But, for the rest of us – aren’t you just a little bit sick of the game? After all, how many different versions of the same movie do you want to buy in your lifetime? Personally, I’ve still not replaced the original Star Wars movies with the DVD set. I owned three – yes, three different versions on VHS. I wasn’t about to go hopping to DVD and then find out they re-mastered, re-vamped and re-released it again. And that’s just for older films. What about the DVD you bought a couple weeks before Blu-Ray was available?! Do you now feel cheated? Have the urge to go out and spend several hundred dollars on a new DVD player so you can get what everyone else has? I hope not. If this economic crisis has taught us anything, it’s to appreciate what we have. From leftovers in the fridge becoming lunch to the backyard becoming a family weekend destination once again, we are all in a mindset of enjoying what is already around us.

Of course, you argue, eventually you’ll be forced to upgrade. The manufacturers will play some dirty card like making future players that don’t ‘downgrade’ well. If you want to watch it and not feel like it’s 1959, you’ll buy Blu-Ray discs – right?
Wrong.
The inevitability of the ‘next thing’ is upon us even now. If you are one of the millions with a Netflix or iTunes account, you enjoy it’s benefits and don’t even realize it.
Digital Media. Right now, it might be a confusing term but it shouldn’t be. Just imagine every movie and song you own being completely bought and stored on a computer hard drive. No physical CD/DVD. No cases piling up in the corner. No wondering how big of a movie collection you can get because your wife will kill you if you have all those out in the living room.
Many websites take advantage of this capability, as well. Why order a CD, when you can simply download the software directly? Need instructions? Download the PDF version, instead of waiting weeks for a manual. Computer hardware keeps getting smaller, but the memory storage and speed capability keep getting faster, spurred-on by such hobbies as graphics-heavy online gaming. Your DVR/TiVO is a simple computer – there are just so many examples.

So don’t run to the store for that Blu-Ray player just yet. With more hardware coming out designed specifically to make digital media more accessible, like the Roku streaming Netflix player, you will probably be phasing-out of buying DVD’s and CD’s sooner rather than later. The good news here is, unless they can find a way to beam it directly to your brain, the only thing you’ll have to upgrade in the future should be a hard drive.