For many years I have purchased DVD copies of movies that I really liked. I didn't trust the streaming approach. We didn't have the network bandwidth to do it. This past week, we have been limping along with data off our cellular phones. The fiber optic 1 Gbps connection failed just after 3 PM on Sunday. All the streaming content my wife enjoys is inaccessible. The Ring cameras stopped working. The weather station network failed. I've had to fallback to the hotspot from my cellular phone to access my employer's VPN.
My wife re-discovered the value of DVD/Bluray disks this week. They work fine when the network connection is gone.
I too have started buying DVDs and Blu-Rays of movies that I think are keepers. I gave away a lot of VHS tapes years ago and I guess I really don’t regret that. It’s not as durable a medium, and I was a lot younger when I got those and, looking back, there probably aren’t many that would interest me today.
Trust the streamers as curators of the film libraries? Nope. Not only are films pulled from circulation, but the editing is slowly ramping up. When Turner Classic Movies and the Criterion Collection got caught censoring classic films — without acknowledgement to viewers — trust is irretrievably gone.