I don't understand why its often viewed as an 'either/or' with streaming and physical - its rarely viewed as 'both' (outside of a few on here who say they'll buy the discs for those few films they really want to keep).
Streaming doesn't have all the content for me, not by a long shot - sure, for the modern studio films they might, but the likes of 88 Films collections of slashers and Italian films are nowhere near any streaming/download services and even when the likes of Arrow films do get released either to buy or via their own Amazon channel, its more often than not sans all the amazing extras that most collectors buy the discs for. The Criterion collection - you need a VPN to watch the Criterion channel from the states, so easy but faff...….anything outside of the mainstream and the streaming selection takes a real hit, probably as you might expect.
But also, the price of digital continues to plummet - I picked up season 1 of Game of Thrones in HD for $1.99 (in fact scratch that, they even gave me a coupon to reduce that price by 15%!!!!) this morning. I have the physical blu's already, but at that price, its worth it to have a digital backup for travelling or ease (when watching season 8 I bemoaned the lack of time to watch all previous seasons leading up to it, even though I was spending a huge amount of time in hotel rooms watching rubbish Netflix guff). I also picked up the new Godzilla King of Monsters for less than £7 - again, I always planned on buying this on 4K disc, but its over 6 weeks away from a UK release and the reviews are giving me pause for thought: drop £7 on it, if its rubbish, no harm no foul - I still have the film for subsequent viewings where I may soften on it; if its amazing, I can wait until the film drops in a 2 for £30 offer and I've not paid anything for the digital version. Back to the OP topic, the quality now is such that I'm willing to pay THIS amount for THIS quality.
I know that in essence I'm buying things twice (the studios love me!) and in an ideal world I'd just rip all my discs and run my own digital collection. But at nearly 3,000 films/TV shows, the time it would take to do this and the cost of storage needed is massively prohibitive.....but its an option should I suddenly win the lottery and/or get fired from work!!!!!
As many have said, its horses for courses like with most things - physical media may well be on its last legs as a mass market proposition, but it will never go away because too many still pay relatively high prices for it and will continue to do so (who ever saw the resurgence of vinyl coming?), however we will likely see a reduction in the type of films made available on it.
And yet I can't help but feel the current digital ownership market bubble will soon burst - these low prices can't continue, driven as they are from people selling codes that come with discs: how long will it be before studios wake up to this and either start charging more for films with codes, or likely stop providing them in the disc purchases? We've already seen the UK codes in discs virtually stop altogether (its only really Lionsgate now that continue to do this) - possibly due to the Flixster/UV situation so it may start up again in anger November time.....but possibly not.
Anyway, we just have so many options to rent/buy movies these days, its great to have a choice that pretty much meets all our needs - disc rental services offer up the quality at a reduced price (but doesn't come with ownership, obvs); physical media offers security and quality, but at a price; and digital purchases offer convenience and price with the right level of quality, but comes at a risk of future ownership rights...…….its a far cry from only having a single VHS rental shop at the corner of the street isn't it?