However you also needed to physically buy a copy of every movie you want to watch, instead of signing up for one service and having access to thousandsd immediately.
Major downsides to that alternative. My 80-year old friend started borrowing DVDs from the local library 6 months ago as a personal protest against Amazon Prime adding ads to their streaming.
So far, made 3 trips to borrow DVDs and all had various issues:
1) checked out White Collar tv seasons but library only had seasons 1 to 3. Library didn't have last 3 seasons at all.
2) then checked out a British tv series with 10 seasons. The 10th season had 3 discs and the middle disc was so scratched up by a previous borrower that it was unplayable. (The library doesn't have a bunch of duplicate DVDs like Blockbuster Video rentals.)
3) then checked out another series that has 8 discs but only got 6 because 2 of them are already checked out by another patron. Now this means repeatedly checking the library if the other 2 finally got returned so she can borrow them.
On top of those problems, the library has a very small selection in comparison to streaming. She estimates she'll exhaust the DVDs sitting on the library's shelves in a few months and have nothing to watch.
Another huge negative to DVDs is that she can't play them (directly) on her iPad. Her exercise bike had a mount for an iPad and she used it to watch video streams from Amazon Prime.
She was spoiled by the conveniences of streaming and does not look back on DVDs with any romantic nostalgia at all. The only reason she doesn't just subscribe to Netflix or HBO streaming to get back that convenience was she didn't think she could afford it on her Social Security income. On the other hand, the Amazon Prime Video streaming (without ads) was already part of her Amazon subscription.
We also have reciprocal borrowing privileges at many libraries that aren't in the network. You can always find a DVD you want!
It's the same problem with streaming services. There are several shows at Netflix and other services that doesn't have the latest seasons (at least in my EU country).
> 3) then checked out another series that has 8 discs but only got 6 because 2 of them are already checked out by another patron. Now this means repeatedly checking the library if the other 2 finally got returned so she can borrow them.
There's no guarantee that a season will be available in a streaming service either. They sometimes only have shows for a limited time, so you could start watching a series but then it is removed before you finish, often without warning.
Streaming will never have a secondhand market.
So the original disk could be copied to writable media.
There definitely would "occasionally" be a movie lover who wasn't actually buying those copies.
Furthermore, once you own a disc you can use it “forever”, whereas with streaming services you don’t know what will or won’t be available in a few years. Many movies and series that are available on physical media are not available on streaming, though for newer productions that also goes in the other direction.
Before you just needed a DVD player