End of the line

The fledgeling Marvel Television Universe will not get physical media releases. This is my shocked face. ComicBook.com has the story, if you're interested. I want to key in on what Marvel Studios frontman Kevin Feige said when the physical media question was put to him in January:

The truth is, I don't know. That's a good question for which I will look for the answer. I don't know. You can pay a very low fee per month and have access to something that you can put it on your TV whenever you want!

At the risk of sounding obtuse, you can watch a DVD whenever you want, and you don't have to pay Disney+ or an Internet service provider a monthly fee. But that's not in Disney's interest. They want recurring, predictable income. For the cost of producing an episode of TV per week and the occasional 2-hour special, they're getting it.

Don't get me wrong. This doesn't affect me in the slightest. Anything shiny Hollywood produces these days has to be really special to demand my time.

However, on a macro level, it's hard to deny we're at a turning point. If old Hollywood is going to make streaming work, it will be at consumers' expense. With everything going to streaming, it won't make sense to mass-produce Blu-rays and DVDs anymore. Why sell people the means of bypassing your cash cow? Likewise for Blu-ray and DVD players. In 2019 Samsung stopped releasing new Blu-ray players for the U.S. market.

I hesitate to tie this in to Klaus Schwab's Great Reset, but this pivot to streaming would be nothing less if it was being deliberately implemented with that agenda in mind. Imagine everything in your life is single-use like the plastic cups you put in a Keurig. You will own nothing. Your viewing habits will be monitored and new content will be curated for you to ensure you meet your consumption target. You'll gobble up the latest disposable offerings, forgetful of past iterations of the IP after they're digitally erased from the 'Net. (Hackers or a computer virus will serve as a scapegoat early on, when pretenses have to be upheld.) The past won't be so much rewritten as overwritten. It's always year zero to the cult of the new.

The past is worth preserving. If you haven't started building your library yet, start now. The future depends on it.

As always, let me know what you think in the comments. If you like science fiction, check out my books Seeds of Calamity and Tendrils to the Moon. You can find extended previews for each here and here.