BRIEFING

Grant here. Streaming literally revolutionized the way we all consume entertainment. Gone were the days of cable boxes and trips to Blockbuster. Instead, from the comfort of your own home, you got to choose exactly what you wanted to watch. But this convenience over the years has morphed. It's become more expensive and more complicated, and people are starting to yearn again for simplicity. Let’s break it down.

A viral X post from Alphafox shows a couple that are ditching streaming services and kicking it retro with a DVD player they randomly decided to buy from Walmart. They say that it's just become exhausting scrolling through the endless amounts of apps just trying to find something halfway decent to watch. So now, they pop over to the store, look at a shelf filled with DVDs, pick some, head home, and pop it into their player. Simple and, as they say, more "intentional."

SOURCE

People are ditching their streaming services and going back to DVDs after recent price hikes from streaming providers - good idea? pic.twitter.com/raXHzXoTFM

— AlphaFox (@alphafox) May 14, 2026

Honestly, it's easy to relate to this couple's frustration. You open Netflix, then Hulu, then Disney+, then HBO Max, then Prime, then whatever app has the one movie you thought you owned but apparently was rented from the void for $3.99 eight years ago. Then, by the time you actually find something, the dream is dead and everyone is doom scrolling on their phone.

And this whole thing is bigger than just nostalgia, plastic cases, and scratched discs. People are literally yearning for some simplicity. Just going somewhere, choosing a movie and calling it a day. But it's also about the ownership, ritual, shelves, collections, and the strange little thrill of finding something in the wild instead of being spoon-fed another algorithmic menu.

This also comes at a time where streaming services just seem to be getting more and more bloated and expensive. Disney announced another U.S. Disney+ price hike in 2025, raising the ad-supported plan to $11.99 per month and the ad-free premium tier to $18.99, marking its fourth consecutive year of Disney+ fee increases. Netflix also raised prices across its U.S. plans again in 2026, and HBO Max also raised U.S. prices in 2025, including increases across its Basic, Standard, and Premium tiers.

So people are paying more, but the experience isn't getting any better. Nielsen’s Gracenote reported in 2025 that nearly half of streamers would consider canceling a service if it was too difficult to find something to watch, and 19% abandon a viewing session when the search fails. That number actually jumps up to 29% among viewers ages 18 to 24. So even younger folks are feeling the frustration.

And speaking of the youngsters, Los Angeles Times reported that Gen Z is reviving DVDs and Blu-rays, with young customers citing subscription fatigue, scattered content across platforms, and the appeal of physical ownership. It also noted that physical media sales declined only 9% in 2025 after sharper drops of more than 20% in both 2023 and 2024, which suggests the collapse may be slowing as interest returns.

DEBRIEFING

The DVD comeback is still small, but it definitely seems to be picking up steam. And who knows? Maybe Blockbuster could still make its grand comeback, because clearly, streaming has created the same fatigue across many generations. Even the ones that didn't grow up with "Be Kind, Please Rewind."

Us "elders" remember when picking a movie was a simple and rather enjoyable experience. You went to the shelf, grabbed the case, and watched it. That's it. Younger viewers may not have lived through the peak Blockbuster era, but they understand the exhaustion of paying for five apps, scrolling through all of them, and still feeling like there is nothing worth watching.

That's the part streaming companies seem to be missing as they're chasing the almighty dollar. People aren't just annoyed by the price hikes. They're sick and tired of the whole arrangement. Everyone is fed up with content moving between platforms, annoyed with ads creeping into paid services, frustrated with subscriptions stacking up, and tired of needing a search party just to find one friggin movie.

With DVDs, you buy the movie, you own the movie, you put it on the shelf, and when movie night comes, the choice is much simpler. There's no algorithm nudging you, no disappearing title, no $4.99 rental cost attached to one old favorite.

This is why this trend cuts across generations. For some people, DVDs are nostalgia, and for others, they're a discovery. But for everyone, the appeal is the same: less scrolling, less renting, less price creep, and a little more control over what should have stayed simple in the first place.

NOW YOU KNOW

Streaming promised freedom, but a lot of people are starting to miss ownership.