Personal interest in burning discs have got to be very niche. Playback is becoming boutique. They’re becoming more expensive. Less releases but higher prices with smaller print runs. More steelbooks. More retailer exclusives.

It was already the case ten years ago that most good movies wouldn’t get a physical release especially if it’s not a movie from your region/in your language. Moreso the case now than before and more expensive than before.

UHD blu-ray players that don’t suck aren’t cheap. Like problems with triple layer disc playback or what HDR standard does this player support or it supports multiple but it’s a flipping through the players menus to switch HDR standard for what your disc carries

Lower quality but for most movies, the only option if you can’t catch it in a theater is streaming. And in some cases, it’ll only show up on streaming for short periods of time like on Mubi. Most movies you won’t see a Blu-ray/UHD disc rip. It’ll be a streaming service rip. For me as long as it has 5.1 audio, I’m good

The physical market for movies/TV is getting worse and more expensive. For UHD disc players, it’s sparse for hardware releases that fix the ongoing issues/annoyances and they’re expensive

Can’t they just make it open source? That way at least the enthusiasts can keep it working for as long as the hardware is still functional.

I must say that in the future, we may look back on these days and say that this was about the time when “you-buy-it-you-own-it-forever” kind of ended for media.

Here’s the graph for CDs:

There’s still some stuff out there, and SACDs still sell in small volume to people who want the highest fidelity, but I think that outside of some vinyl sales to the retro crowd, the audio world has mostly moved on. The video world might do the same.