Plume

• Apple removed disc drives from their machines at a critical junction in time in their fucked up race to be E V E R T H I N N E R

• this made Microsoft go "hey, if the overpriced hipster bullshit brand isn't doing drives any longer, we don't need to go to any efforts either, so let's not pay for that bluray license"

• which means there's no easy way to play bluray media on a computer without installing garbage bloatware rootkit third party software, so most people don't bother

• streaming ghouls swoop in backed by vulture capital

• everyone pats themselves on the back that "nobody's buying physical media any longer, but it's fine, streaming will solve the problem forever"

• having gotten a big enough foothold, streaming ghouls stop offering actually interesting stuff

• you can't actually watch a large swathe of movies and TV series any longer, because where are you going to find the physical media?

Q E fucking D

Apple, who's computer market share has never really capped 10%, is not solely responsible for "killing" physical media (This is where you could make arguments that physical media isn't dead; and it's not). There are a number of competing factors that have reduced physical media's market share:

• The bluray vs HDDVD war causing confusion among the consumer base during the key early years of HD media.

• The console war not going to Sony in the US during the PS3/Xbox 360 era, slowing adoption of bluray as a media format.

• The spread of high speed internet across america, allowing HD video quality to more easily be streamed

• The rise of high speed mobile internet for high speed portable devices, and a culture of people who want to access their media wherever they are on whatever device they have.

• The rising popularity of digital media in general fueled by piracy (Nerds setting up an all digital home media servers and excitedly telling anyone who'd listen how'd they'd gone all digital)

• The rising renters market, reducing physical space available to store physical media, as well as causing scenarios where people constantly have to move and needing to carry as little as possible with them place to place.

• Netflix producing some really good TV in their early years, driving adoption so people could talk with their friends about the new season of Orange Is the New Black.

I could spend hours and days talking about why the "end" of physical media is not some vast conspiracy, but a logical chain of events over the course of a major cultural shift in the US. I could also debate whether physical media is "dead" (it's very not, it's just now a more niche market because there are better options for normal consumers who never watched anything beyond what was the most popular thing at any given time). Apple certainly isn't responsible, nor Microsoft or Sony.

strongly agree with @hkr on the point that physical media isn't dead.

many people know that i am as big on the "self-hosted media server" as any¹. unlike many people, the lie of "ah but most of it is blu-ray backups of legally owned media" is not actually a lie; i actually buy physical copies of everything i like and then rip them² to store on my server. i have two main reasons for this:

• while it is obviously very easy to pirate movies, even at full quality, they very rarely contain any Special Features, commentary chief among them. a physical or digital release is often the only way to get these and, if i've got a choice, i'm going physical 100% of the time³.
• pirating UHD films is a fucking nightmare. the only device i'm aware of that can actually play profile 7 dolby vision is an nvidia shield pro. i have one. it's broken more than half the time because android tv is a disaster that's still missing features apple tv had day 1. the newer apple tv still only supports profile 8 dolby vision, which is what streaming services use⁴. meanwhile, i have a great UHD blu-ray player that i use constantly⁵. as you'd expect, it's also a great standard blu-ray and DVD player⁶.

i sort of lost the plot here. whatever. the point is physical media is very much not dead, it's just more niche. buy a nice blu-ray player and watch some fuckin moveys. check out your local video rental store, you almost guaranteed have one⁷.

1. i have a decommissioned backblaze pod 3.0 (with a swapped motherboard since the original hardware was Weak even by contemporary standards) in my closest. i'm only using about half the drive bays right now but it's still better than anything else i've used, also it was free.

2. ripping blu-ray discs is so fucking easy and external blu-ray drives are shockingly cheap. check out makemkv to learn more.

3. also pretty much every physical blu-ray comes with a MoviesAnywhere redemption code. there is literally no reason to buy digital movies.

4. i could go on for a Long Fucking Time about how streaming services (disney+ chief among them) are obsessed with including fake dolby vision masters (HDR10 with what appears to be per-frame peak brightness, which is worse than HDR10 in every single way) that disincentivize me personally from using them. i wish i could force turn off dolby vision on my setup in certain circumstances. this is one of those instances where i will pirate any day of the week b/c i can make sure i'm only getting an HDR10 version.

5. it's a standalone player. the PS5 and Xbox Series S/X don't support dolby vision on UHD blu-ray for reasons i do not understand, especially since the Xbox supports dolby vision for games (??????) and streaming services. i'm assuming it's another profile 7 support issue. who knows.

6. FUN BONUS: it also plays SACDs! shout out sony for continuing to support this format in at least Some of their hardware. i only own three SACD discs but hey at least i can play them without dragging out the ps3 now.

7. TALLAHASSEE RESIDENTS: check out Cap City Video Lounge if you haven't yet. it's in railroad square. they've got a great selection and also do screenings sometimes. i saw popeye (1980) there one time.