i will never be against piracy ever but i also need physical media to remain
the average blockbuster carried about 3x as many films than that that are streaming on Netflix or any other streaming service, physical media along with piracy is more important than ever.
I thought this wasn’t true, because how could it be true? How could one small store have more movies than an online database? So I googled it.
I am surprised and depressed to learn it’s 100% true, according to google. A Blockbuster store was required to have a minimum of 7000 titles, but most averaged about 10,000. Netflix has 4000 movies. (And 1800 tv shows if you want to count those, but even included, it’s still less)
Now I’m even more depressed about the collapse of physical rental stores.
BONUS: They weren’t beholden to Who Owns What IP Right Now. They got videos from everyone. You didn’t have to pay separately for the rights to rent from the Disney Shelves and the WB Shelves and bler bler bler, and they only STOPPED having those movies when the tapes broke or someone never returned ‘em.
friendly reminder that your local library will have lots of physical media and if they don’t have what you’re looking for you can most likely ask them to purchase it or order it from another library through interlibrary loan
Shoutout to Scarecrow Video- they have over 148,000 titles, most of which you can rent by mail. Rentals have been down in the last few years so they’re asking for support!
“never being against piracy” and “needing physical media to remain” are very compatible things that go hand in hand.
There are tons of shows (and other material) that will never be available on physical media without the help of piracy.
And that means without piracy they’ll eventually be lost forever. Save stuff. Really.