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The infographic that Cory Doctrow links to from the page below, which was created back in the "DVD" days, is also still quite relevant to the current "which service is it on" world we are entering.

Replace the "unskippable 'you criminal' you" DVD previews with the descriptions of determining where, what, when, etc.

https://boingboing.net/2010/02/18/infographic-buying-d.html

The 300 separate streaming services need to understand that they need a friction level very close to the "if you are a pirate" box at the top in order to prevent their customers from returning to the pirate route. And having 300 separate services, with disjoint content, is not at all near the friction level of the "if you are a pirate" box at the top of the infographic.

> I miss walking out to a store, picking out a movie, pretty much any movie I wanted (new releases might be picky/choosy)

I don't think this is an option anymore. There was never a time when a Blockbuster store's collection could match Netflix/Hulu/Prime. In particular, there's so much more media being created now, that there's no way a physical shelf space could keep up. If you consider just TV, think about how many more channels there are compared to the heyday of Blockbuster. I just checked Fandango, there's over 20 movies opening this week alone. How could a Blockbuster keep up with that? I think the reason it felt that way might be related to the paradox of choice. There were fewer options, we got the "lottery win"/dopamine hit from finding that new movie when there was only one copy left to rent, etc. I think our brains artificially limited the set of things we "wanted" to watch to what was on the shelf, which was surely never that robust of a collection compared to what you get from something like Netflix today.

Can you not just do that now with Google Movies or whatnot?

"Voice and subtitles not available in your language" For literally the first recommended film on Google play movies. Scroll through it a little bit and it seems like original languages are not available, closed captions are never available and the only subs available is not my preferred language (google also warns me for this).

This is ridiculously often the usual experience outside the US, if the content is legally available at all... Or I can just torrent the same content with my desired subs/dubs or buy a game on steam an play it in my desired language...

Still limited to the selection at Google Movies.

You can do this now with Netflix - but they will ship you DVD's.

You can still do it at the library, and for free!

A subscription service wants to be paid to cause me endless anxiety over a service that could not work when I want it because, for example, I'm in the wrong country or on the wrong network and could be withdrawn at any time and without notice.

If you want to rent a movie both Google Play and Amazon still have you covered. TV shows though are a different topic now that streaming providers are making their own content.

I was going to suggest RedBox, but then I found out that they shut down in Canada. In the US, they're a good replacement for Blockbuster for new releases.

I don't know why movie producers would be happy about multiple people watching a single copy of a movie.

>You know what I wish was still open? Blockbuster.

Try your local library

They often have a significant DVD section.