• A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I really miss video rental stores.

    walking in to the smell of fresh popcorn, getting an enormous bag of it for like 99 cents, walking up and down the aisles browsing the latest releases for something that non-algorythmically catches your eye to watch over the weekend.

    Maybe even swinging through the game aisle to pick up the new game that just came out.

    It was an experience that is lost and will never be replicated by streaming/rental boxes/etc/etc.

    Worse, the loss of physical ownership. You do not own anything you buy on a streaming service. Sony as proven that on more than one occasion. You are also stuck to the whims of your internet connection.

    But physical media? You can play that anywhere, any when, any how. WIth no worry for stable internet connections and other bullshit.

    • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      Physical media isn’t dead, you can still buy DVD/Bluray disks for popular content, unless it’s a platform exclusive.

      So if you really value physical media, buy it and refuse to use streaming services. I rip mine to Jellyfin so I get the same streaming platform experience, while owning physical media. If my kids want to watch something, I order it and rip it. If my internet connection dies, I still have access to it because it’s on my local network. If someone wants to borrow it, I just give them a copy (or I can point them to my Jellyfin service, which is also available outside my house).

    • BigBananaDealer@lemm.ee
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      2 months ago

      my local video store had the perfect setup. they were next to a pizza place and actually installed a window connected to it so you can order a pizza and look for a movie to watch while waiting for it to be ready. it was perfect. now its a stupid ass dollar store

    • Naz@sh.itjust.works
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      2 months ago

      Yeah, it’s definitely a vibe. I took a wormhole (time travel) to 1991, walked into a blockbuster and keeled over from nostalgia.

      Nostalgia is such a complex/convoluted feeling – you can’t have it if you didn’t have a past to draw the experience from, but when you do have it, it’s almost like a religious or philosophical experience both acknowledging and becrying (or grieving) the passage of time.

      Unfortunately, even with a “time machine”, we the people who walk through the portals are ever changed. We won’t ever live in the past again. We can see those places and experience them in our present states, but…

      Just like a glass shattering on the ground and the pieces scattering: Entropy cannot be undone.