About 10 years ago, I could not imagine a world without video disks of movies. Over several years I had amassed a vast collection of movies (lost cost) on DVD. Then along comes BluRay. GEEZ, now I have to start replacing all of my favorite DVDs into this new, high-definition format.
What’s a girl to do?
Well over the past several years, what has happened is not what I expected to happen – I have not replaced that many of my DVDs; in fact my DVD purchasing has very nearly ground to a screeching halt. Why?
After giving this question some thought I have come up with the following reasons:
- Most of my movies in my DVD collection were not shot in the high-definition format thereby making purchasing them in HD a moot point.
- Economics – as I have gotten older, the economics of purchasing movies is no longer as feasible as it once was. My discretionary income is now divvied up into other categories.
- Death of bricks and mortar – let’s face it – the “see me, by me” retail model really does have an impact on your decision to purchase merchandise.
- (more importantly) I have discovered various alternative means of acquiring my video content. Whether it is via streaming, digital downloading or a host of other products and services made available, I just have not been purchasing or ordering video disks of movies in any form lately.
I wonder if this is an overall trend or just something that I am experiencing? I know anecdotally that DVD/BluRay sales are not exactly where the movie industry wants them to be, but I have not looked up the hard numbers to support this claim. Have any of you seen the data?
In addition I have the following questions for my audience:
- Have your DVD/BluRay purchase patterns changed drastically over the past several years?
- What is your principle means of acquiring copies or gaining access to your favorites movies nowadays?
- What do you think is the future of purchasing hard copies of your favorite movies?
