Streamflation: A Year of Streaming vs. a Shelf of Blu-rays

The Rent Keeps Going Up!

Cable TV was expensive, the bundles were full of channels you didn’t watch, and the price went up every year. This is why we cut the cord. Streaming to the rescue! Instead we got the same expensive thing with more logins and more apps tracking you. Streaming is now enshittified cable.

Disney+ launched at $6.99 a month in 2019. Today, its ad-free plan costs $21.49. That’s more than three times as much. Netflix’s cheapest ad-free option is $19.99.

If you subscribe to Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, and Peacock without ads you’re spending $959.52 a year at today’s monthly rates. At about $5 per used Blu-ray, you could have 190 movies instead.

Streaming can still be good value if you use it, but those monthly payments add up. When you cancel those shows are gone. You own nothing. What would that money buy if some of it went toward a physical media collection you could keep?

Streaming Price Changes Tracked

For each service I tracked the lowest priced ad-free plan. Plans with ads cost a little less, but I hate ads and can’t tolerate them. It’s double dipping and my attention is worth more than the couple of bucks I’d save.

These eight services are up 107% on average. Add them all up and the monthly bill went from about $76 to $144.

When Did Prices Start to Rise?

Through the end of 2021, the combined price of all eight services had gone up slightly. Hulu’s ad-free plan sat at $11.99 for six years. Paramount+ stayed at $9.99 from 2016 through 2022. Then the lines go up and to the right.

There’s no sign it’s slowing down. Seven of the eight have raised the price of their cheapest ad-free plan this year alone.

Start vs. Current Price

Here is each service from its starting price to what it costs today.

What a Year Costs

A $20 monthly price doesn’t sound like a lot, but that adds up to $240 a year, every year, and plenty of us have more than one service.

Prices are the lowest priced ad-free plan as of October 2026, except the last row, which is the cheapest plan of any kind from each service.

The average subscribing household has four paid streaming services, according to Deloitte’s 2026 Digital Media Trends survey.¹ Even with the ad-supported discount, all eight is over $1,000 a year.

Compare to Physical Media

So what does the same money buy with physical media? I’ll use four rough price points from my own shopping: used DVDs at about $3, used Blu-rays at about $5, new Blu-rays at about $20, and boutique releases (Criterion, Arrow, Shout) at about $40 each. Your mileage will vary.

Discs one year of streaming would buy. Streaming is the cheapest ad-free plan as of October 2026. Disc prices are estimates.

Used is the sweet spot. At about $5 a disc or less, you can build a large library fast. Thrift stores, antique malls, used media shops are full of them. New Blu-rays under $10 are abundant on Amazon and at Barnes & Noble.

DVDs are fine! While lower quality than Blu-ray, DVDs can still look great and cost next to nothing. A lot of TV was only released on DVD. It’s a great place to start a collection for very little money.

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Advantages of Streaming

Streaming can be good value if you use it. At about $20 a month, watching 20 movies costs $1 each. Only watch two, and they cost you $10 each.

Convenience counts. Streaming makes it easy to try something new without buying it first. Some shows never get a physical release, and some discs are hard to find or expensive. Hunting for used movies is fun, but sometimes you just want to watch a show without fuss.

It doesn’t take up space. A physical collection needs shelf space and a player. Streaming requires none.

Advantages of Physical Media

Your collection stays on your shelf. Streaming libraries change as licenses expire and companies shuffle their catalogs. Movies and TV shoes are pulled from services monthly. A subscription doesn’t guarantee that your favorites will stay available. A disc gives you a copy you can keep, lend, or sell.

Picture and sound can be better. Both streaming and discs use compressed video, but Blu-rays can offer higher video bitrates and lossless audio. A good release can preserve more detail in dark scenes and fast motion.

Extras give you more. Many disc editions include commentary tracks, documentaries, and deleted scenes that aren’t available with the streaming version.

You Might Have to Compromise

You don’t have to cancel everything to spend less.

Keep fewer subscriptions and rotate. Subscribe for the show you want, finish it, then cancel before the next renewal. Move to another service when something else catches your interest. At roughly $20 a month, using four services for three months each, one at a time, costs about $240 a year. Keeping all four year-round costs about $960.

Buy your favorites. Use streaming for discovery and exclusives. Put some of the money you save toward movies and shows you’ll watch again and again.

Consider digital purchases when discs aren’t an option. Sometimes shows were never released on Blu-ray or they are rare and expensive. Buying a favorite digitally can let you keep watching without an ongoing subscription, although access can still be taken away in the future. CheapCharts can alert you when titles on your wish list go on sale. I’ve picked up whole TV series for less than one month of Netflix.

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Cheap Blu-rays Won’t Last Forever

Streaming goes up every year and used discs are about as cheap as they will ever be. Collections are getting donated, estates are getting cleared, and stores are dumping stock. But disc sales are shrinking. The Digital Entertainment Group reports Americans spent about $870 million² buying DVDs, Blu-rays, and 4K discs in 2025, down from about $6.1 billion³ in 2015. That’s a drop of about 86%.

Cheap discs aren’t getting restocked. Media companies are merging and consolidating around streaming. We’ve seen where this goes. Used vinyl was a dollar in the 2000s. Now it’s a pricy enthusiast format. Blu-ray is on the same path. Now is the time to buy Blu-ray.

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Old tech lasts, and new tech should too. A Blu-ray you buy today will still play in ten years. A subscription lasts until the show gets pulled or you stop paying the bill.

Start with one subscription you barely watch. Put that month’s payment toward a few used discs. Then see which purchase you’re happier with.