[mdlug-discuss] Software Download vs Physical Media was Re: [mdlug] Suggestions for games for an elderly parent? Starcraft

[Peter Bart]

On Thu, 2009-01-22 at 08:24 -0500, Ingles, Raymond wrote:
> > From: Peter Bart
> 
> > I don't know about that. I would have been in the front of the
> line to
> > buy software just a few years ago. Then I learned to use
> repositories.
> 
> Software on physical media is on its way out. There's just no point in
> a world with decent download speeds. One game maker recently said
> there
> are kids born today who will never buy a game or movie on physical
> media.
> 
	Without a doubt, I don't have physical media for most of the software on my
computers. Only the OS disc.

> 
> Music will go first, it's smallest. It's already dying fast. 
> 
	Interestingly enough I prefer to buy the music cd's, don't know why.
The plan is to rip them to other discs and keep the originals at home. I
will listen to internet radio on occasion, but the multitude of online options
have never caught on with me.

> Software 
> will go next, it's larger than music but still, you can download a
> whole
> distribution onto one CD. Movies will be last - Blu-ray probably has
> ten
> years, maybe, until the net infrastructure gets fast enough to support
> regular multi-gigabyte downloads.
> 
	I heard somewhere else that Blue ray's life is allready limited due to
streaming players like the Roku Netflix player I have. An update to the
Roku firmware has been released and now the player is HDMI capable. Also
I will be able to access the Amazon movie library shortly with the Roku.
I haven't been to a video store in years, all my content is downloaded.
Best of all I don't pay for the Netflix movies, I will have to pay for
the Amazon ones. I pay a monthly membership fee for Netflix two at a
time dvd service and the Roku stream is included. I bought the Roku so I
don't pay anything for that. Between this, broadcast, Hulu, I don't see
a need for cable. 

Best Regards,

-- 
Peter Bart <peter at petertheplumber.net>
Peter The Plumber