Intro: The Death of Physical Media

2023 was a disastrous year for physical media and a disorienting one for me personally, marked by a series of ominous milestones:

1. DVD Sales Declined for the Sixteenth Straight Year: In the first half of 2023, physical media sales in the U.S. decreased to $754 million, down from $1.05 billion during the same period in 2022.

2. Netflix Ended its DVD Rental Service: On September 29, 2023, Netflix mailed its final disc, marking the end of its DVD rental service.

3. Best Buy Discontinued DVD Sales: In October 2023, Best Buy announced that it would stop selling DVDs and Blu-rays.

4. I Decided to Start Collecting DVDs: In November of 2023, I informed my wife that I wanted to begin collecting DVDs, to which she responded, “Why?”

There was once a time when people would buy the right to watch a film twice, once in theaters and then on DVD. Consumers could own their favorite films, and studios made tons of money serving this demand. But over the last 20 years, physical media has declined to near-extinction as streaming has evolved into the predominant mode of home entertainment.

And yet, in recent years, DVDs have seen a modest revival—not as a durable consumer good, but as a form of self-expression. If that sounds hokey or illogical, it’s because it is. People (myself included) are trading convenience and economic efficiency for emotional gratification. And, so far, I’m loving it.

So today, we’ll explore the rise and fall of physical media, the changing economics of movie ownership, and the minor resurgence of a dying technology.

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The Rise and Fall of Physical Media

Fifty years ago, you couldn’t watch movies at home (apart from whatever played on cable television). Let’s say you actively wanted to see Citizen Kane or take in Alfred Hitchcock’s entire filmography; well, you couldn’t. You’d accept the ephemeral nature of movie consumption and think, ...