The price of physical media might go up at least 8% sometimes 16%
Also, within 3 years studios should start announcing stopping production of all optical discs in theory
Today on 7-14-2024 the United States Postal Service just raised prices an average of 8%. While UPS and Fed Ex have not announced a price increase yet, they normally a few months later end up increasing prices also. This is going to cause more inflation for all products with an 8% shipping rate increase. While people get so called free shipping from many companies, there is no such thing as free shipping since the merchant website just raises the price of the product somewhere between 8% to 16%. 16% would be for small companies that receive shipments from warehouses that charge the dealer the 8% shipping price, and then that merchant ships the package out to the customer which costs them another 8%, and that merchant charges the customer the full 16% increase for shipping the product to their home. A very large web-based merchant or nationwide store chain can afford to purchase directly from China in bulk with big freight trucks arriving and might only charge additional 8% or 10% price increase to the customer on shipping or most of the time so called free shipping with the price of the product being increased 8% to 10%. Or sometimes the USA company request the newer replacement model of a product being made with less features and lower quality electronics and not increasing the price 10% to hide inflation.
For now, only the USPS has increased postage prices an average of around 8% for shipping for packages as of today on 7-14-2024. UPS and Fed Ex have not yet announced a price increase but might follow in a few months. Even the cost of mailing a letter has now gone up 73 cents. Sending Media Mail now costs $4.63 a pound (16oz) and goes up to $5.38 for 17 oz. Sending 70 pounds media mail is now $56.38. USPS Ground Advantage price for 70 pounds is $146.15, or $170.70 for priority mail, or 2-day express mail $534.65.
Even sending media mail is getting expensive. To make matters worse physical optical media is dying, with the last major nationwide REDBOX automated machines that were at 24,000 locations being ordered to have them shutdown and removed from the 24,000 locations since the company filed chapter 7 bankruptcy. Walmart the biggest seller of physical media has greatly reduced their selection. The last time I was in my local Walmart all they had were a small selection of collectable 4K Blu-ray steelbook’s that appeared to range in price between $39.99 to $59.99. There were no standard Blu-ray discs on the shelf and no DVD discs on the shelf. That was just one Walmart store and it might be different nationwide. Walmart, Amazon, and Target websites are the main places to purchase physical optical media.
Since the rental market for physical media was completely lost nationwide, I have my doubts that the resell market for physical optical media like 4K Blu-ray disc, 2K Blu-ray disc, 480i DVD, and audio CD will be able to survive. I hope I am wrong but sometime within 3 years possible we will start to see studios start announcing that they are no longer releasing any 4K Blu-ray discs, 2K Blu-ray discs, and 480i DVD discs. Right now, we are seeing smaller companies getting release rights from major studios to get new release 4K Blu-ray’s and 2K Blu-ray’s releases. But when optical disc titles are not being made in QTY of 3,000 to 10,000+ from major studios the prices are no longer $20-$30+. Instead, when the QTY is 1,000-3,000+ from the smaller companies getting new release rights from the major studios the prices are sometimes $49.99-$59.99 for a new release and once and awhile as high as $99.99. The rental market for optical media is already gone nationwide and not every consumer is going to be able to afford to buy a new release at $49.99 or more and watch it once and have it sit on their shelf. Physical media purchasing is getting to be so small that we are returning to the days of Laserdisc where sometimes only 1,000 discs per title is being made and the average Laserdisc price was easily $39.99 and many times $129.99 for Collectors boxsets. Gone are the days when people could buy Blu-ray’s at only a $1.00 at the Dollar Store, that is when retail stores were dumping physical media. While I never personal saw 4K Blu-ray’s at the Dollar Store, I heard rumors that some people were able to purchase some for only $1.00, and if true that was very rare. If all optical discs go out of production, then many movie titles in a few years could be worth $300+ or even much more.
I would love to have a new 8K optical disc format be released in 2026-2028+ (call it 8K Blu-ray, 8K DVD, or some other name), however in reality the lower quality 4K streaming format with lossy audio is winning the format war and one day to purchase a movie it will be required to be in the cloud. Currently the only way nationwide to rent a movie at 4K quality or any quality is by streaming, cable TV, or satellite TV (REDBOX was the last nationwide optical disc rental place with several years ago 42,000 automated machines in all 50 states that was reduced to 24,000 machines before they filed bankruptcy). The same thing is most likely going to happen to the purchase market for physical media, within 2-3 years studios may slowly announce no more optical discs being released. When the multi-million-dollar automated optical disc factories are shut down, companies are not going to spend the money to rebuild them. 4K Streaming, 4K Cable TV, and 4K Satellite TV all offer the rental and purchase of major movies. Some people believe that within 10 years satellite TV may no longer exist anymore since almost everyone will have access to either Cable TV or high-speed Internet with virtual cable TV app. Some people believe within 15-20 years that Cable TV QAM and IP might not exist anymore and Calbe TV will just become an Internet provider with maybe still offering VOIP landline style phone service. Some cable TV companies are coming out with 100% streaming options as cable boxes are being replaced with an app to download.
If physical optical disc media disappears one day, I will just start 100% renting new releases from satellite TV or a streaming provider instead of purchasing anymore movies. 99% of the time all the movies I have purchased on optical disc I have only viewed once, and they are sitting on the shelf never to be watched again. In the old days the new improved format would replace the old format. Like DVD replacing Laserdisc and VHS. And Blu-ray would in theory have replaced DVD If streaming did not become the dominant format. Audiophiles would have been happy with video streaming if at least one company would have offered lossless audio, but to this day they all offer lossy audio. Videophiles would have been happy with streaming if it would have offered around 150Mbps high video bit rate 4K Blu-ray streaming, but instead a lot of 4K streaming is in the 15Mbps to 35Mbps range with many 4K streamers averaging around 25Mbps for HEVC. Compared to 4K Blu-ray many times averaging over 55Mbps and peeking over 130Mbps for some high-quality fast action movies. Maybe one day streaming companies might offer 8K streaming with lossless audio, but since they are winning the format war already, there is no rush to go 8K streaming with lossless audio. Another issue with streaming is there is many times no bonus material like audio commentary tracks, etc. Once and a while some streaming provides might offer 5 to 10 minutes worth of bonus material. Also to offer 8K streams with real time crystal clear frame by frame slow motion, 5 times fast forward, or 5 times reverse scan it would require a 10,000Mbps Internet connection. Even 480i DVD offers better quality slow motion and fast forward/reverse scan when compared to 4K streaming or any stream resolution. Store bought optical media cannot be erased and is for long term storage. Physical optical media like audio CD, DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K Blu-ray that is stamped/pressed in the robotic optical disc factory has the potential to last up to 1,500 years if stored correctly in an underground time capsule, etc. Recordable M-disc DVD and Blu-ray can last up to 1,000 years if stored correctly versus standard recordable optical media under ideal conditions only lasting up to 100 years. Optical media is 100% immune to EMP/CME whereas solid-state drives, hard drives, USB flash sticks, and SD cards are damaged and erased with very strong enough CME/EMP events. If the world is going 100% streaming hopefully the movie studios and streaming providers are keeping backups of all the movies at multiply locations around the world. Another reason why I plan only on renting on 4K streaming new releases instead of buying 4K streaming movies if physical optical media goes out of production, is the fact with digital download and streaming one does not really own the streaming or download movie but just gets a license to play it on the Smart TV or Roku Ultra anywhere in the world or certain country where one lives. If one truly owned a streaming movie that they paid $30 for, they would be able to transfer ownership and be able to sell it to someone else, just like one can do with physical optical media. If one truly owned a streaming movie, they should be able to transfer the movie that was purchased to another streaming provider. Perhaps like transfer the movie from VUDU to Amazon and maybe have to pay a small $1 or $2 fee for the transfer. Also, one should be able to upgrade the old version of the streaming movie from 2K (1080P) to 4K (2160P) for a $10+ fee instead of having to buy the 4K version and not being able to sell the 2K streaming version. Also, not all streaming providers end up merging when running into money problems, and when some streaming providers like REDBOX go under, the people that bought streaming movies from REDBOX lost all their movies sometimes worth several thousands of dollars.
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