Death of the DVD

Brother Dockery recently hipped me to something I wasn't aware of: that big-box bastion Best Buy is phasing out its selection of CDs and DVDs from its stores.

As I predicted here a couple years ago, Blu-Ray is being forced down the public's throat whether they want it or not. I love Blu-Ray myself, but I don't plan on rebuying everything I ever owned all over again on the new format. When you get my age, you've owned the White Album six times (vinyl, remastered audiophile vinyl, 8-track, cassette, CD, remastered CD) and Apocalypse Now four times (Laserdisc, VHS, DVD, Redux DVD - could have been five if I'd gotten on the Betamax bandwagon). Me, I prefer watching the crap of the ages these days anyhow, so none of this affects me.

I don't actually shop at Best Buy, mind you, so it's no skin off my stuff. (When I was laptop-shopping last week, I did peek in at their netbooks but was appalled by the idiocy of their staff who were useless at answering my questions.)

The plummeting quality and value of modern commercial pop music and the Hollywood film industry seem to competing with one another to see who hits bottom first, not unlike the hammer and the feather dropped by Apollo 15 astronaut Dave Scott in order to demonstrate gravity. (Pay no attention to the breeze of wind that blows the feather at 0:21 secs, though - you weren't supposed to see that.) We are perilously close to experiencing firsthand the utter and complete cultural demise of an entire society, as the general populace is too jaded, too bored, too hypnotized from the internet and video games, too zombiefied from anti-depressants, to care much anymore about good books, good movies, or good music.

According to Hacking Netflix:

“We’ll have another store reset before the holidays, which will include an increase in the space for higher-growth and, in the aggregate, higher-margin categories, like Best Buy Mobile, e-readers and gaming, with a heavy emphasis on new gaming platforms and pre-owned game titles,” Best Buy Chief Executive Brian Dunn said in a conference call with analysts Tuesday.

Well, isn't that just dandy. Never mind that society is literally in its death-throes, never mind that the planet is coming apart at the seams, go play some more video games, why dont'cha?

- - JSH