I've seen a number of people suggest that delivery services will replace physical media, and there are certainly a number of different avenues in development or even in place already to allow it to work. I still like having an actual disc on the shelf that I can enjoy as long as I have a working player to put it in. Call me old-fashioned... And so long as the format war either has a clear victor early (which seems almost impossible at this point) or combo players arrive quickly, I think that physical media (including good ol' DVD) will be with us for a long time to come.

If we were witnessing an HD format launch that wasn't hobbled by iffy first-gen hardware (lacking support for some of the format's notable features), an output format that isn't finalized yet (HDMI), paranoid copy protection, and a format war, then I think the traditional delivery method of "buy it and put it on your shelf" media would have a good shot at remaining king for many years to come. Even in that utopian scenario, delivery services would be positioned to continue to grow and evolve, but I don't know that they'd be able to achieve dominance in the short term. With the messy format double-launch we've ended up with, the opportunity exists for delivery services to capitalize on the confusion.