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Comment by nemomarx | Hacker News Reader

I think the main reason they aren't competing as much now is that blu ray players / computers with disc drives / consoles with disc drives are getting more scarce?

I don't even know where I would get a good blu ray drive. The videophile subreddits keep suggesting very specific models with flashed firmware, which is not exactly accomodating to the public.

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The causality might be backwards there. Blu ray and other disk players are likely becoming scarce because people are using them less rather than people using them less because the devices are scarce.

What happened to Netflix DVD by mail was that Redbox ate its lunch, which ultimately was also a failing business model.

I didn't even realize that Redbox had shut down. I only used them once or twice.

Ultimately there was just so much content available with a click for people (who collectively are mostly not that fussy) for "free" (subscription) or at most by a payment from their TV rooms.

Amazon will happily ship you a Panasonic player (and you can get one of those that the firmware flashing people talk about). The current batch that would play 4K Bluray discs is really nice and as a side effect upscale DVDs to something that’s almost acceptable for normal TVs. No need to flash the firmware if you’re good watching content from your region and don’t mind skipping restrictions. The region problem is mostly about wanting to play American discs in Europe.

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