Why should I put in effort, they don't, the content creators don't.

The content creators have not built a method via which I can legitimately give them money. If they wish to do that then we can talk but they apparently are not interested.

I have no idea what an earth it is that you think I should do instead, clearly you are an intellectual though so I would value your input.

For high cost production that takes tens or hundreds of people to make, it's usually not up to the actual artists and creators how their stuff gets distributed. That's up to the publishers. They kinda... destroyed their older distribution methods, each one chasing the impossible goal of a streaming monopoly.

For some people, local Libraries are an option. If that isn't feasible, there are other options. Legal or otherwise. Whatever works, works. Most artists care more that you engage with their work, than how you got a hold of it. They already got paid, and residuals are less and less offered (or weaseled out of) by the publishers.

There are still DVDs and Blurays being made for new movies. Some movies are 100% digital, but in my experience they tend to be the ones that the streaming platforms produce themselves and they have an interest in keeping people on their service.

But most other movies still get dvds and blurays made and are still sold in stores.

that's true

Try Jellyfin instead.

Maybe because its supposed to just be the jelly"fin" and not the whole fish. Might have complicated things for you.

All these one size fits all media servers are aweful, i use rygel for now but it chokes on larger collections.

Everyone seems to be telling me that there's still new releases, but seemingly not for anything I'm interested in. The last Blu-Ray I've been able to pick up was WandaVision. There was a time where basically 100% of movies got physical releases and, acknowledging confirmation bias, it does feel like those times are gone.

I remember that they had pretty much stopped doing that entirely, half the time it was a slip of paper w/ an advert on it, or some sort of legal compliance form.

That's exactly what fits the mould of my wife as well. She watches old stuff for comfort. Makes perfect sense.

I totally get it, yeah. I don't remember everything, definitely, but I remember the vibe, and if I have the vibe, I'm good with it.

It's not an attack on libraries or funny, it's a legitimate point about digital libraries that our repressive regime deems fit to burn regularly.

That includes online digital libraries!

This meme would be more accurate if you replace the girl he's with with Fat Bastard from Austin Powers feasting from a trough of IP.

There's at two problems with that: VHS tapes and CEDs both degrade with each playback session, and CEDs even can get damaged or destroyed if you store them incorrectly (no wonder that format flopped and brought down RCA with it, lol...), and LDs have Laser Rot to deal with which is sadly becoming more common as some discs which were pressed in certain plants age.

VHS/Beta tapes, CEDs, and LDs if there's any media that wasn't released outside of those formats should be archived in some way ASAP due to the fragile nature of all three formats.

(and I say 'fragile' although LDs in theory should last indefinitely due to the lack of physical contact with that format vs. CEDs being read by a stylus and VHS and beta being read by a spinning head drum, but as I said, Laser Rot is an increasingly big problem with them)

*CEDs are literally video on vinyl, something that someone at RCA had to have been tripping on something to come up with, and that it's a miracle that it even worked at all, given the inherent limitations of vinyl as a format.

3-4? That's when things were going wrong lmfao. Talk to me about the days of Netflix being a champ and Hulu having a free tier.

I do but that doesn't mean I will re watch it over and over

What are the movies that haven't gotten releases you've wanted? For me anything I've wanted has gotten a release lately, but I don't watch the most niche movies. So perhaps that's my confirmation bias

where owning media is considered a luxury.

Much more likely that it will simply be impossible to legally own any media.

Back when people bought analog media, I don't know if it was fully spelled out what you did and didn't actually own. Obviously you didn't own the copyright to whatever it is you were buying. But, you did own the physical item. What rights were transferred to you when you bought the record in the record store? Probably an unlimited right to play the record at home, but not the right to play it in a dance club. I wonder if the "copyright license" was ever actually spelled out though.

In the digital era there is no longer any physical item to own, and since you never did own the "information" encoded into the physical medium, ownership of digital files is already on shaky ground. In the past you could buy MP3s, and these days it's still occasionally possible to buy DRM-free e-books. But I wouldn't be surprised if in the future just having media stored locally will be presumed to be illegal.

There aren't stairs?