Dear Columbia House DVD club...

...I hate to be the bearer of bad news...oh wait, I'm not - Dave Kehr and the New York Times beat me to it. The headline says it all: Goodbye, DVD. Hello, Future.

The DVD isn’t dead yet, but it’s definitely looking a little peaked, at least in the eyes of the home-video industry. Sales continue to decline (volume is down about 40 percent from this time last year for the Top 20 titles, according to Home Media Magazine), the formerly ubiquitous neighborhood rental shops have all but vanished (Blockbuster, once the dominant franchise, has plunged into bankruptcy), and the major studios have drastically cut back on full-scale releases of library titles.

I for one, can't remember the last DVD I bought. (Granted, I can't remember many a thing of late.) My best guess is that it was my impulsive purchase of In Bruges at TJ Maxx many, many months ago. The last mainstream new release DVD for which I paid full price? Um... It was probably a Harry Potter film. Like, the FOURTH Harry Potter film. Redbox and Netflix Instant have almost completely supplanted my once insatiable need to buy movies.

"This particular chart shows the 10 countries with the
fastest internet in the world. It also shows that
they're not slowing down." Akami via Gizmodo

Still, I find it highly unlikely that the DVD will ever disappear entirely from the U.S. the way it has in South Korea, mainly because our Internet is not and may never be as affordably fast as in that country.

Why is South Korea the world leader in Internet speed, year after year and why is it so far ahead of the U.S.? As CNN reports, it is the result of an interrelated matrix of economic, cultural, political, demographic and technological factors. But if I had to sum it up in one word that word would be: competition. Healthy, thriving competition among Internet service providers. Which is to say South Korea (and most of the other countries leading the list) have it, and the U.S. doesn't. You mean competition benefits consumers? Who would have thunk it?

But getting back to DVDs, this evening I received an email addressed to "Former Music Club Member" containing the following:

Yeah... no thanks. If you're reaching out to former music club members who'd forgotten your existence is the act of desperation I'm thinking it might be... what with your being bankrupt in Canada and all...
Sucks to be you. If you didn't suck so hard, I'd almost feel sorry for you.

And you're right, I WOULD prefer NOT to receive future promotional emails.