Isaac Gramse ‘26
EE Staff Writer
We are in a time that is always changing and looking forward to the future. It seems that everything is going digital nowadays. Money, pictures, games, and chatting with your friends are all examples of this. But one piece of media that is a mainly digital now, is movies.
Now, everyone has a streaming service, at a glance they seem much more convenient than standard DVDs. For an oftentimes low price a month, you can get hundreds of movies and TV shows to watch whenever and wherever you want. However, I believe that there is a problem with streaming services.
While yes, it is easier to use a streaming service when you’re on the road or on vacation or just whenever you are somewhere that isn’t home, they are troublesome in my opinion. What are you going to do when you want to watch a movie but your WiFi goes out in the middle of the film? What if you were watching a movie, saved it for later, and when you want to come back to it, it’s not there anymore?
These problems have often left me very frustrated when using streaming services. There is also a problem with the sheer amount of streaming services now. If you want to watch a specific movie, but don’t know which service it’s on, you have to go through each and every one of the services you have and hope it is on one of them.
With DVDs, that is not a problem. You buy them once, and never again. If the internet shuts off in your home, you’ll have no idea, and (if you take good care of your DVDs) you can watch them for years without worrying about losing it.
While I admit, there are problems with DVDs, I’ve also found that there are easy solutions to them.
Problem 1: DVDs are too expensive, you have to spend $15-$20 to get one brand new.
Solution: There are many Goodwill stores that have a bunch of DVDs for $1-$5.
Problem 2: DVD players way cost too much.
Solution: Most video game consoles also act as a DVD player. If they don’t you can always get a cheap used DVD player.
Problem 3: DVDs do not last forever, what if they get scratched or cracked or damaged?
Solution: As mentioned before, as long as you take good care of your DVDs, they will last for a long time. Make sure you put them back in their case, clean them regularly, and remove dust after long periods of no use.
In my opinion, DVDs are undervalued. Now, more and more households are switching to streaming services without thinking about the disadvantages.