Pro tip: the library in Boise has 400 seasons of shows on DVD and nobody uses them
I was killing time at the downtown Boise library branch last Saturday while my car got an oil change and wandered into the media section out of boredom. There were 6 full shelves of TV series on DVD, stuff that got pulled off every streaming app in the past 2 years, and a sign saying you can check out 10 at a time for 3 weeks. A librarian there said the average disc gets borrowed maybe twice a year, and one guy checked out all of Twin Peaks on a whim and returned it 4 days later with a sticky note saying he watched it all in one weekend. Meanwhile I'm paying $19 a month across 4 apps that keep dropping the exact shows sitting on those shelves for free. I grabbed 3 seasons of a show I won't name, binged the whole thing over 5 nights, and didn't see a single ad or buffering wheel. Has anyone else gone back to discs because streaming got too messy, or am I just old now?
The same thing is happening with music too. I found a whole shelf of CDs at a thrift store for a buck each and half of them aren't on Spotify at all. Seems like we all traded owning stuff for renting it, and now the rental places get to decide what stays available. The library thing makes sense because they actually bought the discs, so nobody can yank them off a shelf overnight. My sister cancelled two of her apps last month and just uses her library card now. Its kind of funny how the old way ended up being the more reliable one.