I care mainly about two things: quality, and having control to decide when I want to watch what I want to watch. Both lend themselves to having physical copies of my favorite things.
Also, someone involved with the film and tv industry has told me that physical media is going to be phased out over the coming years, so I am making sure to have my favorite movies and shows on disc, in the best quality possible.
I do use some streaming, but I'm not relying on it.
I'm not sure physical media will ever be totally phased out as 4K bluray sometimes is better resolution than the average 4K streaming plus doesn't take nearly as much data to accomplish I think there will always be a market for it but the format could change from a disc format to a chip format. As we have seen in music vinyl has become somewhat popular and even cassette tapes have interest too. I think unless the format changes however there will be continual declining interest in them as newer generations are inundated with the convenience of instant streaming vs digging through boxes and having to deal with mechanical disc players and discs.
I do see a trend of physical media sales moving almost totally online now as stores allocate less and less space to it.
As for quality, DVD is 480P and Bluray is 1080P and 4K Bluray is 2160P. I think the first thing to consider to compare these formats to streaming quality is your TV size and quality. A smaller TV like 24-32 inch the difference between these resolutions unless up close is more minimal than a 43-55 inch and can be at times very noticeable at TV sizes of 65 inches and more. I've watched media on disc and tv at resolutions 1080p or less. I will say also quality of the stream can make a huge difference vs physical media as I've seen 480p streaming look terrible compared to a quality anamorphic DVD print. I tend to stream at 720p on my 55 inch tv as I'm usually 6 foot back and it saves data and native 720 and above streams look very good at times better than lower quality dvds and decent anamorphic DVD prints look close enough to a quality 720p stream that needing to jump to a bluray format is unneeded on small to medium size screens. The bump from 720p to 1080p is less noticeable I think on all but larger screens (I would believe as I have no access to a larger screen) and the bump from bluray/1080p to 4K resolution on average quality TVs is less dramatic I think but more dramatic on higher quality and larger screens.
I will say my eyes are not a good as they used to be so take all of that into consideration.
With most 4K blu-ray offerings also including normal 1080p bluray discs I can see DVDs going away in the future but that would depend on how popular a movie/series is and how old as older stuff sometimes requires more effort and cost to scale to 4K, even 1080p blu-ray can require work on stuff that was on DVD as the media that the DVD was converted from may have degraded and/or require work to look good.
I've seen more and more old movies now being released on 4K bluray and there is several limited release blu-ray and 4K on physical media.
As streaming improves I believe digital conversions of a lot of older content will be done and once a 4K conversion is done well so it can be streamed, there is nothing but expense required to put that on physical media. In other words if you want a certain movie on physical media you can just go online and order it and they will make it on demand. The main issue with the "on demand" model is the cost per title likely won't approach discounted media in stores and as I've seen the used/second hand market is seeing less and less newer titles as there is less of them being sold locally to go around. I've had to go to ebay and amazon and a few other online outlets to find an acceptable price on some titles as I'm a cheapskate.
Until 4k Bluray players drop in price and my collection grows in that format I think standard Bluray 1080p format is just fine for an average screen. I have upgrade most of my higher rated movies to standard bluray discs but I will never bother to get all of my dvd movies in bluray too as the experience vs quality vs cost is not worth it.
I think unless you download movies to smart devices and convert music to digital from CDs having battery powered players in an outage or away from the grid may have people wanting to also keep DVDs around but for the most part DVDs pretty much are going to way of VHS tapes for the most part. I do think however that with standard blu-ray players being made and perhaps in the future 4K players becoming mainstream replacing everything else and costing around $50 or so new they can play all standard disc formats. I don't see 8K and up physical media (disc) players in the future and I think that higher resolution formats beyond 4K will likely require a next generation physical media format.... possibly cartridge based like a larger SD card or cartridge.
The big problem I see with physical media is simply..... greed. From early days of music for example there were 45rpm vinyl singles and 33rpm albums and often people owned songs on both formats and sometimes the song had a different album version vs the broadcast version single. These formats were not easily portable as battery tech and the needle/vinyl playing setup pretty much required line power and a static environment. Along came tapes.... the competition was 8 Track and Cassette with some albums on reel to reel for high end enthusiasts. cassette won out over 8 track I think mainly because of size/convenience and maybe cost to manufacture and was the go-to portable music format till optical CDs came about in the late 80s early 90s or thereabout.
Cds are the last common physical media for music and if we were looking back someone could have paid for the same song several times to "upgrade" the quality and usability etc. The pros and cons of physical media is that you have to rebuy the same stuff each time profiting the music industry but the used music media market doesn't profit them a well taken care of music CD can be resold over and over perhaps for 100 years if players still exist then and since CDs can be played on native players, computer DVD and CD drives, DVD and Blu-Ray and 4K Blu-Ray player compared to VHS tapes and cassettes and vinyl physical media likely will be supported for decades to come. The fact people are now selling new vinyl and I've heard interest in CDs is growing around similar enthusiasts means it will at least exist in a limited market. I can't see them selling vinyl in chain stores and not selling CDs also...... As for the DVD/BR/4K market it may outright vanish in local chain stores and specialty movie stores pop up selling it maybe even renting it again like blockbuster but the huge issue is the industry and profit as one reason I've heard in the movie industry is that the model used for physical media sales doesn't encourage stores to carry and sell them as the profit and window of opportunity often has only the latest most popular stuff being carried. The stores I've heard lose money when they have to mark down stale media products.
I buy nearly all my media second hand, I would have about 1/10 as much as I have now or less if I bought everything new.
... so it's fine.
