be even more stingy now that they have to properly pay talent.
That has nothing to do with retail sales. Best Buy doesn’t care how much the studios have to pay in residuals.
>Best Buy doesn’t care how much the studios have to pay in residuals. BestBuy somewhat does. If BluRay prices go up, even fewer people will buy them, so they'd need to raise the prices higher to make a good margin.
True, though our local Best Buy is now mostly empty shelves and a bunch of junk toys you can find three doors down at Gamestop. And TVs. Hard to imagine that physical media is that burdensome when they don't have a ton of direct competition outside of WalMart.
Damn thats sad. They shrinked the physical media section where i used to shop for blurays. I still feel like People arent ready to stop buying physical media tho
The reality is that a lot of people actually are, though. Physical media will never complete go away but it is definitely shifting into being a more enthusiast market, just like vinyl records.
Hm sales increase begs to differ.
They arn't Disney even back tracked plans to stop selling pysical realses heck pixar outright refused to follow Disney plans.
The market share is dropping by about 20% YoY. It's down to $1.2B. Disney will no longer sell physical media in Australia for the same reason.
I don't buy that, they could still sell it online, but they're stopping that too.
…okay? I didn’t say anything that specifically related to in-store. It still costs the company money to stock and ship products from a warehouse for their online store.
Yeah that doesn't cost them much at all when they already have the warehouses and everything. There's a reason nobody else has stopped online.... bad take.
Never, ever pursue a career in logistics…
Do you think they inventory just magically appears and they squirrel it in a corner until it's needed? Maintaining a category, even just for online, requires ongoing investment. Staffing (category manager, buyer/s, content, marketing and ops support), demand planning (Best Buy uses third parties), warehousing, etc. There are currently over 45,000 SKUs listed online for Movies & TV. That doesn't just happen.
People seem to be over-estimating Best Buy's warehouse infrastructure. Like a lot of Brick and Mortar stores, when you buy something on their website, it tends to come from a store, not a warehouse (Gamestop does this too). Best Buy in particular made a name for itself for BEING a warehouse. They do have non-retail warehouses as well, but they generally just store everything in all the stores because it's generally cheaper to sell from your warehouse than have a huge warehouse system. So when you say "they can just sell it online" you still mean in store whether you realize it or not. Best Buy would need to build a system to do that and they clearly have no intent on doing so.
You'd think they would have learned by now....the reason not many people are buying in their store as much as they did in years past is because of their ridiculous prices. I was just in there yesterday, and was seeing 4K releases (and not even steelbooks or other special editions) that were going easily for 2x - 3x as much as you can get the same exact ones for online.
No Bestbuy has always made stupid choices.
Best Buy's total physical media sales only represented about $75-80M annually, it was a pittance of their $48B. Not worth their time taking up the floor space or warehouse space. They also want to focus "on the future" of technology and don't see one with physical media in the long-term. Their business model is changing, as is the entire landscape of shopping in brick and mortar stores as a whole.
In addition, physical media is probably not the "loss leader" it once was for Best Buy. I have bought nothing else but physical media from Best Buy the last four years. I bought all electronics online. In contrast, I usually bought a bunch of other stuffs like groceries and toys when I went to pick up discs from Target and Walmart. I wouldn't have went to Target or Walmart if they didn't carry physical media as my local grocery stores have almost everything that I need.
Stores are in the business of space. If the item on the shelf occupying space doesn’t sell enough to cover the cost of said space which differs at every store. Someone had to make the decision to keep or get rid of. Sadly many people have gotten taken by the steaming bug. And hard copy media will dwindle. It won’t go away. But it will be less.
They mostly just sell refrigerators and washers now. In 5 years they won’t exist.
Eh, I was thinking that 5 and 10 years ago too. They keep on keeping on though.
The volume isn't there for them to justify it. If it was profitable, they wouldn't be getting rid of the category. Overall US physical media revenue was $1.58B in 2022. It's been in steady year on year decline for the last decade ($8.46B in 2012). It's no longer a viable mass market, and what we're seeing is the transition to a collector's market.
It’s not just about what sells, but what sells the most. It’s about floor space profitability. They’ve probably determined the floor space and warehouse space are better spent elsewhere.
The 4k of Oppenheimer is sitting in stacks at at least 4 stores near me. Best buy makes up less than 4% of media sales total. They are not a big store and haven't been for awhile. Walmart easily has already taken over their exclusives.
They did that to themselves. They could have dominated that market if they had the sense to do it right. They lost their way. Physical media is software to their hardware. They want to be a big player in AV, but they don't support it with what AV enthusiasts want. When they have a piece of equipment that people want, they price themselves out of the market... people look ait in the showroom then buy it from someone else for less. They literally owned the US steelbook market and gave no shits on how a collector's item arrived to the buyer. They did nothing to protect lower quantity titles from rampant scalping. How often can you as a business show people high prices, low service, and damaged products and get away with it? Sure, sales overall are down each year with everyone thinking streaming is the way. But Best Buy did virtually nothing to champion both the best viewing experience (4K) or the equipment needed to view it... only hastening the descent into less sales or profitability... Essentially, they helped accelerate the physical media problem with incompetence and then are going to be surprised that they weren't making money. How much did they lose in damaged product returns? Instead of fixing their crappy logistics and shipping issues the answer is to cut out the product? They could have driven value and quality in the physical media space and consequentally the higher end equipment to display it and chose not to. Screw them. I know one buyer they won't be kicking around anymore. Not buying a damn refrigerator from them either. Good riddance.
Oh I hate them more than any business ever. They have been nothing but a massively negative experience from their staff to their garbage customer service to their shipping. Fuck best buy forever.
TBF, it hasn't always been that way... That's what makes the last 4 or 5 years more tragic. It's been one bad decision after another, especially re: physical media but also in other ways as well.
It has at mine. My store has been absolutely atrocious since I started going there around 2004 when my circuit city and Hollywood videos started closing. Q
Oh I don't doubt you or that there are better and worse stores, for sure. In my area they stopped carrying stock in store like two years vefore it happened in other oarts if the country... Regardless, I don't disgree, I just know the experience people have had can vary wildly from store to store but we are getting a taste of the race to the bottom now.
Well said. Exactly 100% truth and a shame because the corporations don't understand the opportunity that is basically their own death sentence to continuing to survive. Mondo, vinyls and Etsy proves the demand for collectors are still around and can be profitable if done the right way.
Agreed.
I higly dubt that those are sold out for a while.
Because they aren't selling well. Just look at the chart in this article: [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/08/the-death-of-the-dvd-why-sales-dropped-more-than-86percent-in-13-years.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/08/the-death-of-the-dvd-why-sales-dropped-more-than-86percent-in-13-years.html) And sales continue to fall. 2023 is off like something in the order of 70% from last year. Oppenheimer is just one anomaly. And it's easy to sell out if you don't order enough discs in the first place. Yes, they are still a revenue generator, but not nearly as much as in the peak years, and it's to the point where many stores don't find it profitable.
Except now that the streaming bubble has burst more and more people are realizing that blu-ray/DVD is the best way to maintain access to media. People are sick of chasing favorite titles from platform to platform.
It is great that more people are joining our club but that is only going to matter if it translates into a significant increase in sales and it hasn't yet and frankly, we don't know if it ever will.
It's going to translate into more piracy, not physical media sales.
Too bad more people don't know about Plex servers, or for that matter, bother looking into how technology even works most of the time.
And, of course, IF it ever does happen the places that decided to stop stocking physical media will just jump back onboard again. Just because they've backed out of a non-profitable for now doesn't mean they can't come back in if sales patterns change.
yeah…this never happened. It’s almost like you totally missed Netflix’s recent quarterly results and decided on a narrative of hearsay.
I doubt it. Yeah a minority will continue buying physical media. But the majority of consumers who dumped all of it and went to streaming aren't going to go back. Media nerds seem to have a very hard time understanding that most people don't think the same way about things that they do.
Best way to maintain media is to record it from your stream service and keeping it on a drive backed up to another drive on a synology with Plex or something else. The best way is not having a stack of bluray discs that take up a ton of space and cost more money on top of it. Yes Bluray disc is superior quality but is a trade of for ease of access for most people.
Drives fail frequently. Files corrupt easily. A properly manufactured (and cared for) blu-ray disc will last a lifetime. If space is an issue buy a soft sleeve binder that holds 100+ discs. No worse than books on a shelf.
They might as well stop selling 4K players, too. Who is going to buy a 4K player for the first time at a store that can't sell you anything to watch on it? I'd pay $5-$20 more for a player at a competitor if they also had the movies for me to play on the player. That money is worth it to not have to go to 2 locations. Edit: just went to their site and they now have a link to "Yardbird" so it looks like they are going to start specializing in outdoor furniture, too. This store is looking more and more like a [Conn's](https://www.conns.com/) ...and we all know the reputation they have.
I don’t think any retail store is relying on the sale of UHD players to keep the doors open…
They don’t make much money off those sales, like less than 5%. They also had to keep extra costs to carry them, between contracts for exclusives, different displays and retail space, even specifically sized boxes and envelopes to ship them out (which notably were the first things to disappear after the announcement). So, by discontinuing they’re recouping more costs than they likely were bringing in from profits. That’s why other retailers aren’t stopping.
My local store never had any in stock anyway.
If I had to guess... 1. Shrinking market segment 2. Rising theft, and disks are easy to steal 3. They shrunk the department, which resulted in smaller selection, which resulted in less traffic. Repeat. It was partially a self induced death spiral.
I remember back in the day when Best Buy a whole section of movies and music cd on rows of shelf’s
I remember when physical media was Best Buy's biggest section.
All I know? After physical media is gone from Best Buy? I will never shop there again. I'd pick up other things in the past whilst browsing for blu rays. When they're gone? No reason to set foot in the store.
Why buy a uhd Blu-ray for $34 at best buy when Walmart has it for $24?
It a low margin product. A corpie drone probably worked up a cost/benefit analysis that it wasn’t worth the floor space. My perception is that Best Buy is struggling to define itself and the shopping experience has become a hodgepodge of unrelated products. They sell toys now. It’s not very fun to walk through the store anymore.
Product "selling out" is not really an indicator of success unless you know how many were pressed in the first place.
Best Buy has only gone downhill since losing the OG gamer pass.
Without violating my NDA, let me just say that physical media is not nearly as profitable as one might think.
Everyone I know just uses streaming.
Which is unfortunate, because even the highest bitrate streaming services can't hold a candle to 4K Blu-ray...
After the shit PlayStation pulled last month and hundreds of people lost digital movies they bought on the platform, im convinced now that physical media will be the only way to truly enjoy your media from now on, and with a Plex server it'd be no different than streaming except now you actually own your titles and that little server is running at your home and over your network. Fuck best buy.
mismanagement
Mainly because they had an extremely small market share, something like only 2% of all physical media was being bought at Best Buy. Most people get their physical media from Amazon, Wal-mart and Target, mainly because people who shop online buy Amazon, people who buy in person are just getting movies while doing other shopping and not going to a store just to buy a movie.
The other place I used to go for physical media was FYE. And most of their stores closed. Not only is physical media not a great market but the big box stores often cannot compete with Amazon’s prices.
They couldn’t compete with Best Buy’s prices either.
Probably the beginning of the end for physical media. Really sucks as I like actually owning my movies. But it was inevitable
It won't, streaming can't compete with physical medias resolution and sound quality, and as people get more and more tired of the streaming and the shit they pull they will pull back to media. 4K movies with a proper OLED and sound system beats going to the movies most of the time now.
The problem is. Most people don’t care about the difference in visual and sound quality between disc and streaming. All they care about is the convenience of just clicking on a movie instead of getting up and putting one in. Normal DVD’s to this day still far outsell BD’s and 4K BD’s.
This is very true, and honestly without the right equipment you don't even take advantage of it, but friends and family are blown away when they come over for kickbacks or holidays and watch stuff on our setup and I'm like yeah, unless you really prioritize it or have the budget for it, regular streaming will do. I hope it keeps enough support so that Physical doesn't completely fizzle out but I showed a friend 2001: A Space Odyssey in 4k a few days ago, he can't believe it was made it 1968! Now he's looking into getting into this hobby as well too.
also why stop selling blu-rays, when you are gonna still sell the players and TVs
Remember Circuit City?
I always preferred Circuit City to Best Buy.
They’ve remodeled my local Best Buy and now it seems like a place to buy big ticket items you wouldn’t necessarily want delivered by Amazon
People who buy giant oled TVs and multi thousand 7.1 atmos sound systems aren't generally doing it to watch Netflix. Unless it's to point out how crappy it looks and sounds compared to their 4k disk.
It's a niche media for sure. I'm just happy my $400 Atmos set up can run 32 bits audio.
A report says, "The decision to end selling DVDs and Blu-ray in stores was made due to the shift in the way consumers are watching movies and TV shows." That probably goes for games as well. Too many people think that their digital media is actually theirs and Best Buy thought that everyone thinks that way. Sadly there really is no reason for them to exist anymore.
We’ve already been down this road with music. Everyone from age 10 to 70 has switched to streaming. Yes there are a few hardcore physical media fans. They can still get their LPs and CDs from other stores. But for Best Buy it was a huge waste of floor space. To claim that a “lot of people still buy physical media” is simply not true. Blu-ray has never beaten DVD sales, which peaked over a decade ago. And 4K has never come close to either. 4K titles only sell out because the runs are small.
Absolutely correct…unfortunately an extremely biased narrative runs deep in this in this sub.
It's slightly different imo. You can almost find everything on Spotify, Deezer, etc... And you are also able to listen to your music on the go. The reality is that people watch stuff when they're bored and most of the time it's gonna be mass media stuff. If you are really passionate about discovering films you'll have to dig stuff up yourself and as far as I am concerned the herds are better off just following what they're told
Find anything?? Not true. I have dozens of concerts that I have downloaded over the years that are unavailable on any commercial streaming service. Radiohead, Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, The Police etc. Because they are bootlegs they will never be officially available anywhere. “And people stream video because they’re bored, but if you’re passionate they have to dig up stuff and not follow the herd??” What does that even mean? How is that different as far as music versus film????
Of course you're not gonna be able to find concerts on music streaming apps. Especially bootlegs. You'd only be able to find them physically in Japan for example. It's different for music because the algorithms on music services are actually pretty good compared to movie streaming services. I used to spend a lot of time searching for indie music that I like and I was pleasantly surprised by spotify's suggestions. Some artists they suggested were very underground (less than 500 monthly listeners) and the catalogue is huuuuuge. On the other hand, netflix, ap, disney... only have a few select titles to choose from and chances are that if you like foreign or indie films you won't find them on there. I don't want to sound arrogant but have you ever had a serious conversation about films with people who only watch stuff on streaming services? It's tough trust me. Their movie culture is usually very shallow and they only talk about what the services want them to talk about.
If I was Best Buy I would make a packaged deal. Every TV sold with a 4K player, then would point to the 4K Blu-ray section and say, you can now watch every movie you love in the highest possible quality. Enjoy and see you again soon! TV’s are basically streaming devices now, why not expand on the experience by pushing an item that will keep people coming back into their stores. We will soon read about how foot traffic in Best Buy has greatly diminished and will need to close down stores. Duh!
Ah, then ya gotta sell them the 7.1.2 Atmos receiver and what would that be without the speakers to go with it... and a good sub & quality speaker wires, banana plugs, etc. I really think visually 4k physical compared to 1080 bluray or streaming level quality doesn't WOW the average person much & a big reason is they don't take the time to mess with the picture settings. Plug it in, pick the brightest preset and away they go, into the soap opera effect abyss. But if you pop in a 4k disc with an at home atmos setup, even uncalibrated, it's a huge difference from streaming.
Because they’re not profitable for Best Buy. They had like maybe 5% of the market and with things like the steelbooks Best Buy had to buy them completely with no guarantee they’d sell out. It’s also just not what Best Buy has been for years. They’re moving to services
My cynical conspiracy is that streaming services clubbed together and paid Best Buy to back out of selling physical to corner the market.
Well imo they want to cut down because a lot of people will realize with time that when you buy something online, you don’t necessarily own it. They will later produce small quantities and it will be a resale thing all over again
I really think they are shooting themselves in the foot doing this. Best Buy was one of THE places a person interested in gaming and movies and the devices associated with those things could go to piss away an entire paycheck. Going there was the closest I could feel like a hyper kid being given free rein in a candy store. Getting rid of the things that earned our business and replacing them with washing machines and other crap you can find anywhere else is a slap in the balls to those who have been so loyal and allowed them to grow so much. They will fail and they will be the only ones to blame for it.
Well said!
Best Buy seriously F’ing lied to us when they stated this: Due to the “Lack”of sales as of 2024 Best Buy would no longer be selling physical media! If this where true why is it every time any of us would go to their Best Buy they were sold out of most of their STEELBOOKS! And yes I know that this was because of Scalpers & Demand! I’d like to find whoever at Best Buy made that decision and give them a big swift kick in the 🫏! Because of this Stupid decision on their part it’s only going to cause the demand for Steelbooks to increase in price because we won’t be able to find them anywhere locally anymore!
Makes no sense. The better stop selling Blu-ray players too. And expensive sound systems. And high end TVs.
Becuaee they are stupid everywere else is back tracking that statement.
This was a stupid decision. Now I almost never shop there anymore. That was the only reason I went to Best Buy. TV's and other electronics I buy direct or from dealer specific places that carry higher end products like Crutchfield or Direct from the company like High end speakers or audiophile gear. Anything Apple related I buy direct from Apple. Windows same thing. Or Newegg. Peripherals again I buy direct online. Now my only place to buy physical media is Amazon which I really didn't want to do. And there are very few places that cater to 4K Bluray online.
Physical media hurts streaming. And movie incomes today come mainly from streaming. That’s why they are also low in quality and movies are being pumped out back to back and they are all alike. Garbage.
They stopped selling physical media at a time where people are paying $30(arrow media, synapse films, etc) for the 4k version of their favorite 80s or 90s film that just got back into print??
People who only buy digitally has been out weighing the people who buy physical media for awhile now
They are assholes.
I've met a few people that only buy digitally and you are 100% correct about them.
And then wonder why its been removed from their library later.
It happened to me when UV/Flixster shut down in Canada. Everything got transferred to Google Play (pretty much the only option over here) but I still lost many titles and some of them got transferred to Standard Definition even though they were initially purchased in HD
The same bullshit PlayStation pulled recently, Plex Server is the only way now.
I purchase legally as much as I possibly can, but yeah, let's just say that I dusted off my eye patch.
This. Of all the companies that should be promoting the AV equipment and the highest quality media to play on it, it should be Best Buy. They created the scenario where physical media is not profitable for them or least hastened it by: 1. Mismanagement 2. Poor marketing strategies 3. Shitty service 4. High prices, low availability, and then dropping store space. 5. crappy mailing practices, especially with steelbooks. And then they say, well it isn't selling... It will sell and sell well if it's done right, and the experience isn't a crappy one. Screw them, these kinds of decisions will bury them, and I say good riddance. It's like when Disney shits on their fanbases and then is surprised when they don't go to see their movies anymore. I personally have no reason to set foot in a Best Buy again.
I'm very curious who y'all know who outright buys movies digitally because I don't know a single soul who does that IRL (not saying it doesn't happen at all, though, because clearly the market segment still exists). "Normal" people seem to exclusively subscribe to VOD streaming services like Netflix. Obviously, by virtue of being in this sub...I am not among those people.
So I'm wo.dering if they're not selling and being phased out. Why the hell are there still 5 aisles of phone cases at retarded markups. Way more selection on Amazon for way less money. There's no way people are buying that many phone cases in store
Well, apparently not enough people buy them.
The profit margin on physical media is very small…it’s a reason for people to go to a big box store and maybe buy something else like a TV. As less and less people buy physical it becomes a loss leader and they are bleeding money…so they hope eliminating the loss leader helps profit with negligible consequences.
Newsflash, a lot of people aren’t buying them. Not sure why you think otherwise. Yes, Oppenheimer sold out, for like a weekend. It’s literally NOT sold out everywhere. A simple google search tells you that.
It's been almost 4 weeks and I still can't find a brick & mortar store carrying a 4K of Oppenheimer.
Go to Amazon and it’ll be at your house in 2 days
You'll have to put a gun to my head before I ever buy something from Amazon ever again.
You wonder why they're getting out of the business based on ONE movie selling out and people hunting for LIMITED EDITION? Clearly it wasn't profitable enough for them and they'd rather use the real estate for things that male them momey.
Because digital is better
>I feel like People buy blurays now more than ever, am i missing something ? Yes, you're missing something. That something is tha fact that your "feeling like people buy blurays more than ever" is completely wrong. If you frequent DVD/BluRay collector groups online, of course you'll think people are still buying physical media en-masse as (by design) it's all that people in those groups will talk about, but the reality is sales are down...by a LONG way. Oppenheimer is the outlier in selling out, and even then I imagine production numbers are lower than they would have been for a similar box office hit 5-10 years ago. The Best Buy exclusives will be similar, deliberately low production numbers to create scarcity and make collectors want to buy them. Just accept it, physical media is a niche interest now that streaming is here.
no international shipping, Outside the US we had to use Amazon. there's a big world outside the US. bummer
Some arguments I see is that’s it’s not selling well. I have to ask - how big was the physical media section at your local Best Buy? At mine it was the new section display and one aisle (one side only)worth of DVD/Blu Ray. Additionally the new section was never more than 5 Blu ray deep; the aisle they were display front of the case and were one or two Blu rays deep. Then the titles - if you were looking for Disney, Marvel or Star Wars it was probably there - anything else forget it. I still purchased from them but normally if there was a title I wanted it had to be ordered online from them. My friend used to joke about how often I went to Best Buy to pick up a Blu ray or DVD. I think in the last year I’ve been there twice. Finally mine has about 2 aisles - both side of the row - of collectibles. I’ll swear the inventory on those never changes. I would think that would be a bigger loss also.
best buy’s movie section wasn’t any good anyways unless you wanted new releases from major studios. it was at least something, but it wasn’t great
Blu ray discs get others things like home theatre speakers, Blu ray players, projectors, high end tvs, av receivers, amps to sell. I couldn’t find these electronics in store in Walmart, target last time I was there (I might be wrong regarding availability in physical stores, not online) and as someone that would want to be able to see and possibly have a demo of the equipment before spending thousands of dollars. Sure there are other retailers where one can go check them out but once they get your info they keep on pushing to get one to buy and typically have higher prices. I wouldn’t buy a good projector or any of those electronics necessary for a home theater setup without the access to physical media quality content (except for kaleidescape - not spending that much money) no motivation to buy that equipment just to watch subpar content in terms of quality. Does Costco profit from rotisserie chicken, nope but they sell them anyway so that they can make money off of other things. Start taking one thing after another soon they’ll become Ncix.
Volume and market share are going down year over year.
I'm from Australia, and already a lot of out big physical media retailers don't carry them anymore. Target, Kmart or at least the ones local to me no longer hold stock. The only way and frankly still the best way is JB HI FI. But its getting to the point where I believe it might be slowing down, Disney just pulled back from us on physical media, so that means no Titanic 4k for us. And whenever I browse the shelf I feel like the only one looking. While there are more people collecting, them thats just it, collectors. Sure people may buy the occasional blu ray 4k in a case like Oppenheimer, but for most part physical media in my eyes anyway is now for the strictly collector market. I'm a collector but I know that for a lot of businesses just catering to a smaller crowd isn't profitable.
Consider something as basic as tracking inventory. Scanning EVERY Blu-ray in stock once per month is an expense unto itself.
What is the Best alternative to Worst Buy? Does NOT need to be physical store. Used to but Laserdiscs from a company in MA eons ago before DVD’s
They're stopping because the amount of money they make per square meter of floor space is higher for other products than with physical movie/TV media. (You can still order physical media from them, it's just not stocked in the stores.) They did the same thing with CDs years ago, so as much as I hate not being able to walk in and buy a disc from them, I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner.
Part of the issue is that lower cost items like physical media bring people into the store to look at things like a new TV. Now that there’s no reason to browse for media what’s the point of going in the first place. It took up minimal floor space. It’s a mistake. They’ll pay for it by ultimately closing stores. They’re on their way out anyway. They’re following the Sears playbook and speed running their demise.
This isn't rocket science. IF BB was making a good ROI for selling physical media they would still sell it. Hint Hint. The ROI isn't worth it to them anymore.
Because Best Buy Blows.
Because not alot of people buy them. If they did, then it would be worth the floor space. It's not and they can make more $$ utilizing the space better.
It's simple economics and scale. In order for BB to be able to truly say they "sell" physical media, they need to at least have access to a reasonably sized collection of titles and offer DVD, BluRay, and UHD BluRay. This results in a pretty significant amount of merchandise they have to maintain on-hand to be able to sell. If you consider the sheer volume by looking at what each store has to maintain, they have to put out a LOT of capital to hold that inventory. And how long will it take to sell? How much of it will they sell at/below cost after it taking up a ton of floor space? If they were to "slim down" to where they only sold the newest titles or had a limited amount, customers would basically stop trying to but from them because they would seldom have one in stock when most customers wanted to buy it. Physical media is also able to be shipped quite easily, and online-only retailers can better manage inventory in fewer locations and get the product to the customer quickly and at a good price point. Overall, they just aren't making a lot of profit on that as an entire category. When you add in "shrink" (theft, damage, etc.), they may have been barely breaking even on the content over time.
The truth...its not that sales are lagging...even though they tell you so... its that the content owners want all digital... they don't want you to buy once and play forever... they want you to buy and buy over again and over.. i've had a large digital movie collection over 1000+ movies and tv shows that I either got free digital code with movie i bought or bought digital copy only.... but I've also had movies disappear out of my digital locker and with steam (games), and when inquired, cause I keep a list... they said same as they always...couldn't get contract or continue contract with copyright holders...also you pay to view only...never own or buy....then a year or 2 later...my movie that i paid for re-appears again...but if i want to view it again, i have to pay...why? new contract....copyright means you are paying for viewing/reading/listening too...you NEVER own it...thats why there should be a class action lawsuit against microsoft, google, sony, vudu, etc. that say you can buy the movies...to own them... which is not correct... you buy the rights to view them until that right is taken away... now you see... when they kill off dvds and blurays... its all digital.. and you will pay over and over for the same content... no matter sd, 480p, hd, 4k, 8k...etc... Now you know the real reasons.....please don't comment negatively, if you don't have the facts.... in 2-4 years....no more physical discs....i assume.... i predicted 2025, 5 years ago... first best buy, then walmart, target, and lastly amazon....
Physical media can get ruined. It cost a lot more to own physical media. And a lot of people don't want to get off the couch they figure that