Recall the licensors from Scream Factory saying on a podcast a couple years ago they were already starting to get pushback from big studios on even trying to license out catalog movies for DVD releases. "Why would they want that? We have streaming now," the studios would say. https://twitter.com/peng_says/status/1383990543986814980

After Paramount+ launched, all of the Criterion releases that had been licensed through Paramount have quietly started to slip out of print.

A few seem to have held on, but will likely be gone once the existing deals for them expire.

Paramount releases now listed as Out of Print on Criterion's website.

The major studios do not envision a future where you could pay a one time fee to "own" any media, not when they've seen how much money there is to be made from a monthly subscription fees to watch their catalogs.

One of the (many) reasons Disney is notoriously difficult about allowing small arthouse theaters to ever screen their older films is because they see their own back catalog as direct competition to whatever they're trying to sell you a ticket to right now.

A streaming only model is great for the studios and what they want your eyes on right now. It's going to be horrible for preserving the history of every art and industry it touches. A once and future profitable few will be kept in rotation or remade, the rest will be left to rot.

Keep an eye out for where the GamePass model and experiments with consoles shipping without disc drives ultimately lead the game industry too. They're convenient now, but once alternative options no longer exist...