So how come you can't (legally) watch Blue-Rays using a Linux computer, or when viewing it on an ancient CRT using an HDMI-to-analog converter?

A lot of effort has gone into making physical media work only with pre-approved devices.

And driving the price up for the consumer for the anti-consumer tech licencing fees.

A lot of effort has been wasted, thanks to MakeMKV+libredrive making ripping easy.

It fails on all of them if it's not available to purchase, and none of them are of relevance if I want it right now vs having to wait 1-7 days to get hold of that physical copy and there's an easier alternative where I can have it right now.

The elder might remember a time where you could drive to a place and rent physical copies of a movie.

But of course, these places dried out a long time ago.

In NZ we have aliceinvideoland.co.nz which overnights you x DVDs. They have a pretty extensive library and a lot of lesser known and local content.

I used them for a few years, they are great and I'm happy to see they're still around.

They still exist and now are free.

They’re called “public libraries”.

Physical media has arbitrary device limitations.

and arent' there retro-active device blocklists on bluray? I seem to recall sth of the sort. Sure, they can be circumvented, but then why bother buying in the first place if you're gonna be the bad guy anyhow?

Yes and yes. I got mildly upset when I learned this, because it is oddly surprising amount of work to get it to work ( and some models do better than others, apparently ).

On the other hand, dvd is dirt cheap now and you get a very respectable collection that is not reliant on the internet.