To me at least streaming video on netflix looks significantly better than a DVD (oppo bdp-95 vs netflix on apple tv/oppo). When I noticed Netflix offered most movies and tv shows at the 1080p quality, I donated all of my DVDs to the local library. Even though the 1080p streaming video from Netflix looks better than a DVD, it is heavily compressed and it's not the same as a blu-ray (audio and video). Now with 4k content coming soon, I really don't want a pile of blu-rays that I might occasionally watch for a second time once streaming 4k video looks better than blu-ray. I might purchase one or two movies a year now, but the value is no longer there.
I see the same with CDs, once i'm able to download or stream true 16/44.1 content reliably, then the value of CDs will no longer be there. For music, it might actually require HiRez files to be available before I mostly stop buying CDs. I'm sure I will still buy CDs occasionally from local artists or one-offs that weren't released digitally. With that in mind the cd-player isn't going anywhere.
Books are even in the same boat. As an engineer, all of my geek books are now digital and the only way I will accept a printed geek book if it was cheap or free. Most of the books in my field are $100-150 with a horrible index, and you end up putting stickies on the key pages. A PDF/ePub format is easily searchable and much more useful format for geek books. I still want the Fiction/Non-Fiction books printed on real paper. I've tried to read a few free classics on a tablet and it's just not the same.
I also think you can lump in desktops and laptops as dying breeds. Over the last winter break several of my family members noted they hardly ever use their computers since they have smartphones and tablets. I myself haven't used my desktop computer at home in years and did give away a nicely equipped mac pro. With screen mirroring that both smartphones and tablets now offer, I see us just using that in the future. I would expect Apple's next monitor to have airplay built into it or at least the next apple tv would connect to it. A few big businesses realize consumers are more likely to spend their hard earned money to rent cheap content than to buy it costing it 3-4x more (in some cases 20x more). You can lump in free adware content as cheap content too. At the end of the day, how many folks really want to store disc and books and give up precious floor real estate? I'm really surprised blu-rays have lasted as long as they did especialy when the prices jumped from $20 to $30 after hd dvd died off.
Jim
