I don't even mind paying on demand to stream a film. It's annoying and economically baffling when you can't stream a film even if you have your credit card in hand, ready to pay.

Last weekend I tried to find To Live and Die in L.A. -- from the 1980s but hardly obscure. I couldn't find it legitimately available to stream anywhere, for any amount of money.

I even tried Kanopy, which has been my go-to source for films I can't find on paid streaming services, but they didn't have it either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_Live_and_Die_in_L.A._(film)

And you sometimes can't even rent movies that you saw on Netflix as recently as a couple of years ago.

"Page Eight" was a great little spy movie with Bill Nighy and Rachel Weisz on Netflix. Now you can't rent from anywhere, for any price afaict.

How does this optimize revenues for the studios?

The only thing I can think of is a mind share argument: they want you to watch the latest blockbuster instead. The Disney Vault is the cynical endpoint of this line of thinking.

Howso?

This movie may be available through Hoopla in association with your local library.[0] It appears to be distributed in the US by PBS which doesn't have the best streaming availability.

[0] https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/10085700

It’s on Amazon, in the US at least, free with Prime.

Two films that I can't get on streaming or DVD are

* The Name of the Rose * The Draughtmans Contract

I spose I'll have to find them at an old fashioned DVD store, eg. https://filmclub.com.au/

These appear to be available at dvd.netflix.com:

The Name of the Rose (2019 series): https://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/The-Name-of-the-Rose/81093444

The Name of the Rose (1986 movie): https://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/The-Name-of-the-Rose/70000552

The Draughtsman's Contract: https://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/The-Draughtsman-s-Contract/459...

Your spelling of "Draught[s]man" might have misled you for that one. It's a little sad that Netflix's search returned no results for such a close spelling. I'm not sure why you didn't see Name of the Rose.

(although maybe from your example link you are in Australia and thus don't have access to Netflix DVD?)

This best is when it is temporarily no longer available to rent digitally because it has rotated back to HBO or SHOW.